Gathering Info at BEA Expo

by Heather Moore

Lu Ann Staheli and I attended the BEA Book Expo in Los Angeles last week. It was an amazing experience. Overwhelming. Exhausting. Fun.

I think I came away wondering how on earth some of us get published, and how much it really takes to become a best-selling author. I chatted with a representative from Penguin/Putnam about the difficulties of a new writer making a big splash in the national market. She said, "It's possible." Then she went on to tell me that new authors need a strong internet presence--website, blog, capturing emails from readers, platforms . . . all things that we've discussed on this blog.

I also ran into two agents I knew, Jamie Weiss Chilton of Andrea Brown Literary (who came to our Storymaker Conference in March), and Kate Schafer (who came to our Eden Writer's Conference last fall).

Lu Ann and I also spoke with several authors about doing interviews for this blog and learning about their journey to publishing. Authors we hope to interview are:

Peter Walsh (Clean Sweep guy on Oprah)
James Dashner (author of The 13th Reality--fantasy for young readers)
Brandon Mull (NY Times Bestselling author, Fablehaven series)
Jason Wright (NY Times Bestselling author, The Wednesday Letters, etc)
Diana Spechler (first time author of Who by Fire, published by Harper Perennial)