Get BEA Out of New York!

Publishers Weekly has gone poll-crazy in the last few weeks. First, they asked: “April is National Poetry Month. When was the last time you bought a book of poems?” Judging by the results, most of us haven’t purchased any verse since high school. Not so shocking, right? Well, check out their latest survey – an industry poll asking where publishers, writers, editors and whoever else might actually enjoy the trade show experience prefers to attend that annual nerd-centric bacchanal, Book Expo.

As of this afternoon, New York is in the lead. Clearly, those mid-western bookstore owners are voting in droves, because no one in New York – the center of book publishing and book-related media – likes to have Book Expo here. The Javits Center? Ew. Plus, when you live in New York, you can’t get your employer to put you up in a hotel. Similarly, you can’t as easily invite that nubile young assistant publicist home with you, when home is a dumpy room in a nasty Bushwick railroad instead of a King suite at the Loews.

Consider this a rallying call: New York publishing folk, don’t let BEA take up here permanently. Go vote for Los Angeles, or Chicago. Even DC is better than here! Anything so we can go back to ordering room service and taking cabs on someone else’s dime. Our apartment doesn’t even have the contents of a mini-bar.