ALAMW 2018 – Part II (The Con)

So I know I’ve been crazy busy lately – if you aren’t on Twitter then you don’t know I was in a panicked flurry, trying to get all my books put away. They were mostly in stacks all over the house, but my mom was getting a refinance and I had to clean them up.

There were a LOT of books. Books from the Con, books from trades, books from pubs, books from actual bookstores….

There were a lot.

So I methodically put them (at first) in boxes and scanned them, into an app called LibraryThing to keep track since I couldn’t see them, until I got a genius idea: clear totes!

So I went to Walmart and got some and put them in so the spines face out and I got them all done by the night before the appraiser came. And now my books are organized.

It’s actually like a kind of bookshelf bc I can still see them and get to them and I can stare at them when I hang out down there. It’s a good compromise over putting them in boxes with lists on the front telling what the contents are.

I’ll have to take an “after” pic of my room and I’ll put the “before” pic I have right next to it so you guys can see the chaos that was had.

Anyway…this isn’t about my book obsession/hoarding. This is about the trip. The part where I was literally AT the Con.

So I talked about the Friday night during the first post: our totes were laden with books and it was painful to go home. But we had to get up early and hit the Con again to meet Claire Legrand for FurybornAND Adrienne Young and get Sky in the Deep. Both were at the same time!

So I went to see Claire first. Had to get Furyborn.

She was soooooo nice! I even was able to get back in line and get one signed for my friend!

Then I ran over to Adrienne Young and was first in line with Shawn. The selfie I took was awful but she was so busy and I didn’t want to bother her.

See what I mean? Horrible pic!! All blurry and stuff!

One of the best parts was seeing my Twitter friends in the real world!! I saw @Bibliostacks (Nikole) and @Reviewerrachel there and I was so excited! I also saw Christina but I didn’t get a pic with her. 😭

Nikole with her hands full of books!

Rachel with her trademark mermaid 🧜‍♀️ green hair at the booth she manned. Lots of cool Manga there!

Rachel’s booth and the super Manga!!

I even got some pics with some dogs!! 😂

(I’m burning that outfit btw…leggings need to go with boots only from now on)

It was awesome! So many books and so little time. We had to take breaks (I missed seeing Amalie Howard and Tara Sim at Sourcebooks!) but there wasn’t a min I regretted. More bags than the day before and I didn’t think we could even FIND more books! I was so glad I drove so I could cart them back.

There was a lady there that did postcard art and Shawn and I both collect postcards – she collects all kinds and I specialize to ones from the early 1900s – but I loved her campy art quote cards and got them signed.

I also met….

Paulo Bacigalupi!! Like from Tool of War!

I kinda fangirled for a min while he signed my copy of Drowned Cities. He was super nice and let me take tons of pics.

He was SOO NICE. Check out his books! I got The Tangled Lands that just came out but he wasn’t there to sign it once I got it at S&S.

Sat and Sun blur together – get up early, go wait at the gate, go in and grab books and swag, meet authors, take heavy totes to the car, go back to the crappy Motel 6, and pass out. Then get up and do it all over again. Some pics have me in my black sweater so I’m thinking those are Sun…I was so dazzled by everything and I was running around so much that I forgot to take pics. Like I got My Lady’s Choosing, a choose-your-own adventure book…and it was signed, but I forgot to take a pic! So here’s one now lol!

Another lady was signing her book, The Art of Escaping, so I went and got one of those!

Monday was epic though. It was “tear down day” and around 11am to 12:30 different booths were tearing down their stuff and you could wait in line and get so many items – this was important for S&S bc they didn’t have a lot of books I asked for but they did have them on display.

So Shawn waited there, I went to Harper, and Rachel went to Penguin. We told the other what we were looking for and we grabbed for each other.

I took pics of the booths to remember what I wanted from each. So now you can see what the booths looked like!

And Penguin had what “looked like” Reaper at the Gates and Smoke in the Sun but they were fake books! I was so sad. They were advertised on the boards in the exhibit hall but they weren’t there. Enough were to make it worth it, but I’m really looking forward to Smoke in the Sun.

When I got there though, this is what they looked like:

So phony pics on other ARCs. Clever advertising (I talked to the lady that made them and they were quite convincing I must say!) but it was disappointing.

Feiwel and Friends – their booth (part of it)

Penguin’s booth (part of it) – love the lightning bolt for the Strange Fascination of Noah Hypnotik

Little Brown – the booth (most of it) and they were awesome!

Simon and Shuster – their booth (most of their books were display only so we knew we had to be there Monday for the tear down and grab ones we wanted. I wanted and got this one:

While we waited for the tear down, I got a couple of books that sounded cool but I hadn’t heard of…so I’ll show them off to spread the news!

Anything by Jane Yolen is an auto-grab for me!

The cover of this one was seductive so I had to get it!

This is apparently a reprint in paperback or something bc the original pub date was in 2017 but this one doesn’t come out until May. Love this golden cover!!

When it was over, we crashed at the hotel and Tuesday was spent packing up for the drive home. Shawn mailed her boxes 📦 and I helped but some apparently arrived not handled well, and there was some obvious theft from my friend Rachel’s boxes (someone took out her books and replaced some with textbooks and one of Shawn’s packages to a friend had 6 books but only 2 arrived. There’s a major theft problem with books leaving these Conventions! I was lucky I drove or else some of mine might not have made it.

I literally drove Shawn to the airport at 10 and then opened up the free audiobook of Sometimes I Lie from Macmillan and listened to my FIRST AUDIOBOOK EVER!! It kept me awake and alive for the 15 hour drive home!

Yes, I drove straight home for 15 hours, only stopping for the restroom and caffeine. I just wanted to be home!

When I made it to Iowa. Finally.

When I was almost home – only a little less than two hours and I made it around 7:40 and scared my mom half to death. (She thought I was pulling over at a hotel but I just wanted to get my books HOME.

So that was it! I plan on doing one more post in this series called “The Haul,” where I will share some of the best book finds I came across…but for now, this is a long enough post. I also have some reviews to post, and I plan on a giveaway with some good ARCs that I will crosspost on here and Twitter – I’m thinking I’ll do it on my birthday on the 8th!!

So stay tuned for Part III, some good reviews, and some freebies!! Some rewards for my awesome bloggerino friends!

I’m also planning on going to ALA Summer Session! What do you think? Am I nuts to do this again?? 😂🤣

I leave you with another fave of mine from ALAMW 2018…

SEA WITCH.

This was one of the books I was thrilled to get and they ran out like the first day. I was so lucky to get a copy.

Stay tuned for more wacky adventures from your friend, TeacherofYA!! 😘❤️