Sloane Crosley checks in with party organizers as guests begin to arrive at the Helmut Lang shop in the Meatpacking District for the launch of her essay collection, I Was Told There'd Be Cake. As the room filled up, while this photographer concentrated on the fashion designers and socialites in the crowd, I started snapping pictures of assorted publishing folks...

Riverhead editor Sean McDonald catches me with the camera while party co-host A.M. Homes chats with another party guest.

Ian Spiegelman calls out to a friend across the crowded showroom.

Party co-host Jonathan Ames, who's been known to write an essay or two himself from time to time, meets up with mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby.

Julia Allison brought her dog, Lily, who waited patiently in a handbag for most of the evening, and is awfully sweet, but got cropped out of this shot because I gave her the worst redeye ever.

FishbowlNY's Glynnis MacNicol meets Rick Simonson of Seattle's Elliott Bay Bookstore, who joked that he came to New York for the sunshine.

Fortune columnist (and former mediabistro.com editor) Elizabeth Spiers, another of the party's four co-hosts, and Discover web editor Melissa Lafsky chat with friends while waiting for the servers to come by with drinks. (Eventually, we all just started hanging around the back of the showroom and grabbed the guys as soon as they came out from behind the curtain with their drinks trays.)

As book party coverage goes, this is what the New York Times refers to as "flooding the zone."