Yes and no. On one hand, it was a delight to meet up with various litbloggers, editors, publishing heads and writers. (I even got a chance to talk with Paul Slovak.) But as Miss Snark put it before all the craziness, “BEA will break your heart.”

If you have every desire to see so many fantastic books drowned out by boisterous arrays of people standing in line for the likes of Robert Duvall and if you soak up marketing terminology the way that a vacationer throws a damp cloth on his head on a summer day, then BEA is most certainly your thing. If you absolutely must have that galley of Lay of the Land a few weeks before everyone else, then by all means hie away. But for any self-respecting literary journalist, these are easily obtained through the mail. When I observed people standing by the Night Shade booth and made a few passionate endorsements of M. John Harrison to people wandering the floor, I found that very few people actually cared about the quality of the books proffered. They were more interested in scoring free books or meaningless autographs with celebrities. When D’Ambrosio and Link offered thoughtful comments about the current state of the short story, an inevitable “What are the bennies?” question was asked.

Granted, it is vital for everyone to understand that publishing is a business. But it is certainly not just about money. At least not for those who still care about books or for those who realize that publishing is second only to Hollywood in its utterly unsound business model, where lavish advances are thrown into the ether and books are dumped into the market often without a concentrated or targeted plan.

It takes a certain type of person to come to terms with that reality. And I would argue that for literary enthusiasts and champions, wearing multiple hats like this isn’t an easy thing. (It certainly wasn’t easy for me.)

So was it worth it? Well, it was worth every penny to learn that this man has almost no sense of humor whatsoever:

Even on scant sleep, I still had considerably more stamina on Friday than I did on Sunday. I designated Friday as the last day I would be attending panels.

The first of two Friday panels I attended was the unfortunately named Syndicating Litblog Book Reviews panel, which featured Sarah Weinman and served as a congregation point for the many litbloggers running around the floor.

Sarah offered a brief background on how she got involved in the litblogging scene, noting that it grew out of her procrastinating on her master’s thesis. She then expatiated on what blogs offer that print media does not: freedom, space and voice. Litblogs have managed to take advantage of the shrinking review space in newspapers, albeit not at the expense of courting controversy (e.g., L’Affair Bob Hoover). Apparently, the notorious and silly Bob Hoover (see May 21, 2006 entry; permalink unavailable) may have been in attendance. (And had I known Hoover was going to be there, I would have educated the man myself and strongly urged him to loosen his tie.)

Sarah then went into the question of how publicists could reach litbloggers, a subject that was taken up with considerable amusement later (of which more anon) and singled Freakanomics as a book outside of her interest that she had read and lauded. She suggested that publishers could do things for blogs that they blogs did for publishers. Bud Parr’s Metaxucafe was cited as an example.

But the subject soon steered well off the path of syndication. At this point, it soon became hilariously apparent that, with a few exceptions, the only people attending the panel were litbloggers and publicists. And there then came a conversational free-for-all from the floor in which business cards were exchanged and concepts were elucidated by both parties.

One of the very helpful ideas that came up was for a master list of addresses for the publicists, perhaps with detailed interests that spell out what any given litblogger might be interested in. After all, even when the publicist carefully targets a litblogger’s email, there is often no response from the litblogger’s end. I found myself walking away from the panel with some sympathy for the publicists. After all, who has the time to wade through all of the many litblogs but the intensely febrile? I missed Kevin Smokler’s RSS feed panel (and would have attended, had I known Smokler was going to be there) and have only an inkling of what transpired, but educating the publishing industry about the technology behind how we operate is certainly a start.

One of the ideas tossed around at BEA in various conversations (which originated from Carolyn Kellogg) was a litblogger’s conference, a concept that, coincidentally enough, was also recently taken up by Erin. In one of his BEA wrap-ups, C. Max Magee has suggested that “the relationship between litbloggers and the publishing industry is ill-defined.” And I happen to agree with him. Since litbloggers often operate, for the most part, off the corporate grid and are not necessarily driven by profit, perhaps a litblog conference, ideally something that prioritizes people above marketing terms, might be a conduit to aid publishers, litbloggers, publicists, advertisers and any interested parties in figuring out just what we’re all doing here.

One major difference I observed in this year’s BEA (compared to last year) is that litblogs are no longer a mystery to publishers. They know who we are. They know that we are making some dent in awareness of books and, perhaps inadvertently, sales. And in Coffee House’s case, they’re using the LBC win to profile their books on the floor. But we are operating very much outside the publishing industry and are decidedly more people-centric than dinero-centric. I’m not entirely certain that a BEA panel will help to smooth over the divide — in large part because questions concerning the inevitable monetization of litblogs (for those willing) remain largely unanswered and unstandardized, with varying degrees of acceptance and dissension.

Should the BEA decide to have another litblogging panel, I think a helpful one would involve “The Future of Litblogging: Business Models vs. Passion,” getting two litbloggers who would never provide advertising with two litbloggers who have no problem featuring banners and the like on their site. (And I’d be happy to moderate.) Perhaps lively and respectful disagreement would allow the publishing industry to understand our motivations, comprehend that there are differing approaches to litblogs, and parse some of the underlying complexities. One thing’s for sure: as a medium, the litblog isn’t going away anytime soon.

…here’s why.

On Thursday, just before the infamous Tanenhaus panel, I attended the Chris Anderson talk on “The Long Tail,” which isn’t just an article anymore, but a full-fledged book coming out in July. Anderson was introduced by Will Schwalbe, the editor-in-chief at Hyperion. Schwalbe noted that Anderson has adopted an interesting speaking practice. He will speak to crowds for free, but he will only speak to those he can learn from. I suppose this means that remedial English classes might be out of luck for an Anderson lecture in the immediate future.

In any event, Anderson began his presentation by noting that March 21, 2000 was a very special day. It was special not because this was the first day of spring and certainly not because this was five days before the NASDAQ plummeted. Rather, Anderson insisted it was special because of *N Synch’s No Strings Attached sold somewhere in the area of one million copies that day. The album would later go on to sell 2.41 million copies. But Andreson was convinced that the *N Synch album was the peak of the blockbuster album. Anderson insisted that the considerable dip in albums since this treacly boy band arose from a cataclysmic shift in the music industry from an album world to a singles world. This was a case of the music industry losing leverage. And I’m sure you smart readers can see this coming, but this was a key indication of what Anderson has identified as “the long tail.”

The long tail, not to be confused with a particular anatomical tuft on a rabbit, is, of course, Anderson’s very Gladwell-like theory which factors in the culture of specialization, economic theory, power law and a little bit of that ol’ pop culture just to seal the deal. The room, of course, was mobbed by interested parties, hoping to apply some of Anderson’s rules to the publishing industry.

While Anderson, equipped with a Powerpoint presentation and a slight grimace, seemed to be addressing his speech to a general crowd. (Generalized speeches about generalized arguments often will do that.) For anyone familiar with Anderson’s work or his findings, it won’t come as much of a surprise that an average of 25% of products live off the grid, as it were, representing that untallied array that still beckons with economic life (say, that record which your typical music clerk geek is hustling onto friends and family or that seemingly obscure book that has a small following). Where the 20th century was dominated by the bell curve, Anderson believes the 21st century will be governed by the long tail.

He offered five long tail lessons for the audience: (1) limited distribution with shared taste, (2) everyone deviates from the mainstream somewhere, (3) one size no longer fits all, (4) the best stuff isn’t necessarily at the top (see, e.g., Sturgeon’s law), and (5) the mass market is becoming a mass of niches.

Again, I was troubled that Anderson didn’t have a way of tying his interesting points in to the publishing industry. One can speculate and display Powerpoint slides until the cows come home, but, in the end, everyone needs a steak to throw onto the barbeque.