THE 2008 AFRICAN AMERICAN PAVILION AT BOOKEXPO AMERICA PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ARTICLE WRITTEN BY CALVIN REID, SENIOR EDITOR AT PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. LOTS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN EVENTS AT BEA, THOUGH ATTENDANCE MIGHT SLIP. BY CALVIN REID - Publishers Weekly, 5/9/2008 10:11:00 AM Although holding this year’s BookExpo in Los Angeles is having a negative impact on attendance at both the African American Book Industry Professionals conference and the African American Pavillion held each year at BEA, the two separately organized events nevertheless boast a slate of high profile authors and events. Originally launched 11 years ago by former bookseller Clara Villarosa as the African American Booksellers Conference, the event is now called African American Book Industry Professionals Conference. It will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center May 29 and caters to the interests of a wide variety of black book professionals from booksellers and authors to editors and publishing executives. While the event usually draws several hundred people, Villarosa acknowledged that the expense of traveling to L.A. for East Coast publishing professionals was holding down attendance. But she has nevertheless put together a conference that features a keynote by bestselling novelist Terry McMillan (currently working on a new novel) and will also highlight the launch of Nikki Turner Presents, a new urban fiction imprint at Ballantine/One World that will be overseen by the bestselling street lit author Nikki Turner. The AABIP conference also features panels on turning African American books into TV and Film projects (featuring NPR film critic and new author Elvis Mitchell) and on the power of reading groups to energize black readers and sell books. “The conference is a place where black professionals can get together and network and find each other before BEA opens,” said Villarosa. “But people also want to learn something,” she said emphasizing the panel on reading groups in particular. Tony Rose, publisher of Amber Communications and cofounder and executive director of the fifth annual African American Pavilion at BEA, also acknowledged that registration for the pavilion, “is running a little slower because we’re in L.A.” But the pavilion has registered 60 publisher/exhibitors so far (last year’s pavilion had about 80 exhibitors). Rose said the pavilion will feature about 8 publishing startups this year and he expects more exhibitors to sign on by the time BEA opens. The pavilion has about 5,000 square feet of space and will have a larger stage for speakers this year. Speakers include actress/author Denise Nicholas and Cheryl Woodruff, president publisher of the newly relaunched SmileyBooks, a copublishing venture between broadcaster Tavis Smiley and Hay House. The pavilion will also hold seminars on Friday and Saturday including a Friday workshop on online book promotion by Troy Johnson, founder of AALBC, a Web site focused on African American books; and another Friday workshop by Marcella Smith, director of small press and vendor relations at Barnes & Noble, which will discuss trends in bookselling at B&N. “When we launched the pavilion in 2004, I wanted to attract new publishers and get them to understand the value of coming to the largest trade book show in North America,” Rose said. “We want our publishers to know that this is where the world comes; and they can do licensing deals, find agents and authors and do real business.”
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 21:37:40 +0000
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