Morning Meanderings…. BEA – You can participate from home!!!

Good morning!  It’s really really early by the time you are reading this I should be flying to New York, my flight left Minneapolis at 5:45 am.  Book Expo Of America… here I come!

Today I wanted to share with you something a little different than I normally do in the mornings.  While many book bloggers are currently flying from all over the world to New York…. many of you are still at home keeping the blogs fires lit.  What I want to share with you this morning, or I guess really, what I have asked Danielle from There’s A Book, to do this morning is share with you a very fun event called Armchair BEA.

Take it away Danielle!

Hi Sheila and Book Journey Readers!

What an exciting week and month in the book blogging community! Book Expo America, Armchair BEA and Audiobook Month all packed in together making more than enough bookish goodness to go around.

I’ve long been a fan of Sheila’s site and especially her enthusiasm for all she’s involved with. So, when she asked if I’d be interested in guest posting on her site about one of the biggest events happening in the book industry, Armchair BEA, I was so excited.

For those of you who might not be familiar with Armchair BEA first off let me say you absolutely should check it out! In a nutshell here are the basics of what makes up this great event:

If you’re a book blogger who can’t attend Book Expo America and the Book Blogger Convention in New York this June (June 4 – 8, 2012), you don’t have to miss all the fun – this virtual convention is the place to be! The Armchair BEA site includes news about daily blogging themes, discussions, giveaways and more!

This is the third year for Armchair BEA and it’s more exciting than ever. Armchair BEA began as six book bloggers (Tif from Tif Talks Books, Florinda

Armchair BEA won this award in 2011

from The 3 R’s Blog, Pam from Bookalicious.org, Chris from Chrisbookarama, Michelle from That’s What She Read, Emily from Emily’s Reading Room and myself) looking for a way to enjoy the week without feeling too bad that we couldn’t actually attend the event in person. To be honest, we all originally thought of calling it the “BEA Pity Party,” but decided it would be so much more fun to make it a fun event centered around the books, authors, publishers and bloggers we love. What we didn’t anticipate was the overwhelming response from the book community. With only two weeks of planning before BEA and Armchair BEA started that first year we had over one hundred participants, close to a dozen sponsors, an agenda filled with activities and even one Twitter party.

Since that first year we’ve added more organizers (Amy from My Friend Amy and Julie from My 5 Monkeys), increased the number of participants from one hundred to over five hundred the second year, added partners (Edelweiss and Book Expo Authors Studio Podcast) and included nearly ev

ery major publisher in our Sponsors listing. Last year was a whirlwind packed with behind the scenes exclusives and an additional Twitter party.

During our third year we’ve grown to include more than any of the original founders would have ever predicted. What began as a way to escape the feelings of missing everything going on in New York has become the event to participate in. This year, in one of the biggest surprises thus far, we’ve now partnered with Book Expo America. The partnership is one of the biggest steps toward bringing everyone involved with Armchair BEA closer to the event happening in New York and we couldn’t be more excited.

No doubt Armchair BEA has become something each of us organizers looks forward to ea

ch and every year. I hope if you haven’t already decided to join in that you’ll consider it, even if you happen to be attending BEA! Armchair BEA is definitely the event of the year and we’d love to have everyone from the book blogging community participate!

 

 

 

 

So there you have it… it looks (and sounds so awesome) and I am hoping that many of you will pop over to the Armchair BEA site and applaud the hard working bloggers that are working behind the scenes, as well as a few like Danielle that are at BEA making connections to Armchair BEA. 

By 1:00 pm central time I will be popping through the New York airport trying to find luggage and a taxi to get in the vicinity of my hotel…. check in is not until 3 but I can drop my bags there and then I think I am connecting with Mari from Bookworm with a View and my roommate, Gail from Ticket To Anywhere.  Sunday 6 – 9 pm is the Simon and Schuster Open house.

I will continue to pop in as I can… I had big plans to have more posts ready before I left but my week got away from me and now I am hoping to get a few reviews up this week as well, but for sure you will hear about my day to day happenings at BEA!  😀