Back from BEA

and boy am I EXHAUSTED!!!
Sound familiar? I seem to always expend too much energy at these conferences, but it's so much fun!
Let's see if I can remember everything that happened.
On Thursday morning I schelped to the train station with my luggage and climbed abord Metro North New York bound. It was a beautiful ride! I read a book, listened to my CD, and no one talked to me for almost two hours. Ah, bliss!

I grabbed a cab and headed to the Hotel Penn. to check in. By the time I dropped my luggage off, I had to practically run to the convention center to meet the folks from EC at noon to get my badge.
I arrived at the ENORMOUS Javits Convention Center, but there's no one there to meet me. Panic ensues. Luckily, the very nice lady at the counter had my name and printed up a new badge for me. Meanwhile, I've called the EC offices and left a slightly panicked message there and tried to call the only other cell phone number I have for EC management. No answer there.
Anyway, I wander around the convention center trying to find the other EC folks, looking lost and not a little confused. Eventually, after many stops to ask directions, I managed to find them! Hooray!!

Things only got busier after that! The next three days were a whirlwind of activity. We had to set up the booth (which kicked butt! see pictures soon) organize a million books, figure out who had what where, and get all the nifty keen promo items ready.

I got to meet hundreds of people in the industry from libraians and book sellers, to authors and book buyers. Every faction of the literary world was represented. In a rather odd twist of irony, Ellora's Cave's booth was near both the inspirational and children's books section on our floor. It certainly made for some raised eyebrows! I talked to people who loved our books and to people who thought we wrote books about India. (The Ellora's Caves are in India) I explained over and over again that we wrote ROMANTIC erotica, that there had to be a happy ending and a love relationship and that we didn't write "filth". I felt like the official Romantica cheerleader!

Was it worth it?
You betcha! I have no idea if any of the people I spoke to will even remember my name by the end of the week, but at least I was out there discussing something that was near and dear to my heart. I got to sign copies of my books and tell people about them and hopefully my enthusiasm for my publisher and my books caught on. If nothing else, I got to get out of my house and talk about books for a weekend, and that made even getting stuck on the train on the way home worthwhile. (We were stuck with no power for three hours! It was hot as HELL!)

Now I need to gear up for RWA Nationals, and that's starting to feel like arming myself for battle more than preparing for an industry conference. . .