Trade shows and hawking one's wares

An interesting article over at the Living Dice blog that gives a clue as to what goes on at the GAMA trade show recently completed in Las Vegas.  They've had a series of articles on their time at GAMA before that, and although they've been quite interesting, I've had a little trouble imagining what it's like - you don't get a sense of scale from their pictures.  I have only been to a couple of business trade shows, and those were focused on children's books for some reason.  I've been to the exhibit hall at several academic conferences, and I've talked to a number of commercial folks running booths at those, but I imagine it's not really the same.  GAMA sounds like the real thing, where publishers try to find retailers and hawk their products, and business deals happen everywhere.

I imagine I'll need to consider going to GAMA once I've got a product to sell, although having a booth with only one product to show doesn't sound so great.  I hear that sometimes you can share booth space from a distributor or make arrangements like that, so maybe that will be an option while I'm still small-time with only one or two products.  Or maybe I can just go and buttonhole people in elevators, bars, and men's rooms, but that sounds like a skill I don't have yet.  Anyway, I'll need to figure out a promotional strategy at some point, and GAMA and other conferences may be part of that.