But as you see below, literacy wasn't a guarantee at every stall or table.
Harris arrived late and left early. He was signing a little sampler booklet from his autobiography. His short attention span had many on that line hissing and hissy-fitting, but that was the exception to an otherwise fairly benign event where authors stayed a reasonable amount of time till the carton or two of books disappeared.
The number of "freak show" moments has decreased over the years. Ripley's didn't stage a "Believe it Or Not" exhibit, and there weren't many full-size mascots or costumed "action figures" wandering around for a photo op. This was fine with most serious browsers and businessmen. Any sleepwalking and/or obese librarians (who sometimes were hard to navigate past) could only be shaken from their torpor by the sudden arrival of a celebrity at a booth...or better, the arrival of cookies or little cupcakes courtesy of a few cookbook authors.
This year Book Con (yes, the all too eager offspring of Comic Con) took place on Saturday. In the past, BEA simply took over three days, with Saturday a bit slow with a lot of people off to visit NYC and dealers packing up by noon or 2pm. But this year Book Con took action on Saturday, slicing itself about a fourth of the Javits Center for those book companies that wanted to appeal to the juvenile and "graphic novel" (ie, big fat comic book) crowd. Book Con, with somewhat low ticket prices, lured in thousands of civilians hoping to grab off review copies to sell on eBay and snag face time and autographs with their favorite scribble heroes. They had to be a bit disappointed. Not only weren't there many well known names on Saturday, but the few on hand were not signing. Comic book God Stan Lee was only on a panel, not ready or willing to sign anybody's Spiderman Underoos.
What will happen next year, nobody quite knows...but it does seem that Book Con wants to game-change the event at the Javits Center and turn BEA into a Comic Con with bindings. They'll be happy to charge a fortune so that comic book dealers and graphic novelists can grin and snarl at gawking geeks willing to pay insane amounts for "collectibles." After all, goggle-eyed Googlers who drool over men in tights, aren't buying eBook versions of this junk. They need the actual comic book to wrap in plastic and carefully place in a shelf in their shrine.
In a way it makes sense for Book Con (Comic Con with a more adult name) to try and horn in on BEA, where authors are hurting and so many view Kindle as a convenience to having actual heavy books taking up apartment space.
There's a definite line in the sand between the quiet librarians and book store owners and businessmen of BEA and the the noisy tattoo and Crayola-hair bunch who want to show up in costumes and aren't impressed with authors who sit, smile and sign BOOKS. Or as a few of them stuck behind security and unable to invade the main area of BEA cried, "Where do I get a poster signed of "Wimpy Kid???" Is it a surprise that Cynthia Weil, for example, autographed copies of her book on Friday, but at Comic Con on Saturday autographed posters instead?
As book fans keep saying, with the closure of bookstores, the dominance of Amazon, the piracy of eBooks, the lower advances to authors and the increasing interest in disposable blips on Kindle rather than treasured tomes on a shelf, there's a "sea change going on."
Those wondering if the ship is sinking were buoyed by some of what was going on at BEA. There were still plenty of indie publishers, plenty of optimistic authors signing their new books, and plenty of those "publish it yourself" folks assuring us that if traditional publishers are more interested in celebs including Martin Short or Lena Dunham (both at BEA this year), they'd be willing to publish an eBook (and/or print on demand) to make anyone a potential literary star.
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