Schedule:

Friday, January 31, 2025.

8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. - Workshop Intensive

Writers’ Workshop Intensive in the Cross Creek Room at Best Western Gateway Grand

This day-long Intensive learning experience will consist of four 90-minute sessions by subject matter experts. The sessions will be deep and detailed, aimed at giving attendees a clear, readily applicable understanding of each topic.

Workshop Agenda:
8:30 –10:00 a.m.  Power Up Your Prose—It’s simpler than you think.
10:30 a.m. –12:00 noon  Searching for an Agent.
What do agents want? How do you find one? What’s the right query? How long do you wait for a response? Can you query multiple agents at the same time? Keeping track of whom you queried and when.
1:00 -2:30 p.m. Indy Publishing without pulling your hair out.
Many authors find KDP frustrating. This session will go step by step through the entire process, from typesetting to final printing. It will focus on where user errors occur and how to prevent them. Pros and cons of KDP competitors: Ingram Spark, Lulu, Draft2Digital, and Author Solutions will also be compared.
3:00 -4:30 p.m. Marketing your books
A key issue for independent authors is how to attract readers. This session delves into marketing, publicity, and advertising strategies that have been proven to work for book sales, and will cover much more that the oft-bantered solutions of social media and author websites. The techniques are not genre specific and will work for mysteries, romances, paranormal, thrillers, self-help, and nonfiction.

7:00-9:00 p.m. - Opening-night reception. Readers, sponsors, and interested members of the public—come mingle with the authors

Saturday, February 1, 2025

10:00 a.m-4:00 p.m. - Author Showcase and Expo. Come and enjoy a day of browsing—and meet 200 local and regional authors who will talk about their writing, sell, and sign books.

10:00-11:00 a.m. - Sunshine State Teen Lit Awards ceremony. Area middle school and high school student winners of the Sunshine State Teen Lit Short Story Contest will be awarded scholarships. Sponsored by Steve Spurrier’s HBC Foundation.

12:00-3:00 p.m. - Children’s Story Time
Six children’s book authors will read and entertain the little ones in half-hour intervals. Free activity worksheets to take home

1:00-2:00 p.m. - Keynote Speaker Cynthia Barnett
Cynthia Barnett is an award-winning environmental journalist and the author of four books including her latest, The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans, named one of the best science books of the year by NPR’s Science Friday. Her previous books include Rain: A Natural and Cultural History, longlisted for the National Book Award, and Blue Revolution: Unmaking America’s Water Crisis, which calls for a water ethic. Her journalism appears in National Geographic, the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Tampa Bay Times and other publications. Cynthia is a fifth-generation Floridian and the director of Climate and Environment Reporting Initiatives at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications in Gainesville.

3:00-4:00 p.m. - Panel discussion
Perspectives of Climate Change in Literature
Four award-winning novelists will discuss the use of fiction to examine issues of climate change.

Date: January 31-February 1, 2025

Location: Best Western Gateway Grand, 4200 NorthWest 97th Boulevard, Gainesville, FL 32606    

Click here for More Information