"We had several other celebrity-type spottings... Henry Rollins walked by the booth numerous times, Ken Jennings from Jeopardy... Jack Canfield was disappointingly rude, John Kremer was a delight, and I missed the times when Dr. Ruth and Henry Winkler walked by, apparently."
John's Comments: Gosh, now I'm a celebrity. Finally. And a delight, too. The sad thing is that I don't remember the encounter (unless it was a nice talk I had at one booth). I saw so many people during the three days of BEA. I had a list of 450 booths I wanted to visit. I didn't make it to all of them. Somehow, I missed some that I really wanted to see.
I did get my regular hug from Dr. Ruth. She was at the booth of a friend of mine, Steve Mettee, publisher at Quill Driver Books. I'd introduced him to Dr. Ruth about four years ago at a Playboy party in Chicago. It was that introduction that finally led to Dr. Ruth doing a book for him -- with a lot of hard work and persistence in between by Steve. I love Dr. Ruth. She is such a wonderful person and an incredible promoter. I've seen her pull people into a booth she was working so she could talk to them. I try to get a hug from her every year.
Right across the aisle from her was Jack Klugman, another wonderful person and one of my favorite comedic actors. I loved his Odd Couple persona.
There are so many good people in publishing that I don't always get to see everyone I'd like to see. Some are busy with someone else when I walk by. Some are out walking the show, some have taken off already, etc. But whenever I can, I try to see all the wonderful friends and peers who make this business interesting.
The PMA University was crowded with at least 100 of my friends, along with 500 soon to be friends, if I have my way. Jan Nathan and her son Terry Nathan are great leaders for PMA. They are good people to the core.
On Thursday I spoke at Fred Gleeck and Rick Frishman's seminar. Now there are two more really great and generous people. Later during BEA I saw Fred again and I told him that I wish I could spend just one day in his mind, to pick it clean. He said that would be okay, but only if he could spend one day in mine as well. Now we just have to figure how to do it. During my talk at the seminar, people actually did an ovation in the middle, not something I usually get. But, I guess now that I'm a celebrity, I'll have to get used to it.
My friend Brett Waldman of Tristan Publishing treated me to two orange mango smoothies -- very tasty. Plus a cuddly teddy bear that I now have sitting on my desk. Plus a second cuddly teddy bear that I had to give away (I did -- to the niece of a good friend, for her birthday). Brett publishes some wonderful books.
I also stopped by the Dianetics booth to celebrate their 55th anniversary and 55th foreign translation. At least I think that was the celebration. I came for the cake. But I also had some informative talks there, especially with Ray Carroll of Levy Home Entertainment.
I also had wonderful talks with Ray Bard of Bard Press, Gibbs Smith of Gibbs Smith, Ian Shapolsky of SPI Books, Mark Victor Hanson and Jack Canfield at the celebration of their 110th book in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Marc Allen of New World Library, Steven Piersanti of Berrett-Kohler, Richard Cohn and Cynthia Black of Beyond Words, Janet Mills of Amber Allen, Jed Lyons of NBN, Brook Noel of Champion Press, Ron Fry of Career Press, Ted Parkhurst of August House, Vicki Lansky of Bookpeddlers, Paul Coates of Black Classics Press, Greg Godek of Bestseller Management, Clint Greenleaf of the Greenleaf Book Group, Wade and Cheryl Hudson of Just Us Books, Judy Galbraith of Free Spirit Publishing, Michael Brien of Brien Books, Brent Farmer at Charlesbridge Publishing, Stuart Matlins of Jewish Lights Publishing, Jeffrey Goldman of Santa Monica Press, Joseph Billingsley at Pelican Publishing, Dominic Raccah of Sourcebooks, Rudy Shur of Square One Books, Peter Goodman of Stone Bridge Press, Tom Lebovsky of Voyageur Press, Lawrence Stone of Rutledge Hill Press, Mike Farr of JIST Publishing, Avery Cardoza of Cardoza Publishing, Eric Kampman at Midpoint Trade, Charlie Winton at Avalon Publishing, Debra Wasserman at Vegetarian Resource Group, Buddy Bess at Bess Press, Lisa Grant of the Writer's Collective, Brian Hades of Tesseract Books and Edge Science Fiction, Charles Leocha of World Leisure, Mark Anthony of Q-Boro Books, Chef Harry Schwartz at Bonus Books, Ed Avis of Marion Street Press (and Independent Bookstore newsletter), Cynthia Kurtz and Chris Wyble of Ronnie Sellers Productions, Paul Mikos and others at Broadman Holman, Richard Brown of Mystic Ridge Books, Adam Klugman of Good Hill Press, Laura Keresty of Wilderness Press, Bob Speicher of Shine On! Publications, Mark Wesley of me+mi Publishing, George Gibson of Walker & Company, and so many other good friends. I also made many new friends I hope to meet again and again.
Some of the people I really missed, who don't usually come now, are Carl Weschcke of Llewellyn and Joe Bannon of Sports Publishing. And, of course, Tom and Bobbi Drewes who haven't come in so many years, but who were so important to independent publishers as founders of Quality Books. I did meet the new president of Quality Books as well as the new publisher contact. So many good, good people.
That's what publishing is all about. Good people who love good books.
All the publishing gurus and publicists were there as well: Dan Poynter, Shel Horowitz, Marilyn McGuire, Brian Jud, Eugene Schwartz, Paul Krupin, David Cole, Marion Gropen, Sharon Castlen, Jerry Jenkins, Bobbye Middendorf, Steve O'Keefe (who loves to escalate and de-escalate with me), Michael Drew, Alice Acheson, Ellen Reid, Eric Gelb, Michael Cader, Jonathan Kirsch, Penny Sansevieri, Victoria Sutherland of Foreword magazine, Tonya Evans, Kim Dushinski, Celia Rocks (her booth was my home base), Robin Spizman, Kate Bandos, Peg Booth, Pam Lontos, Fern Reiss, Howard Fisher, Marisa D'Vari, Steve Harrison, Alex Carroll, as well as those already listed above. I pretty sure that they were all there. Every time I turned my head I saw another friend. I really see BEA as John Kremer's Fan Club, but, of course, I could well be deluded. But I enjoy it more viewing it that way.
I also visited with many suppliers to the industry, including George Foster of Foster Design, Barry Kerrigan of Desktop Miracle, Peri Poloni of Knockout Design, Shannon Bodie and Bob Swingle of Lightbourne, Mayapriya Long of Bookwrights, Leeza Hernandez-Stelzer of Conker Tree Design, Alan Canton of Adams-Blake and Jaya123 software, Andrea Howe of Blue Falcon Editing, Eric De Vos of City Diecutting, Wilford Downs Wrightson III of Packaging & Design, Shirley Kelly of Plus Media, as well as representatives of the following POD companies: Lulu.com, Infinity Publishing, AuthorHouse, BookSurge, BooksJustBooks, Lightning Source, Starnet Digital, and others. Plus representatives from the following printers: Joe Upton at Malloy Litho, Phil Knight of Color House Graphics, David Prentice of Delta Printing Solutions, Anup Uniyal of Thomson Press in India, Bang Printing, Banta, BookMasters, Central Plains, Phoenix Color, Rose Printing, Thomson-Shore, and many foreign printers.
On Sunday, I spoke for an hour at the booth of the Small Press Center. About 20 people listened to my golden words :)) and many gave me hugs at the end of the talk. It was a very good talk. I talk briefly with Karin Taylor, the director of the Center. Among other association leaders, I saw Pat Sabiston of the Publishers Association of the South, Scott Flora of SPAN, Joan Peterson of the Travel Publishers Association, Judith Briles from Colorado Independent Publishers Association, Irwin Zucker with Book Publicists of Southern California, Al Gallaso of North American Bookdealers Exchange, Nicolas Levesque of the Association for the Export of Canadian Books, The National Association of Independent Publishers Representatives, The Authors Guild, Women Writing the West, and the Association of Booksellers for Children.
The problem with these lists is that I know I'm missing many people I spoke with and, in some cases, had long conversations with.
Oh, and how could I forget this, I got a great hug and photo op with Miss USA 2004. That was sweet. You can see a previous photo op with her right below. I'm the sweet young man between Miss USA and a former Playmate, both of whom besides being beautiful are really smart and personable. I could easily fall in love with either one -- if I were not already married.
Which reminds me, one other thing I did during BEA was contact a number of children's book publishers and editors about publishing my wife's books. She's a great storyteller with some wonderful stories, including Little Fox and the Golden Hawk, Crazy Horse, and others. I was able to give about seven editors copies of the stories. Another 20, I got names for. If you are a children's book publisher and would be interested in publishing my wife's stories, please let me know. Email: JohnKremer@BookMarket.com. Thanks.
In the print Book Marketing Update newsletter, I'll be covering many of the new or clever book marketing ideas I ran across during the convention as well as some key contacts I uncovered. The print newsletter comes out twice a month and I write an Editor's Corner for it each issue. You don't want to miss these editor's corners. They are worth the price of each issue alone. But each issue also includes many tips, PR resources, and articles that are also incredibly valuable. For more details on the newsletter, go to http://www.freepublicity.com.
