Sorry I missed two blog posts last week. I was in New York City at the Book Expo America.

Yes, I could have made the blog posts while I was at the convention. I even ponied up the $9 for the Wi-Fi in my hotel room.

Mini-Rant: It’s stupid to pay a premium for a hotel suite and have them not provide free Wi-Fi or Internet access. Of course, my publisher paid for the room, but still: Having to pay more for Wi-Fi when the room is close to $300/night is just stupid.

The Wi-Fi was dog slow on Tuesday, so I figured I’d catch up on Thursday. No dice. I was just too busy, too tired.

BEA is the Book Expo America. Once upon a time, it was a huge show with lots of publishers and book buyers. Thanks to the Internet, of course, book-buying is becoming passé.

It’s not that people don’t buy books any more. They do! But proportionally fewer people are buying books thanks to other forms of entertainment that compete for their idle moments. For me, the entire convention had a pallor of doom: Print publishing is not a growing industry.

Still, at my publisher’s book things were hopping: It was the 20th Anniversary of the For Dummies series. I was invited to participate because I wrote the original book, DOS For Dummies, 20 years ago.

Joining me was Andy Rathbone, author of Windows For Dummies, as well as Marsha Collier, author of eBay For Dummies. I would say that we had a good time and I was glad that the publisher chose to send us.

Downstairs from the BEA convention was Blog World (or something). It wasn’t that lively, but I don’t think the vendors had time to prepare. Still, it was an interesting diversion. I’ll report more on Blog Planet (or whatever it was called) later this week.

In the meantime, here are some highlight photos from the BEA last week. Click on an image to see it larger and with my comments.