Friday Article: Preparing For BookCon

Hi everyone,

So I’ve actually scheduled this post. At the exact time this is going up, I shall be on a flight to New York City to attend BookCon. I’m super grateful to my awesome university for funding this opportunity for me (and still rather in awe that this actually counts as a legitimate research trip in my field). Since it’ll be my first time attending BookCon and it’s going to be my first time in New York, I thought it would be good to make a big post about the whole thing, like all of my organisation and stuff.

In case you didn’t know, I am pretty big on organizing when it comes to conventions. My friends are Excel spreadsheet goddesses, and I would never claim to be that awesome at it, but I have my moments when I like to plan. It helps a lot with anxiety to know where I’m going to be and when, particularly if I’m pressured on time. And since BookCon has SO MANY THINGS going on at once, I figured being meticulous about planning alternative activities and things could only be beneficial.

Also, I have to give a huge thank you to the awesome people I’ve chatted to over on the official facebook page. People are so nice, especially if they know you’re attending on your own and want to make new bookish friends.

On to the actual planning then. So for me, I had to do a lot of uni admin stuff on top of the actual BookCon planning. This included getting ethics approval (since I will be interviewing some awesome authors for my research) and sorting out all my accommodation and flights and everything through them. I also had to go ahead and sort out interview questions, which I had no real clue about. It’s a bit weird shifting from a blog type informal interview like the kind I sometimes post on here, to academic interviews. A lot of the questions I have to ask authors are based on their authorial intentions and how their careers have gone and stuff. Which is weird, but I also imagine it will lead to some amazing insight which will help my thesis.

As for the actual BookCon planning, I’ve been trying to organize based on what I want most at any given time slot. Most of this is autographs– a lot of the authors who are appearing rarely or never do UK tours. I’m a bit gutted to be missing Leigh Bardugo and Marissa Meyer (unless a miracle happens and I somehow wrangle those tickets) but I will be in line to meet Susan Dennard, Renee Ahdieh, Sasha Alsberg and Jenny Han. After attending YALC for so many years, I find the whole ticketing system very strange, but I suppose it’s just something to get used to. I was hoping to meet Holly Black again, since I’d love to get my copies of the Curseworkers series signed, but she was one of the authors who sold out instantly, and she does come to the UK fairly frequently.

So official autographs and the PhD interviews are the most important things on my schedule. I’ve also got a list of in-booth signings I’d like to attend, and I have researched to see if you have to get tickets to those ahead of time (sometimes) and if you need to purchase something to get a wristband. A lot of them do free books for the first few people in line, so I’ve highlighted my favourite ones to run to before they start. I don’t honestly have much of an idea of how long lines and things will be, so I have tried to calm myself down by trying to manage my expectations.

This is also the case with ARC drops. There’s quite a few going on that I’d like to try and catch, but in reality, I know I will be super-lucky to get to most of them due to conflicts in schedules. There’s one I plan on trying to head to on the Saturday, which I know will be super popular, but that depends on the lines for the autograph tickets at 10am. Which I have heard will be crazy, especially since everyone needs to all be in one line no matter who they are queuing for. So, basically, everyone lining up for Leigh Bardugo, Rainbow Rowell,  Cassandra Clare and Tomi Adeyemi will all be in the same line. Yikes.

It helps with managing expectations that I only have carry on luggage with me. Ideally, I don’t want to have to go out and buy a suitcase while I’m there so I can add hold luggage on the return flights, so I’ll either be posting any additional books or trying to cram them into my backpack for on the way back. Which means I can only pick up a handful of new books. I mean, it isn’t ideal for me, but I think my bookshelves and my boyfriend will probably appreciate me having this limitation. Although, I doubt my shoulders will ever recover. I do have a pack of bookplates with me, just in case any authors are very kind or I bump into anyone whose books I don’t have with me, so hopefully I can get some additional signings in.

In terms of panels, I did initially have a lot of them down on my schedule as many of them sound amazing and probably very useful to my research. Unfortunately, they clash with almost everything, including interviews I have to do. There are a lot of the past panels up on YouTube though, so I’m hoping to catch most of them on there in retrospect. But I’ll go to what I can.

Other than that, the plan is just to have fun and meet up with some awesome bookish people while I’m there! So on that note, please let me know in the comment section below if you’re also going to be at BookCon this weekend, and one of the things you’re most looking forward to.

I’ll be doing a proper post about the whole event sometime next week (probably Friday, since it gives me time to recover!) so look out for it 😀