I have news!

BIG news!

Today Trish and I are pleased to announce the acquisition of The Book Blogger Convention by Reed Exhibitions (aka BEA).  Now, you all may have noticed that we have been pretty silent about BBC lately.  In fact all things BBC have been pretty radio silent since last year and now we can say that was by design.  We knew that we were going to be letting it go and due to some of the legalities involved we haven’t really been able to talk about anything.  But now that everything is buttoned up we can make the big announcement that BEA will be taking over BBC officially as of today.

So why are we doing this?

Time!  Quality of life!

Trish and I have organized the Book Blogger Convention together (with the help of so many fantastic bloggers) for the past two years out of love for blogging, the community and the publishing industry.  It has been our genuine pleasure to work with all of the contributors, panelists and speakers, and participants.  But as this event grows by leaps and bounds it has very quickly become apparent that neither of us has the ability to grow with it.  We both have full time (more than full time really) jobs, Trish has an ever expanding family and I am having some serious medical problems.  Neither of us, despite our desire to do so, has the ability to put the kind of time and effort an endeavor of this nature requires.  So, instead of shutting it down or putting in a weak effort and crafting a horrible event we were lucky BEA wanted to take it on.

Steven Rosato, Executive Director of BEA, has been an amazingly generous partner to BBC.  His support of the role bloggers play in the publishing industry is clearly evidenced by the fact that BEA felt us significant enough to co-locate in the same year we launched BBC.  Do you hear that y’all?  We add VALUE to their event.  So much value that they didn’t want to see it go away.  Heck, WE didn’t want to see it go away.  We want bloggers to have a place to schmooze and learn and connect with each other and the industry.  That was the purpose and goal of initiating BBC.  It was a hard choice but in the end, knowing that it was going to be difficult for us to make BBC happen this year, we approached BEA with the idea of transitioning the event to them completely.

Now, those of you who know me well know that I am a CONTROL FREAK.  So you must also know how hard it was for me to let this go.  To know that I’m not going to play a big role in something that Trish graciously invited me to take part in.  Something I helped grow into more.  It’s been a labor of love, one that I’ve enjoyed immensely, and one that I’m honored has given me the opportunity to work with and meet so many wonderful bloggers.  It has sincerely been my pleasure.

But have no fear, BBC is in GOOD hands.  It will still be BBC and is still an event I encourage ALL bloggers to avail themselves of.  I know I’ll be getting my registration on tout de suite!  Please be sure to come hang with us on Monday, June 4th when Trish and I become participants for the first time!