Friday Morning Round-up

Is anyone going to LA?

It is hard to believe that we are less than one month away from Book Expo America (BEA). I'm looking forward to seeing old friends, attending great panels and catching a Dodgers game.

One downside of this year's event is the attendance is always lighter than normal in LA. I've talked with several contacts that are mainstays at BEA that aren't making the trip this year thanks to travel headaches.

To make matters worse, Slunch thanked JetBlue this week for cancelling its New York to LA service just in time for the show. Many of our friends in New York will now be facing the harrowing traffic jam that lies between Long Beach and LA. I think I'll pass on that.

New Interview Series Starting Next Week

We have decided to introduce some new voices to our blog, so starting next week, look for installments of our weekly interview series. We're going to reach out to various industry contacts and ask them to pass along their wisdom to you all.

First up--Karen Campbell, Director of Public Relations at Zondervan (a division of HarperCollins). Karen's leadership has put Zondervan authors on the cutting edge of the Web 2.0 movement and she'll be stopping in next week to share her thoughts on publicity, publishing and much more.

Blog Interview Just Posted

Those of you who frequent literary blogs know how fantastic Novel Journey is. Writers Digest just named the site one of their 101 Most Valuable Websites for Writers 2008. We have been loyal readers for a long time and were recently asked to conduct an interview series them.

The first installment was posted today.