BookExpo America – the publishing world’s largest annual get-together – is in town this weekend. More than 25,000 book-industry people – publishers, bookstore owners, librarians, retailers, television and movie producers, and authors – are expected to visit the exhibition at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center to check out this year’s upcoming books, greet old friends, scope out industry trends, collect goody bags of promotional galleys and assorted tchotchkes, and party, party, party.

The convention, which is not open to the general public, began Thursday with an appearance by comedian Billy Crystal, whose hit one-man show “700 Sundays” will be published in book form in November by Warner Books. During the four days there are numerous special events and forums, including one by top editors about the books they are most excited about, moderated by Publishers Weekly’s new editor, Sara Nelson. Another, on “Sex Between, and Under, the Covers,” features Candace Bushnell, the author of “Sex and the City,” and is hosted by Rick Marin, author of “Cad: Confessions of a Toxic Bachelor.” Currently sex is selling very briskly in the bookstores.

Some 500 authors who have books coming out this year will also be around to autograph books and meet and greet bookstore owners. Mike Wallace, Barbara Boxer, Bill O’Reilly, Mary Higgins Clark, Michael Eisner, and James Patterson will all take their turn at the autograph table. Simon Winchester has a new book about the California earthquake of 1906. Doris Kearns Goodwin has a new book about Abraham Lincoln. On Saturday night at Town Hall, Rodale Books is hosting a sold-out benefit performance by Bill Maher, whose forthcoming book is based on his TV show.

For years this annual publishing gathering was hosted by the American Booksellers Association. There was some concern when Reed Exhibitions, a subsidiary of Reed Elsevier, a for-profit company, took over. “It was much more a mom-and-pop type of event then, when bookstore owners came and ordered their books for the year,” said Lorraine Shanley, a publishing consultant. “But, I think, the fears have proved unfounded. They have simply made it a much bigger, more exciting event.”

This year 1,500 publishers will attend, 300 more than last year, when the Expo was held in Chicago. Next year the event will be in Washington, D.C. Some publishers prefer it when the convention is held outside of New York, because it gives them a chance to get out of the office for a few days. But most like being able to easily check out the competition and then sleep in their own beds. Jed Donahue, an editor at Crown Forum, said, “The BookExpo is always interesting. I’ll be spending a day there. It is a great chance to see what every publisher is highlighting.”

Besides the publishers’ booths, there are exhibits of all the products now sold in bookstores: calendars, journals, book lights, even reading glasses. In one section of the convention center foreign publishers and scouts can meet to negotiate foreign rights. The big publishers, such as Simon & Schuster and Random House, have enormous booths commensurate with their importance in the industry.

“BookExpo is really a celebration of North American publishing,” said Richard Pine, an agent and partner in InkWell Management. “The book fair in Frankfurt is important, too, because deals are done there, but a lot of that fair is about German publishing. This is about us. And this year it is especially good, because everyone is coming to New York.” Mr. Pine, the agent for the mega-best seller “The South Beach Diet,” has two books that are being promoted by their publishers at the Expo: Steven Gaines’s just-released “The Sky’s the Limit” about New York real estate and Dr. Andrew Weil’s upcoming book on healthy aging.

Yet BookExpo may be even more important for smaller publishers. “Everyone has to go see the really big publishers, but this our chance to see lots and lots of people, in just a few days,” said Esther Margolis, head of Newmarket Press, a midsized publisher. Ms. Margolis said her company is promoting “a book about change, called ‘Ping.’ It’s about a frog looking for a new pond. We are giving out little frogs – not real frogs, of course!” She is also high on a book of photographs her company will publish in December, based on the movie “Memoirs of a Geisha”(which, of course, is based on a best-selling novel).

What are this year’s most sought-after galleys? In fiction, there are new novels by E.L. Doctorow and Nobel Prize recipient J.M. Coetzee. Mr. Doctorow’s novel is about Sherman’s march through Georgia, and his publisher, Random House, said it is his best book in many years. The first novel in 10 years by the usually serious author Mark Helprin, published by Penguin, is, surprisingly, a laugh-out-loud tale of the British royal family. A potential pop best seller is “Everyone Worth Knowing” by Lauren Weisberger, who skewered an editor very much like Vogue’s Anna Wintour in her best seller “The Devil Wears Prada” (Simon & Schuster). The new novel is about a girl who breaks into New York’s elite party scene.

On the nonfiction side, John Berendt, author of the mega-hit “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” has returned with “The City of Falling Angels,” about Venice. He has been working on the book for 10 years. Barbara Ehrenreich, author of “Nickel and Dimed,” went under cover, once again, to scrutinize the lives of America’s middle class in “Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream” (Holt).The most intriguing book of the year may be by Mary Roach, the author of the surprise best seller “Stiff,” about bodies after death. This time she is writing about proving the existence of the soul through post-mortems, with “Spook” (W.W. Norton).

In the last couple of years, books about politics and religion have dominated best-seller lists. “Right now,” Ms. Shanley said, “juvenile publishing is increasing and books by celebs are hot. And there are all sorts of niches, even in the religious market. Why, there is even something called ‘Christian chicklit.’ And audio books are increasingly important. We may not be reading more, but we are certainly listening more. For the first time ever, there is an audio-book convention which dovetails right into this BookExpo.”

“Part of going to BookExpo is trying to find the trends of the future,” she said. “But, of course, what’s hot right now may not be hot a couple of years from now, when the books that are signed today come out.”