Armchair BEA: Networking in Real Life

Today's Armchair BEA topic is one that I seem to talk about all the time here on the blog.... and that is... my "in real life" experiences with real life bookish people. Let me just tell you some more!

BLOGGER PARTIES

Back in January 2009 we had our first Utah blogger get together. There were about ten or so of us (in the above picture, half the people are spouses!) and one brave author (James Dasher BEFORE anyone knew who he was!) Natasha of Maw Books made it happen and I'm so glad she did!  Since then, we've met several more times and grown to probably 100 book bloggers (I've completely lost count now!) and had several authors join us for various parties. We haven't had a gathering now for awhile so hopefully we can make another happen soon. But, as scary as that first one was (I had never gone to meet anyone I'd gotten to know online before...it was quite the step to take!) I now can't imagine my life without these blogger relationships! It has been so much fun to get to know these people in real life... all book crazy fanatics like me! We all "get" each other, and it's truly a blast to hang out.

A bunch of us even went to the midnight showing of The Hunger Games together. And that was a first for me too! I've a feeling it could just the start of another tradition.

Because of the courage I've acquired from meeting the bloggers here in Utah, it's helped me to be more brave (guys, you must remember I'm really really shy for the most part!) in meeting other bloggers elsewhere, like when I went to Arizona a few months ago. It just didn't make sense to me to go there and not find my blogging buddies to say hi to! If, and when, I go other places (and actually stay for awhile, not driving through like last summer across the whole country!) I will most likely seek out bloggers to meet. It's just how it is now. Beware!

BOOK CLUB

There's been a book club going on at my house now for about eight years or so. After meeting some of these fun book bloggers, many of them would say to me, "I so wish I had a fun book club to go to!" So of course I would say, "Hey, come try out mine! And see what you think!" I knew they only lived "down the street" so I thought, why not? This has led to many a blogger joining the book club, hopefully at the okay of the other non-blogging members. I think this has made book club all the better because our bookish discussions really are crazy fun! And now these bloggers are not just bloggin' buddies, they truly are in-real-life friends. I love that.

AUTHOR SIGNINGS

Pre-blogging days I don't remember going to many author signings. And now, I can't keep up with them! I've come to realize (especially after the recent Twitter party) that we really are lucky here with all the local authors and the non-local ones that come in to visit. The libraries, the stores and the colleges all work to bring them in for us and it just seems to grow and get better and better every year. And there's always other bloggers going to them, which makes them all the more fun! It's like a party every time!

I wanted to list some of the authors I've been able to meet, and actually started this list just so I could see it all laid out, but then it felt way too much like name dropping, or something, so I deleted it. Just know it's a pretty long list and made me realize just how much things have changed around here and that we do live in a sort of center for bookish activity, even though we aren't really a big city.

So, even though I'm not that great at it, I would say that talking to authors, and getting to know them, especially when they are first starting out, falls under this networking umbrella. And besides that, it's a blast.

Bottom line, I would suggest to all bloggers to take advantage of whatever opportunity they have to connect with bloggers and authors in real life! (And book sellers too, I just have no experience in this particular area!)

So hop to it!