8th Annual Ohioana Book Festival 2014 Review

This was the first time I attended the event and it was interesting! Found a bunch of new authors I’ve never heard of which was pretty neat. I don’t usually go around searching for new authors since I have plenty to read but it still doesn’t stop me from looking when I hear good things from them. XD

I guess first off I should mention I arrived later than I had hoped. Around 1pm when it opens at 10pm. I ended up sleeping in but then it started to rain. At first it was just a little sprinkle which was tolerable but then it ended up pouring. That caused the freeway traffic from where I was coming from to slow down to a crawl so I took an early exit trying to find a way to the location. After a bunch of detours and taking unfamiliar side streets I finally made it there but it took an extra 20 minutes because the side street traffic was horrible as well. It didn’t help that the rain got worse. It pounded on my car and made my visibility poor especially through that curtain of gray rain.

Once I finally made it there, I wasn’t certain exactly which building the event was at until I saw a bunch of signs with little arrows telling us where to go. I want to thank whoever placed all those signs out because I probably wouldn’t have made it there otherwise. XD Finally I parked and brought an umbrella because it was still raining. 

First thing I did when I got there was to walk around. I grabbed an event brochure to see where everything was and what panels were going on. When you first walk in all the authors were in this main area, the image is from the back. I didn’t think of taking a picture from the entrance.

This was very much like a regular convention I’ve been to where authors are hawking their books and getting themselves known. It’s just this area and the panel rooms which are essentially classrooms since it’s hosted at a high school.

As you can see the place is pretty crowded. Sometimes it got so bad that people clogged up the aisles not letting anyone through. That’s a little pet peeve I have. If someone is waiting and or trying to get through, the person just standing there either talking or just staring at whatever they have on the tables should move aside if they have no intent on moving. I don’t mind if they do stand for a few seconds but if you’re going to look for more than that then move out of the way so that there is enough room for people to get through. In retrospect, I suppose in those instances I should have taken more of an initiative to ask people to move aside but I’m quiet and it’s fairly loud in there. Luckily it cleared out near the end of the day which was when I was taking this photo because some people were in panels.

I headed towards the Young Adult (YA) book area once I figured out the tables were arranged by genres. YA is what I tend to read but I do try other types as well but those and Fantasy/Sci Fi are my favorite. 🙂 I knew some of the YA authors and have read their books before. Some of them were at panels so I didn’t talk to them but the ones I did talk to were very nice. 🙂 It’s awesome to meet the creators, I didn’t know there were many authors where I lived. Of course they are from all over the state.

I found a bunch of other new authors and collected their information which I need to check out. I’m embarrassed to say that I still haven’t looked through all my information yet. I’m terribly slow at doing that sometimes. It’s still on my to-do list and I need to check out their books. To the library!

The authors also had their books for sale, unfortunately, I don’t usually buy books unless I can imagine myself re-reading them. I’m not a re-reader unless I love the book/series. Still it was awesome to find a bunch of new authors and they were all so friendly. To be fair, I choose to request books from the library since I don’t have the space or funds to purchase the books. I’m a pretty regular patron, I’m sure they know my face if not also my name. lol

I was only able to go to two panels. I think one was a “How to Publish” panel and the other was a “Fantasy/Sci Fi” panel. lol The first was more informative than the later but both were very interesting. I recommend planning ahead to the ones you want to go to because they went by really fast. Next time I attend I definitely would like to plan on going to more panels. I won’t sleep in next time! lol

Overall, it was an awesome time. I did go by myself so I was a bit lonely but most everyone was nice. I had a good time, got lots of book swag. I do wish that the Ohioana website made it easier to search by genre or go to an author’s website like in 2013 but here’s the 2014 author list so go check them out!