BEA Attendance Low in Los Angeles

by Aída Bardales -- Críticas, 6/15/2008 9:00:00 AM

This year’s location for BookExpo America (BEA), which took place in Los Angeles from May 29 to June 1, resulted in poor attendance and overall low energy. Total registration was 28, 494, down from over 36,000 registrants in 2007.

At the Spanish-language pavilion, 12 book and audio book publishers were present. The Spain collective hosted 47 publishers, while the Mexican collective had 21 and the Argentinean collective only one.

Though overall foot traffic seemed less invigorating than last year, staff at the Santillana and Urano booths, for example, experienced high librarian traffic, mostly on Friday. Unlike last year, when most Spanish-language publishers complained of the Spanish pavilion’s location, participants were very pleased with the site this time around.

The International Latino Book Awards were held on Thursday, May 29. This year’s winners included Rhonda Byrne’s El secreto (The Secret; Atria Books), which has topped Criticas’s best sellers lists since its publication. Other award winners included other popular and best-selling books, as well as lesser-known titles.

On May 30, the Audio Publishers Association (APA) held their annual Audies Awards. The APA included Spanish-language books as a special category in 2006 and decided to permanently add the category last year.

This year’s Spanish-language Audio Award winner was Laura Esquivel’s Malinche, published by FonoLibro and narrated by Mexican actress Lucía Méndez. The nominees included Jules Verne’s 20 mil leguas de viaje submarino, Paulo Coelho’s El Zahir, Isabel Allende’s Inés del alma mía, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s La isla del tesoro. All titles were published by FonoLibro.

Also on Friday were the show’s Latino books panels. The most attended panel of the afternoon was “Children’s Books for Latinos,” which included Pulitzer prize-winning author Oscar Hijuelos, author of Dark Dude (S&S); Latino Book Awards winner Monica Brown, author of Pelé, King of Soccer (Rayo); and actor and author Cheech Marin (Cheech y su autobús escolar; HarperCollins). Industry veteran Ernesto Martinez moderated the panel. Martinez praised the authors’ dedication to books, specifically children’s books, while emphasizing the Latino community’s obligation and commitment to promoting books and reading among children.

BookExpo America will once again take place in New York’s Jacob Javitz Center from May 28-31, 2009.