#anyway whenever i have to write about the Current Trends or i have to dive into a wikipedia hole learning abt fuckinn the flas/h or whatevr

[actualbird]

it's funny that my job (advertising, heavy on pop culture) would be easier if i was the type of person to keep updated on Trends and What's Hot but. i am not that type of person. no hate to people who are, u guys rule and frankly your minds are amazing to me, how can you keep up?? new music album new movie new series new celeb happening new internat slang phrase new trending audio new new new. one of my favorite memes is still the goat who crave that mineral licking salt off the mountain from 2014 viral tumblr post, nobodys gonna GET that in this day and age, craving that mineral is USELESS

[purplesurveys]

706

What weird food combinations do you enjoy? I’m willing to experiment mayonnaise with most food. I also dip my fries in hot fudge sundae and because I’m Filipino I have to have my fried chicken paired with banana ketchup. Where do you get your news? Usually from the Twitter and Facebook handles of my go-to news outlets. My dad is also the only one who turns on the TV in the dining area so whenever he’s home and watches the evening news I get to hear the reports as well. What social stigma does society need to get over? HIV/AIDS, dating or marrying the same sex, tattoos... even breastfeeding is a fucking stigma lmao. So many people are babies. What is the best/worst prank that you've played on someone? I hate being the victim of pranks so I never pull them on anyone. What was the last photo you took? My dog jumping up to ask for food last night.

What makes you roll your eyes every time you hear it? Lately our president has been wanting to give nightly addresses on TV every midnight so when I hear another announcement from the government I just roll my eyes because I know it’s gonna be another hour-long speech that not only has absolutely zero substance to it, but made everyone unnecessarily stay up that late. What are you currently worried about? I’m worried about my remaining academic requirements. With the suspension of online classes and the lockdown being extended until April 30 (which is virtually the end of the semester), I have no idea what’s gonna become of our academic calendar and my grades – and the status of my graduation.

A notable school in the country already mass-promoted (read: passed) all their students and is planning to give tuition fee refunds since only two months of the sem were used. It’s honestly the most responsible thing to do for now and I hope all other universities follow suit.

Do you think aliens exist? I believe we aren’t the only ones alive out here but I also don’t think they look like the creatures books or movies have made them out to be. What mythical creature do you wish actually existed? Meh, was never a fan of anything mythical/mythological. What are you interested in that most people aren't? Pro wrestling. In my 15 years of being a fan I’ve only found literally a handful of people (at least who are also Filipino) who shared the same passion or amount of interest as I have. It’s just never been a popular topic or fanbase here so I never get to bring it up – and I’m afraid to bring it up because people seem to judge anyone still into wrestling these days. What's the most ridiculous thing you have bought? My most pointless purchase was a pink bar of soap with lettering that says “Gay Bar.” It’s a novelty item at best and I never needed to buy it, but I had money that day so I did and now it’s gathering dust in one of my drawers. What sounds hit you with major nostalgia every time you hear them? The PS1 start-up noise is a big candidate. If given the oppurtunity to open a museum, what kind would you create? They have museums about everything now, so I think it’d be a good idea to turn to my roots and make an ancestral house instead and have it in our home province. My family has a rich history and it’d be a waste if we allowed ourselves to forget. When was the last time you immediately regretted what you said? I think last night? We were having pork belly bought from outside for dinner and I was talking about how good it tasted and that it was the best thing I’ve had in a while. I forgot my dad has been cooking us a different meal every single day since the quarantine started and they all have tasted amazing as well. After I realized what I said I felt like shit and immediately downplayed the pork belly so that he didn’t feel left out. What's the silliest thing you've seen someone get upset about? My mom is a champion of this list lmao, there’s so much stupid shit she’s thrown a fit over. The most ridiculous one happened last year when my sister sprained her ankle and my mom would not help her walk around and even walked faster than the rest of us. It was like she was purposely leaving us behind, which confused and pissed me off. Anyway I was left assisting Nina as she hobbled on. Eventually I caught up to my mom and asked her to slow down and to be with us and to help my sister walk. Apparently it was enough to piss her off and the whole ride home she was yelling at me and legitimately sobbing about how humiliated she was when I called her out because she thinks people overheard and are judging her for it. I mean if you’re afraid of getting judged isn’t that proof you know you did something shitty?

The sermon also turned personal and she started screaming about how I was a horrible daughter and that I’ve never done anything right, and that I was a disappointment, and that I was straying further from God everyday and she could see the horns growing on my head. How’s that for abusive? What was the best thing that happened to you today? I finally finished the level I’ve been stuck on in Mario Kart 8 and now I’m officially done with the game. I’ve never finished any video game before so it feels pretty bitching!!!!!!!!! Do you consider yourself a good cook? I don’t even consider myself a cook. What's the dumbest thing someone has argued with you about? ^ The thing I just talked about, even though it wasn’t technically an argument because my mom didn’t let me talk throughout.

The next dumbest thing I could think of is probably when my grown-ass aunt fought me back when I was 13 on whether Beyoncé lip-syncs or not. It was a random family discussion and I was just talking about how much I like Beyoncé and she not only stole my thunder by picking a fight with me, but she also made me feel bad about something I loved lol. She was so insistent that she lip-syncs and was so hungry for an argument, I didn’t understand why?????? so I just dropped it and rolled my eyes at my dad. IT’S SO DUMB RIGHT What did you google last? Information I needed for an article I’m currently writing. What fashion trend makes you cringe or laugh everytime you see it? Skirts paired with either denim jeans or leggings, and short vests. All the Disney stars wore them and it was the epitome of fashion for us at the time aaaahhhhhhahahahahaha. What's your favorite holiday movie? LOVE ACTUALLY. For sure. I’d also say It’s A Wonderful Life but it has some very low points that ruins the Christmas-yness for me. How ambitious are you? I’m pretty ambitious and also a bit of a perfectionist, but I’m also aware of my limits and I don’t always jump onto tasks feeling confident. I know what I’m capable of so if I’m faced with something I know other people can be better at, I’ll consciously be less ambitious at it cos I usually let my insecurity get in the way. What was the biggest realization you have had about yourself? As someone who’s always thrived on being an introvert, the last few months and years have taught me that I CAN talk to people if I have to? And they’re not scary? I had little hope for myself prior to my internship - but it ended up being fun and I met a lot of awesome new people. I also never thought I’d get to write articles solely because I hate interviewing people - but my sources have all been nothing but nice to me. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’ve always doubted my ability to talk to people and dive in to unfamiliar scenarios, but when I do either it’s always turned out to be great experiences for me.

What topic could you spend forever talking about? If we’re going for what’s been the most recent hot topic, it would be the government’s incompetence in dealing with COVID-19 so far. Which way should toilet paper hang, over or under? Over. What word is a lot of fun to say? I dunno. I don’t think of words in terms of how fun they are to say. Maybe curse words? HAHAHA If you didn't have to sleep, what would you do with the extra time? Assuming the internet is nothing to worry about, I’d watch all the series I’ve long planned on watching but can’t because Netflix does a big pull on the entire household’s connection. Are you usually early or late? Early or on time. There is no ‘late’ for me. What do you wish you knew more about? The future. Not knowing the answers to it is so irritating/boring to me. What is the most annoying question you've been asked? Asking if I go to rallies/am an activist/am part of the NPA just because of the school I come from. None of those things are bad at all, but I’ve always been annoyed at the stereotyping. How different was your life 1 year ago? I wasn’t graduating yet then. And I was OUTSIDE MOST DAYS because there wasn’t any fucking virus. What movie title best describes your life? Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, except I literally have to be stuck at home. What was the last lie you told? Telling my groupmates I had some family stuff at home to fix before getting started on our group project, but really I had to take a bath first because I wanted to feel fresh while working. It’s a minor lie, but it still made me feel bad. What type of music do you listen to? It’s usually varied but my go-to genres are indie pop, electropop, alternative rock, punk rock, *some* indie, R&B, and pop.

Are you a good listener? Yeah, it’s why I prefer to be one than a talker. What is your favorite milkshake flavor? Cookies and cream or some peanut butter/chocolate concoction. Do you think you're brave? I can be. Just not about everything. What are you most grateful for in your life? The relatively comfortable life we live considering where we live. And that covers everything from the food we eat, the schools we’ve been sent to, where we get to travel (or the fact that we can travel at all), etc.

What was the worst phase in your life? My rebellious, no-one-understands-me, angsty teen phase when I was 12-13 and my time readjusting in college when I was 18-19. What is a relationship deal breaker for you? Verbal abuse. What are some things that give you complete peace of mind? Staying in coffee shops, driving at midnight, views of the skyline at night, staying on the rooftop at night and being under the stars... I just like a lot of things about the night. Would you like to explore another planet? Yesssssss. Who was your favorite cartoon character as a child? Spongebob. Cosmo from The Fairly Oddparents comes at a close second. What would you do if you were the president of your own country? Right now? I’d assure people everything was being taken care of – mass testing, support for doctors, provision of PPEs and free transportation for frontliners, making all the senators (who are all expectedly not doing anything, save for one) work their asses off, put part of the P275B fund to assist middle- and lower-class people who can’t  – instead of imposing shoot-to-kill orders for the military to anyone criticizing the government or rambling about absolutely fucking nothing in nation addresses.

[mariemary1]

Tiny Tips for Delivering Out-of-This-World Customer Support on Social Media

If you’re serious about building a remarkable brand on social media, we believe that a core component of your strategy needs to be engagement.

Engagement with fans.

Engagement with your audience.

And engagement with your customers.

One of the primary components to engagement is customer support, working with your team to answer questions and serve customers on social.

We’ll give you a toolbox filled to the brim with ideas, tips, and tools that you can put into practice today. With this knowledge, you can be on the crest of the wave of social media support and make a meaningful impression on your customers.

Let’s dive in.

Why social media customer support is so important

Why does social media engagement matter?

Why should you make it a priority to reply to everyone on social media?

Your customers long to be close to you on social media. They want to engage directly with you to get help, to get questions answered, and to participate in conversations. A Forrester study claimed that four out of every five consumers use social media to engage with brands.

So why is social media customer care so important? Well, first and foremost, it’s because your customers are turning to social media to get in touch with you.

And today’s top brands know that engagement is key to winning trust and love on social media. All you really have to do is show up. Simply by responding, you set yourself apart from the competition. Eighty-eight percent of brands don’t respond to messages that need a reply. Really! You can be among that elite 12 percent; this is a competitive advantage sitting at your fingertips.

Not only that, but there seems to be a disconnect between brands and customers. For instance, 80% of brands are under the impression that they are doing social media customer service exceptionally well. Only 8% of their customers agree.

Yikes.

There are worlds of opportunity here!

Tip #1: Choose the right social media customer support tools

There are a ton of great social media support tools out there, whether it’s an all-in-one solution or a product tailor-made for social media.

For us at Buffer, we use a combination of Help Scout to manage our email support, and we use Buffer Reply to manage all our conversations on social media. Reply incorporates all messages from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and we are able to work together in a single team inbox to help our customers.

A look at our customer support setup with Buffer Reply

In fact, the whole Buffer company spent one day last week answering questions in our inboxes. I’d never seen so many faces in the inbox at one time!

Beyond Help Scout and Reply, we’ve also come across a handful of other tools that are useful for social media support, in case you want to shop around.

For multichannel support — this would be things like email, phone, live chat, social media, and knowledge bases — there are tools like:

Zendesk

Freshdesk

Desk

Groove

And for social customer care, we’ve mentioned Buffer Reply, and there’s also social tools within products like Spark Central and Sprout Social.

For live chat, we’ve heard great things about

Intercom

Zendesk chat (formerly Zopim)

Drift

Oh and while we’re on the topic of tools, I’d love to add a couple of my favorite productivity hacks. I spend my days answering tweets and messages from the Buffer audience — I may have been in touch with some of you who are listening even — so these tools make a big difference for me.

You can use Text Expander to create shortcuts for messages that you type over and over

CloudApp is amazing for quickly making screenshots, GIFs and screencasts that you can share with customers, and

Statuspage.io lets you easily share your app’s status with your customers whenever there’s downtime.

Sample of CloudApp screenshots

Tip #2: Convey empathy in your replies

In person, we naturally display empathy and active listening through gestures, facial expressions, and through our general energy. So how do we convey this online without that face-to-face interaction?

Well, the very best way we’ve found is to: Demonstrate active listening.

In person, we communicate “active listening” with body language such as leaning closer, nodding our heads, having an open posture, or making steady eye contact.

When we can’t use body language on social media, we have to use words instead. Fortunately, the same phrases that show empathy face-to-face can also be used to show support when we’re typing on social media.

A few of our favorite phrases at Buffer are:

“Wow! That must be so …”

“I understand how you feel …”

“It sounds like…”

“I’ve felt that way too.”

“I can sense that you’re feeling…”

“Let me see if I understand correctly…”

“What I hear you saying is…”

Beyond the words, there are also a few things you can add to really take communication to the next level. A few of our favorites are:

Lean forward while typing.

Be honest, and use simple phrases like “I hear you” and “I’m sorry”

Use people’s first names.

Add a personal touch by including your first name as a signoff.

Re-read your message out loud before you hit send.

And don’t forget to say “thank you” whenever you can.

Tip #3: Words to avoid saying to customers.

1. Actually

One of the big ones is “actually.”

You might be wondering, What’s the problem with “actually”?

It’s a subtle one, but what we’ve found is that it almost doesn’t matter how good the news is. If it comes after “actually,” we feel like we were somehow wrong about something.

Consider these two sentences:

Actually, you can do this under “Settings.”

Sure thing, you can do this under “Settings!”

Do those feel any different to you?

We don’t ever want customers to feel stupid, or wrong, or corrected. The word “actually” can imply some of these feelings. Our team’s writing and speaking gets so much brighter when we lose the “actuallys”

2. But

Again, consider these two sentences:

I really appreciate you writing in, but unfortunately we don’t have this feature available.

I really appreciate you writing in! Unfortunately, we don’t have this feature available.

The word “but” renders whatever you said right before it to be completely obsolete. What we try to do instead is to substitute the word “but” for an exclamation point or semi-colon.

  Tip #4: Respond fast with a Slack integration

We’ve found Slack to be most useful as a customer support tool when your social media response volume is low or if you filter the types of messages you send into Slack. With tools like Buffer Reply or Help Scout or Groove or Intercom, you can integrate them right into Slack so that you’re alerted whenever a new conversations happen.

If your team spends a lot of time in Slack anyway, these notifications can let you know when something timely needs addressed on social media or in the inbox.

When first building a support team, start by funneling notifications right into the General channel, where most of the day-to-day chatter happens. This is a great starting place because it makes sure you see each message from your customers. And it allows you to jump onto urgent issues at the same speed you can reply to a message from a teammate.

As the volume of notifications increases, it’s important to set up a dedicated channel for these notifications — otherwise you’ll likely find yourself swimming in Slack notifications. You can set up a #notifications channel in Slack to funnel them all through. Just remember to keep an eye on it throughout the day.

Note: you can set up a Do Not Disturb schedule where Slack won’t notify you between specific hours. This is great for when you might want to mute notifications after business hours.

Tip #5: Choose the right customer support metrics

One of the best ways to provide an exceptional support experience is to understand what’s working in your current process and where you might have room to improve.

Of course, this raises the question:

How do you measure the performance of your support on social media?

1. Contact volume by channel

What you’re trying to find out here is how many customer requests, issues and problems are you replying to on each channel in a given reporting period?

This total volume by channel can tell you a couple of things, like how big the workload is and how many people you need on the team to make sure you’re keeping customers happy.

You can also see how things change over time, which will help you discover trends in the popularity of certain support channels as well as the time of day when you get the most social media conversations.

2. Resolution rate

This one is pretty straightforward to calculate: Out of all the support requests you receive, how many did your team resolve?

Knowing this number will help you see how effective your support is, not just how fast.

3. Time to first reply & time to resolution

It does help to know how fast you’re responding on social media.You can look at the time to the first reply. This measures how long, on average, does it take the team to reply to a support request.

Another way to look at speed is to look at the time to resolution. What you’re looking for here is the answer to how long it takes to resolve an issue for a customer — starting from the moment they first reach out to the final, conclusive answer.

  How to say hello to us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

Heather-Mae on Twitter

Dave on Twitter

Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

—

About The Science of Social Media podcast

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing tactics from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode.  It’s our hope that you’ll join our 27,000+ weekly iTunes listeners and rock your social media channels as a result!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

Thank Tiny Tips for Delivering Out-of-This-World Customer Support on Social Media for first publishing this post.

[wordsmittenmedia]

A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO BOOK EXPO AMERICA AND BOOK CON

By Amy Edwards Assisant Editor WordSmitten Media, Inc.

New York City, New York – For three weeks, my life was nothing but an adventure.

This is my first summer free from college and I’ve   traveled up and down the east coast, both for business and pleasure. Of all my summer experiences, this one rates highest and I’d like to dive into my first big city adventure: Book Expo America and BookCon 2017 in Manhattan.

Since I am new into the professional writing world, I was completely unaware of the BEA and BookCon. An annual spring event that usually happens at the  Javits Convention Center in New York City, it is a rite of passage for authors (the expo might be considered the Super Bowl for many in publishing).  

Despite occasionally moving to other big cities such as Chicago, Illinois, BEA tends to keep to its home in the Big Apple. No matter where the conferences  is held, the Book Expo America and BookCon are major hot spots for publishers, acquisition editors, book executives, librarians (yes, they buy and review books), authors,  literary agents, and book sellers promoting thousands of books that are tackling topics about the current trends.

Many attend BEA and Book Con to network with other professionals from all over the country as well as from a few other places around the world. And, like everything else in New York City, this event is massive. The number of attendees at the Book Expo every year can be anywhere from 17,000 to 29,000, so chances of finding a plastic seat in the food court to lounge in during down-times were slim to none.  

I’m a simple person with simple dreams and in my 21 years, the biggest building I encountered is the SunTrust Financial Centre in Tampa before New York.   If you believe I was quite terrified of the constant rushing atmosphere of not only the Book Expo, but of the city in general, you are correct. I would have loved to have a guide, you know, campers, here’s where your tent is, here’s where the kayaks are, and don’t forget to wear bug spray.

For all of my other writers and readers who have just gotten their feet wet in the literary world, here is a quick guide. You’ll discover how to navigate the Big Apple’s BEA, and how to turn this mountain of a marvel into an adventure that may not be an anthill but an enjoyable and memorable journey nonetheless.

Before we get to the actual Expo and Con, there’s definitely some preliminary planning involved. Here are important tips:  

1.       Buy your tickets early.

Although this is good for every event, this is especially important for the Book Expo and Book Con due to everything selling out so quickly. Without registering, you can’t exactly do anything at either event, so your ticket is—quite literally--your key to getting in through any of the doors at Javits.

And yes, I do mean tickets (plural), especially if you’re planning to go to both the Expo and the BookCon.

These events are run by the same team, but Book Expo and BookCon are presented for staggeringly different target audiences (and one ticket doesn’t assure access to both), so there are two separate passes to get.

For those of you who have press credentials—those who are my dear media friends out there—don’t procrastinate—apply early to get a press badge for Book Expo. With a press badge, you gain access and are able to get into the BookCon without a problem.  

If you plan on going to any major   events (such as any of the author’s breakfasts during the Expo), those require special separate tickets. You might be thinking, “Hold on, Ms. Amy: this is starting to hurt my wallet a little bit!” I won’t tell you that it’s not that expensive, but it certainly is worth it for all of the free books that are waiting to join the ones in your bookcases at home. Not only are these books free, but they are often times Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs), so you get to read them before the general public!  Ten ARCs, at retail, range from $24.95 to $34.95. If you capture ten to 15 books, and if your math skills are current, you’ll realize you’ve covered the cost of entry to the event. Not to mention getting a selfie with “Barney” a.k.a. Neil Patrick Harris (older folks know him as Doogie Howser).

And just to sweeten the pot, the special events that cost extra feature celebrities. I had to still my beating heart when I read on the Expo’s website that Stephen King and Hillary Clinton were two of the many big name guests coming to the Expo.

I also had to dry many tears when I woke up on the second day of the Expo realizing that I had completely forgotten about buying the tickets in the first place! Regardless of my scatterbrained nature, I’m sure that I would have had to scramble to buy them anyway (since tickets like these do sell quickly), but as a wise woman once told me, “Do what I say, not as I do.” Do purchase your tickets early. Did I mention that?

Which brings me to my next point:

2.       Know where you’re going.

I know it sounds simple, but for those who are not experienced with the boroughs of New York City (or another city like Chicago in the event that it moves again), I highly advise that you figure out how you’re getting there. Fortunately, I had some friends that were going to the event with me, so I followed them until I memorized where to go, but even then I still took some wrong turns every now and then. Even with the numbered streets and avenues, New York City is a labyrinth, so it’s quite easy to get lost in it.

If the BEA returns to New York’s Javits Center again next year--instead of Chicago’s McCormick Place--I have some wonderful news about the West Side of Manhattan. Line 7 opened up in 2015. It runs from midtown to the convention center, and it’s incredibly convenient. The subway line is new, as is the station, so it was pleasant—and swift—to ride from Times Square to the BEA’s front door.

The know-where-you-go tip could also apply to the Expo itself. The Expo (as well as the BookCon) is football-field large (three or more--almost an endless room) filled with publishers and exhibitors, so getting a map from the event staff is a must. Above some of the publishers’ booths, you’ll see signs for HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and PRH. For some of the exhibitors (small and unique presses like McSweeney’s), it’s still useful to learn of all the different publishers and authors that are participating. You might find some people that you recognize that you didn’t know were there!  Like McSweeney’s.

3.       Make a plan, but it’s okay to not stick to it.

Whenever I attend any kind of expo or convention, I like to make sure that I have a rough draft of an itinerary since there’s so many different events happening all at once. On the Book Expo site, there’s a complete schedule that’s up and available, so I combed through it again and again trying to figure out what panels and events were hot and which ones were not. For example, I had to wait an hour in advance to go see Neil Patrick Harris and Lemony Snicket (which was worth it, because I was one and a half round tables away from the men of the hour!), but later that afternoon, one of the publishing software panels nearly rocked me asleep. Next year, when the adrenaline from anticipation keeps me up at night before BEA, I’ll have to find a recording of executives spouting inventory jargon.

[Caption: From left to right, Neil Patrick Harris, Chris Harris, and Lemony Snicket]

Fortunately, with BEA’s thick teal program open in my hands, I quickly realized that this Book Expo was vastly different from the comic conventions that I’m so familiar with. Thanks to the color coded schedule of events, I figured out that some of the events were targeted to certain professions or specific aspects about the business of writing. I didn’t come to this conclusion smoothly either. Much to my innocent confusion, I didn’t quite grasp that the Edelweiss panels were for booksellers and publishers until I went to the second one.

I’m sure for the publishers and booksellers out there, Edelweiss is an organizational gift, but as a new player to the writing game, I was pretty lost half the time and couldn’t keep up with the bookselling terminology. I really regret not recording this lullaby track.

For the first few hours (or days), I was stuck in a predicament of not knowing what to do for decent stretches of the Expo. During these downtimes, I found myself roaming around the Expo floor or networking with other people. I realized that I enjoyed this wayward part of the Expo much more once I put myself out into the excitement.

For those of you who are sitting in your office chairs thinking the Book Expo is full of attendees wearing nice business suits sitting in cavernous professional meetings, I’m going to remind you that this is the Olympics for creative minds. There are plenty of different characters on and off the page at this event, but all of them are gathered there to celebrate books. There are no medals or anything like that, so there’s no point in not stepping out into the buzz, and I know that I would have regretted sticking to my usual wallflower routine.

Even when I was sitting off to the side trying to figure out my schedule for the day, I was able to strike up a conversation with an editor who I quickly learned loved the anime Yuri on Ice!!! as much as I did, and still do.

You’re going to meet wonderful people there, and not a single person I met over the four days I spent at both the Expo and the Con is boring. I even met a wonderful Belle cosplayer who had constructed Belle’s classic golden ball gown herself. If you’re going to try and make friends, I’m going to repeat this until my last days: never be afraid to say “Hello,” first.

If trying to make new friends isn’t quite your goal, the Expo floor is filled to the brim with all kinds of different authors and publishers just itching to pass out copies of upcoming books. A couple of the most memorable encounters for me included meeting Emily Rose Ross, the 13 year old author of The Canis Chronicles, as well as J.H. Sanderson, the author of the seven-part novel series Roadhouse Sons. Both were so kind as to give me copies of their first parts of each series, Blue’s Prophecy and Dangerous Gambles respectively.

From personal experience, I’m going to emphasize the importance of keeping your schedule open because of these friends that you may potentially make, or books you will potentially stuff into your tote. When I’m nervous, I tend to stick to my schedule like cooked cheese to a pizza pan, so I ended up missing out to grab a few beers at a party in Time Square. The best thing about New York is that you never have to drive, so as soon as I got the invite text on the late afternoon subway ride back to 191st, I immediately regretted sticking to the plan of retiring for the night. I could have been chatting up some literary agents and sipping on a cosmopolitan in the atmosphere of a New York bar on a Friday night, but I was stuck on the Red Line 1 with a woman who couldn’t understand that there is one track going Uptown. I held back the urge to grab onto her frizzy bun and state plainly that no, we can’t just back up and go around the police investigation going on three stops ahead so please stop shrieking every five minutes that this is inconveniencing you and making you late to meet with your boyfriend’s parents .I felt so sorry for her young boyfriend curled up in the seat next to her, face hidden in his blue cardigan. His ears were still red thirty minutes later when they were finally able to get off at the stop before mine.

For those of you who aren’t so socially inclined, this is also a great opportunity to observe and write. People watching is an excellent way to brainstorm ideas for your newest story, so I highly encourage time to sit and observe all the different people. Although I don’t recommend getting the pizza from the Javits, there’s two different Starbucks stores that you can hover around and people-watch. Why are they at the Expo? How do they feel about it? The possibilities for the amount of people that go to this event are endless, as are the backstories that you can make for them.

4.       Learn how to say, “No.”

During the many escapades of the Expo floor, I have learned that people really want you to read their work. That should be obvious- if I worked on a book for so long, I would hope that people would take a look! However, the authors and publishing houses are there for the sake of spreading the word about their newest works. It’s honestly thrilling to receive free books from new authors as well as seasoned veterans, but it’s all fun and games until you have to leave the Expo. I’m pretty sure the strings on my canvas tote rubbed my shoulder raw from the weight of all the books I received, and whatever I had on my person was only a fraction of the 28 pounds of books I accumulated over the 3 day expo.

During  Editor’s Buzzes, the staff hands out around 5 or 6 different up and coming books. There are books for sale in preparation for the Book Con in order to get them signed by YA authors. Authors and Publishers toss books for free left and right on the Expo floor. I even had the mother of an author hunt me down like a wolf because she saw that my badge said “Media.” If I had realized sooner that exhibitors translate “Media” to “I do free book reviews!” I probably wouldn’t have 28 pounds of books waiting for me to carry up to my third floor apartment—and no, we don’t have an elevator.

Someone even wrote on my box in black, bold Sharpie, “HEAVY.”

A major part of the reason I ended up with so many was that I also didn’t know how to say “No” to these people. Certainly, my own interest in some of the titles didn’t help, but that’s beside the point.. I’ll confess: if I know that it’s incredibly unlikely that I’ll meet the person again and they recommend that I do something, I’ll gladly agree but completely forget about that recommendation within the following five minutes.  It’s not that I don’t want to read all of these books that I’ve been given, it’s just that I don’t know if I actually will.  I’ve decided that next year, before I slip my book into my C-SPAN tote, I’m going to ask myself:

Will I read this book?

No— will I really read this book?

If I can’t genuinely say yes, I’ll refuse to take it. There are thousands of people that go to the Book Expo, so I’m sure that the books will find homes where they will be happily read over and over again.

Also, Freeman provides a shipping service on the bottom concourse, since they know we attendees are book lovers that can’t say no to all these free, wonderful books. Although the books are free, getting them home isn’t. For me, the cost of shipping my 28 pound library back home was more than $60, and my box was light in comparison to some others. Standing in line in front of me was a librarian with thick, black-rimmed glasses who told me, “Well, if you’re able to lift your box, you’re a lot better off than a lot of people.”

When I looked behind me, a short woman with wispy, white hair pulled three boxes behind her on a cart. My wallet could only cringe at the thought of having to pay the flat $40 fee three times, and then some for the weight.

Lesson learned: say “No,” and your back and your bank account will surely thank you.

5.       If you’re going for the Expo floor, skip the first day.

Day one of the Expo is much more quiet than usual, which had surprised me. When I walked in, I thought that I had gotten there too early since the area outside of the Expo floor was on the empty side. I had expected thick crowds of people, but I only saw a few people wandering around. I thought, “Why is it that this place looks like a toy store on a school day? Much to my dismay, I quickly discovered that this is because the Expo floor isn’t open on the first day.

I was quite eager to get to the Expo floor; walking in the front glass doors and seeing the huge posters hanging from the ceiling for books and authors I loved (Rick Riordan, Cassandra Claire, to name a couple) made my heart race from excitement. However, when I approached the main entrance to the Expo floor, it was roped off and full of plywood. My afternoon was suddenly way more open than I needed it to be, and the only panel I really needed to go to was the Adult Fiction Editor’s Buzz.

Now I’ve come to the conclusion that the first day of the Expo is really only worth going if you’re going to the panels for that day, which even then there are very few. As me and twenty other attendees were shooed away, I could hear the many complaints in hushed, annoyed whispers. “I can’t believe I took a day off of work for this,” one disgruntled woman grumbled behind me.

Thus, I made a mental note to myself to dodge the Expo floor all together, go to an Author’s Buzz (if there is one that day), and head home.

6.       Go to both events.

This is especially important for those going for the first time because the Expo and the Con are entirely separate entities. They’re aimed for different audiences, so the atmosphere around the Javits changes literally overnight.

The Book Expo is an event aimed at book sellers. Publishers and authors are trying to advertise their books to the book sellers or to the media in order to gain popularity and get a place in the market, so the crowd is much older and much more professional. While I was at the Expo, I believe the youngest person (after me) was at least five or six years older with much more professional experience. It’s quite fun and energetic, but the air is a lot more mature and business-oriented.

I would describe the BookCon as the Book Expo’s either younger sibling or inner-child. The BookCon is an event open to the public, so the crowd is much more casual than at the Expo (with my nice purple blouse and black slacks, I felt a little overdressed). Most of the authors at the BookCon are Young Adult authors (such as Joseph Fink, Rainbow Rowell, etc.) so I noticed a lot of teenagers were there, eager to meet their favorite authors. This was where I met the Belle cosplayer, Cait Jacobs, and I even saw a few other people dressed as Wonder Woman to celebrate the new movie coming out. Also, the books that are discussed at BookCon are ones that have already been published and released to the public, so sadly, the free books are also few and far between.

Therefore, I believe it’s almost necessary for people to go to each event at least once if they can. You may learn more about what you’re interested in or may learn what you’re particularly not interested in. If anything, I believe more exposure to the different genres can make readers and writers alike much better-rounded. At the very least, you can earn the experience and have an even better argument as to why you don’t like either event because you now have that first-hand experience under your belt.

7.       Go back.

Of all of the things I’ve learned from traveling up to New York City, getting lost in the subway, shouting out my order at Pizza Suprema, and getting heckled by authors begging me to read their books about dogs and the history of the universe, I’ve learned that I love it. I absolutely love the energy in the air: the people in New York are just like people everywhere else. With the Book Expo, there’s book talk from one end of the Javits to the otherand everyone else seems to be enjoying what they’re doing too.

It reminds me of when I went to a comic convention for the first time, except instead of elaborate, home-made costumes, everyone wore nice clothes and had at least one canvas bag with “I’m a readaholic” printed on the front. Everyone was so passionate about what they were doing and even more so about learning what was happening in the literary world.

Even outside of the BEA, I found myself having a wonderful time. I was able to meet with Diana Finch of Diana Finch literary in order to discuss all the aspects of life as a literary agent (a goal that I may strive for in the future). I was also able to have a night out with Holly Brady, discussing the self-publishing industry over grilled chicken ceasar salad at the Hard Rock Café. We even got to go see Bandstand on Broadway, with seats that were not only cheap, but were in the center on the first floor of the theatre.

The Book Expo and BookCon have become two of my favorite summer events; I feel like my eyes have been opened to the huge world of writing, and I’m quite floored by everyone who made it all possible.

Thus my last piece of advice is to go back. This event is amazing and huge, and I know I couldn’t drink it all in by only going once. There’s so much to it that I want to go back so I know every piece of this event inside and out.

I missed a lot due to my own nervousness; I feel like I spent most of the week testing the water and by the time I jumped into the pool it was already time to leave. I want to go back so I don’t regret missing anything, and I hope that I can return again next year.