“Welcome to the paradox known as BEA, which exists to bring authors, publishers and bookstore folk together, but at which few books are actually sold. There are exceptions, of course. Small-town bookstores that don’t get many visits from publishers’ reps, for example, may take the opportunity to place orders. But to spend a few days at BEA with a buyer for an urban independent bookstore chain such as Olsson’s, which consists of six stores in the Washington area, is to observe the less quantifiable but no less important kind of transactions occurring there.”