Thursday, June 20, 2013

My trip to New York (BEA, Grumpy Cat, Spencer Hill and more)!

As many of you know I headed out to New York a few weeks ago for Book Expo America. I also stayed extra for other events and some quality time with friends and family. The city itself was amazing and while I have been there before, there is always so much more to see and my previous trips have almost always been 3-5 days. This time I got an entire 2 1/2 weeks and LOVED every minute of the experience.

Let us start with our cast of characters:
 
Keri

Sydnee

and of course
Me

 
We start out our adventure at Book Expo America
Let the fun and learning commence!
Here we are on the first day, you may notice a character not in the cast list. His name is Quillbert and he is the literary overlord of Quill Café which just happens to be Keri's blog.
 
At one point we were then mustached thanks to
 
and I got to have random people take pictures with my chest thanks to 3:59. Which at first was unnerving but then awesome. Gretchen McNeil is such a sweetheart and I have started the novel, it is amazing so far! I have a feeling it will be a 5/5 stars!
 
Thanks to a couple of mustache wielding steampunk faeries we headed over to the Spencer Hill Press booth and grabbed copies of Extracted!
I also ended up meeting my editors from Holiday Magic which was amazing. I ran into an abundance of other Spencer Hill Press authors I love including Dan who wrote Masters of the Veil and Kendra Saunders who is a fellow Holiday Magic author and happened to look amazing in her specially designed LBD. We ran into each other at the Spencer Hill Author Breakfast as well. Shout out to Trisha who happens to be one of the nicest people I met the entire trip - YOU ROCK!
 
As our adventure continued we made a friend in the Grumpy Cat line (https://twitter.com/jesseratops)
and thus a guide to posing with grumpy cat was born.
First off...
Practice your grumpy face. Some of us are better at it than others but the grumpier the better.
 
Now here is why:
 Here is what happens if you succeed in your grumpy face-ed-ness...
She looks RIGHT at the camera...
and may or may not have fallen asleep.

YEAYAH! A-Mah-Zing!
Now lets try this again smiling...
See that!
She bolted for it!
Alas... my smile hath scared off 'leh grumpeh cat'.

We happen to have a secret weapon while at BEA


BEA can be the most exhausting few days of your life if you let it. The trick to our high energy excursion? A nice easy going break partway through the day that includes food, a crazy sugar high from amazing cupcakes and a break for our feet.
It is only a few blocks away and features very affordable pricing. Plus, a nice cold milkshake on a hot day is a fun treat.

 We returned to Book Expo and continued our adventure. The panels I ended up deciding to go to were mainly geared toward the learning tracks. I learned a lot about new social media, search engine optimization, 'out-of-the box' forms of marketing and the overall industry and I plan to put that information to good use in the near future. It was amazing to learn from top notch professionals who work in the field and get to hear their personal thoughts and expectations for the future.
 
To anyone to goes to BEA or might in the future, I would highly suggest attending some of the learning tracks. The information they give you goes a long way. It was truly inspiring! 

After BEA I ended up going on an adventure to a friend's house and her roof had these amazing views.

Amazing right?
I was almost tempted to just lay out on the cement and write for a while but took these pictures as mementos instead. Plus... sun.... so much... sun.
 
Also headed to the Natural History Museum (life changing), Spencer Hill Press breakfast (during BEA), Max Brenner, The Strand, Forbidden Planet, Dave & Busters and more.
 
All time favorite New York restaurant from my stay:
The Headless Horseman
Which just happens to be on Irving street...
I fangirled... These pictures may not be the best but they give a general idea of the atmosphere.

 While there was more adventure and excitement this post is already nearly picture book length so I will go ahead and bring it to a close. However, feel free to ask anything you would like and more photos are posted on my personal facebook!
It is likely I will end up adding them to my like-able page later on this week! <3
 
Thank you for reading and
happy adventures!
 

8 comments:

  1. Great shots! Looks like you enjoyed it. I particularly like that Headless Horseman restaurants.

    Half the world is in love with Grumpy Cat. She's such a cutie!

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    1. Thank you William! The restaurant was amazing. The Headless Horseman by Washington Irving has always been a favorite of mine. The restaurant just next to it on Irving place/street is called Ichabods!

      Yes, I admit, I am a bit crazy over grumpy cat too now that I got to see how adorable she is in person!

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  2. Looks like you had an amazing time.. To bad I didn`t see you there..
    I was there for my first time. But maybe I will say hi, If I get to go another time :)

    I will non at least note time some of the places you mention.. Maybe I can check them out if I get to go another year :P

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    1. First year! I remember my first year, everything seemed to overwhelming! It was crazy how fast paced everything was and that I had spent so long scrambling to get books and all of a sudden people are literally shoving them at you! I hope you had an amazing time! We can always meet up if we both go next year! <3 I would definitely say take a note of Burgers & Cupcakes. The sugar rush is what gets me through it every year! <3

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    2. I will definitly note down that place :)
      Don`t think I will be able to come next year, since I am quitting my job and starting studying instead.. But I will wish for a miracle.. Otherwise, maybe in 2 years :P
      Pretty expencive travelling all the way from Norway..

      But yeah It was overwhelming.. And I felt a bit outside, coz I didn`t know publishers, bloggers etc.. and everything was new.. But next time I will be more prepared :D

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    3. Wow, Norway, that is a long way to go!!! Hopefully you can go again at some point but congrats on the studying! :D Yeah, I hardly knew anyone my first year other than two friends and none of us knew anyone outside of our little circle. This year was only my second year though and this time I did much better. I had everything pre-planned, met tons of people through the GoodReads group, etc. Plus went to the blogger events and met people my first time who I had kept in touch with which helped a lot. I am sure next time will go smoother and if you ever need info on the groups around the web to meet BEA goers before BEA just let me know! :)
      <3

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  3. Tardar Sauce isn't asleep in my photo. Her eyes are open and she's glaring at something off to the right of the camera. Probably the huge-ass line of people waiting to annoy her.

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    1. Lol. :p I still can't believe how long that line was and that so many people STILL didn't get to see her. O.O

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