June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot who landed a jet in New York’s Hudson River in January, got a standing ovation at BookExpo America on Saturday. The publishing industry may have to avoid a crash landing of its own.

The annual trade show and convention, held last weekend at New York’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, was a toned-down affair as delegates fretted about declining publishing revenue and the rise of electronic books like Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle 2.

“There have been some lavish displays in the past but this year, publishers are making sure to do things that are really useful,” said Carol Schneider, a spokeswoman for the Random House Publishing Group. “Everyone has a somewhat reduced presence.”

Exhibitors occupied 21 percent less floor space than in 2007, the last year BEA, the largest trade book fair in North America, was held at the Javits Center. U.S. book sales fell 6.8 percent in the first quarter, according to the Association of American Publishers. Revenue in 2008 dropped 2.8 percent from a year earlier, to $24.3 billion.

Several large publishers, including Farrar, Straus and Giroux, a division of Macmillan, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, were missing from the Javits Center’s convention floor, choosing to work from basement meeting rooms, which are less expensive than the well-adorned display booths.

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc. known for hosting lavish sit-down dinners at such venues as Campanile in Los Angeles and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, when the convention was held in those cities, instead held a cocktail party at the modest, timeworn Strand bookstore in Greenwich Village.

‘Da Vinci Code’

Even with the belt-tightening, there were signs of big books coming in the autumn. Banners for Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” follow-up, “The Lost Symbol,” were hanging in the lobby. Sullenberger, the U.S. Airways pilot, gave a brief speech and signed a chapter from his memoir, “Highest Duty,” which will be published by William Morrow on Dec. 1.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt lured booksellers and reviewers to its out-of-the-way location with a spread of corned beef sandwiches and pickles promoting “Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen,” by first-time author David Sax.

Book publishing, like music, newspapers and film, is enduring a decline made worse as the Internet forges changes in consumer habits. The industry is anxiously evaluating the likely changes as e-book sales increase.

Electronic Galleys

HarperCollins experimented with so-called “e-galleys,” handing out cards with a Web site from which booksellers and reviewers could download pre-publication editions of various books, including Mary Karr’s memoir “Lit.” The e-galley aimed both to attract attention to the publisher’s digital transition and save money on printing costs.

Digital book sales comprised just 1.6 percent of total revenue in the first quarter, according to the AAP. Yet their growth -- up 131 percent in the period -- combined with the buzz created by Amazon’s Kindle 2, served to highlight that digital books may become the industry’s standard.

Carolyn Reidy, chief executive officer of Simon & Schuster, said this was the first BEA where e-books have been the main topic across the industry. “Whether you’re a mass merchandiser like Target or Wal-Mart, or a bookstore, everyone has wanted to talk about digital,” she said.

Critical Kindle

The Kindle, and other portable devices capable of storing and displaying easy-to-read, full-length books, represents a critical and historic juncture for publishers, said W. Drake McFeely, chairman and president of W.W. Norton & Co. While selling digital books will reduce publishing expenses and prompt further online sales, McFeely said, it’s less clear that publishers will be able to charge as much for an e-book as they have for the printed page.

“People are loading up the Kindle with 30, 40 books because it’s so convenient,” McFeely said. “Well, that’s music to my ears. There’s going to be a challenge on the price, but the ease of e-book shopping could enhance our revenue over time.”

Talk of digital books and increasing online sales worried Terry Whittaker, owner for 28 years of Viewpoint Books in Columbus, Indiana. Having weathered the arrival of chain superstores and Internet book sales, Whittaker, 61, said independent booksellers aren’t sure where they’ll fit in the age of the digital book.

“Nobody really knows what will happen, but the general consensus is, if we don’t do something now, in two or three years it’s going to be too late,” he said.

Closed Bookstores

Many booksellers have already gone out of business. Membership in the American Booksellers Association, a trade group of independent bookstores, dropped 11 percent to 1,880 in April from a year earlier. If the trend continues, next year’s BookExpo may require less floor space and even fewer parties.

(Leon Lazaroff and Laurie Muchnick write for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are their own.)

To contact the writer on the story: Leon Lazaroff in New York at llazaroff@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 1, 2009 00:01 EDT