Blogger Signings at BEA

Because of our interest in the professional reading community, we decided to try something new and fun this year at BEA.

We are going to holding "Blogger Signings" at our booth (#4077). "Blogger Signings" is a bit tongue-in-cheek, as it is meant as a parody to the many "Author Signings" that are hosted either by BEA directly, or by individual publishers in their booths each year.

People that review books and blog about them are enjoying a significantly growing voice in influencing book buyers. And those that blog about the industry in general are having a strong influence on the rate of change our industry is undergoing. Many book bloggers enjoy a very strong following for their work, while others are not as well known.

Our hope is that we will get most of the bloggers who were already planning on attending BEA to sign up and be at our booth for an appointed time during the show. We will publicize the schedule of all who do sign up via Twitter and Blog posts, so that their 'fans' can come and get their 'autograph'. We'll even have a decidedly low-tech easel up at the booth identifying the times when bloggers will be present.

For bloggers interested in participating, please email me at fran [at] firebrandtech [dot] com. I'll send you some information about what is next. Several have already expressed interest, and now we're making it formal.

We will be giving away two (2) Sony Readers at the show. Every blogger that comes to the booth (to sign autographs) is eligible for a chance to win one of them. Every person who comes to the booth to visit a blogger is eligible to take a chance to win the second one.

As added encouragement, our bloggers on the Follow the Reader blog, Kat Meyer (@katmeyer) and Charlotte Abbott (@charabbott) will be on hand. Kat and Charlotte will be interviewing bloggers during a few of the time slots, and those interviews will be posted on the Follow the Reader site, (like the post today with Colleen Lindsay, and the one the other day with Bethanne Patrick).

We're hoping that all publishers take note of this so that their publicity people can meet the people they work with virtually, in person.

We're looking forward to a great show. Between this, and the BEATweetup, the online community will certainly be getting together for some fun in person. Hope to see you all there.