How'd It Go at Sunshine State Book Festival 2025

Well...

I spent Friday driving up early to visit the olde stomping grounds of the University of Florida campus, coping with some traffic issues once I got to Archer Rd. - that never changes - and then spending time at the Library West building to get some online writing done.

 

At the College of Journalism (Weimer Hall)
I don't think they're repainted the place since 1992...

I mostly waited out until my hotel allowed for check-ins (3:00pm) at which point I checked in, tried to get refreshed, and found out I had forgot to pack my dopp kit (!) so I needed to rush out to the store for a toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, and a comb. /sigh  I always forget something...

That evening was an authors' mixer party at the resort conference hall, so I attended to see where the place was - making sure I won't get lost on Saturday - and where the room will be.

Hey! They spelled my name right! There IS a god...

Even then, it was a bit of an adventure getting there Saturday morning anyway - making sure I had packed everything from the hotel room - and dealing with the table setup.

There. More presentable.
I got a desktop bookshelf so to not block the table. The taller
bookrack I own is too wide for the space they provided.

My short story collection Funny Locations was the main draw, but I also displayed the other anthologies - the Strangely Funny set - in order to provide some purchasing options for any curious readers. We were hoping for a good turnout.

Might as well show off one of the awards I have from RPLA!

So the day was set, the books on display, the author prepped for audiences...

I wear a Batman shirt, often with a blue button shirt over it.
Hey, some authors showed up as pirates and gypsies and Abe Lincoln...

...and got no buyers.

Oh, I handed out bookmarks and rack cards promoting my works, but... nobody wanted to buy one of my books.

The guy to my right sold seven copies of his book (he did confess four of them were friends who drove up from Orlando). The guy to my left sold four. (the woman right next to me didn't do much engagement and she left halfway through due to not feeling well)

I thought I talked about this often to my friends and colleagues, asking directly or dropping hints to see if they or their friends in the area could stop by to the event. I know I didn't have the most eye-catching table display - and I couldn't use my standing banner as there wasn't room - but still I hoped at least one person would be in the mood for humorous works.

/sigh

It's times like that where I question if I should even do any of these authors events. I've maybe sold one copy of a book at each event most times, with only one visit to the Clermont comic-con a few years ago where I exceeded expectations with eight sales. 

Marketing is a big step in being a self-published author, and I admit I am not good at it. At all.

What should I do? Seriously.

Reminder: Sunshine State Book Festival 2025 in Gainesville FL

Please if you live in north-central Florida or if you know anybody who does - within driving distance of Gainesville - stop by the Sunshine State Book Festival and support your local authors. 

I'll be there, on Saturday February 1st from open to close, and today the organizers confirmed my booth location at #114. If I can paste the map here:

I'll be in the Humor aisle, next to Action/Thriller

Hope to see you there!

Put It On the Calendar: Sunshine State Book Festival 2025 in Gainesville

I am proud to announce I will be among a ton of authors at the upcoming Sunshine State Book Festival in Gainesville the weekend of January 31st - February 1st 2025.

(squee)

This will be a personal delight because I will return to ye olde college stomping grounds of University of Florida, a quiet little nostalgic trip while reveling in my semi-consistent career as a short story writer of little renown.

(beat)

Yeah I gotta work on that.

The location is a little off from the center of Gainesville itself, so here's the street address you can plug into the GPS tracking to find your way:

Sunshine State Book Festival

January 31 – February 1, 2025

Best Western Gateway Grand

4200 NW 97th Blvd. Gainesville, Florida

I'll be promoting Funny Locations for the most part, but I'll bring along some of my other promo materials for the Strangely Funny anthologies to entice people.

 

Hope to see you all there, and a pre-emptive Happy New Year for this.

Okay fine Happy Turkey Sacrifice Day as well.

Lake County Comic Con Sunday November 21: Be There And Be Square!!! ...Wait is that how it works...?

 Hola and opa, faithful followers of this blog!

I will make an Author's appearance at the upcoming LAKE COUNTY COMIC CON this Sunday November 21st opening at 10:00AM! It's at Trilogy Orlando in Groveland, FL, (exact address is 100 Falling Acorn Ave, Groveland, FL 34736 so you can GPS it) with tickets going for $8 a person.

This is slightly to the northwest of Clermont (emphasis on north), where I've been to previous comic cons this time of year.

I'll be selling copies of my story anthology Last of the Grapefruit Wars as well as volumes of the Strangely Funny anthologies containing my works, especially the latest work "War of the Murder Hornets!"

This year I'm including Witty Librarian mousepads for sale, and I will be holding a raffle drawing of a Witty Librarian coffee mug!

Some lucky winner will get this official Witty mug!!!

I promise to be fully vaccinated for the event - getting a booster shot this week - masking up and socially distancing, and I hope to see you there with appropriate CDC-approved style!

Clermont Comic Con November 18 COMING UP

I will be at CLERMONT COMIC CON on Sunday November 18!

Tickets are $12 per person. They'll be cosplayers, games, authors, artists, vendors aplenty!

To all seven people keeping track of this blog, I hope to see you there!

...

It's in Clermont.

Clermont, Florida.

...

...

The place with all the hills. Okay?

Sigh. GOOGLE MAP IT.

Just show up, will ya?

P.S. Still Writing NaNo!

Getting Ready for EPICON 2017

Okay, so do I have everything packed???

Clothes, maybe. Toothbrush, think so. Deodorant? (sniffs) Yeah, I'm gonna need three more sticks.

Got copies of my books and anthologies to sell.

Got a Book Stand to display them.

Got a Promotional Banner to show behind the vendor's table.

Got driving directions.

Got a hotel reservation.

Got music burned to iPod AND CDs depending on which format the radio takes (going be driving dad's station wagon, the parents worry about me in an SUV).

Got bookmarks and display materials.

Got pens to autograph any book I sell.

Got Paypal on my smartphone for card purchases.

Got Shoes, Shirts, Dice.

What am I forgetting?

...

I'm always forgetting something.

Anyways.

I hope to see you all at the Albany Civic Center on Saturday August 19th for EpiCon!

Clermont Comic Con November 2017: Author Time!

I'm making arrangements right now to attend Clermont Comic Con on Sunday November 19 2017 as an Author.

More local communities are hosting their own scifi/fantasy/comics conventions, noting the modern appeal of cool geek. You don't have to go to a major Con in a large city anymore. Well, actually, you kinda want to because you get to see more A-List celebs and artists, but hey, any chance to hang out in public dressed as Batgirl is a good plan.

Don't forget I have a trip to Albany GA this month, for the Epi-Con on Saturday August 19th! Hope to see you there!

To the City of My Birth, I Will Go

Comic cons are getting to be nationwide, even the small cities away from the urban centers like Orlando and Tampa are hosting their own.

Bartow, as you know, has one called SyFy (I need to upload photos of the one we just had).

Albany, Georgia has one going now, called Epicon.

I was born there, ages ago, in the forgotten days of yore.

They're hosting their next one in August.

I should go. I haven't been to the hometown since 1974 when my family moved to Virginia Beach. It's right up the road on US 19, there's been several chances I could have gone.

I've got books I can sell, as an author. I have a story in Strangely Funny III, "Minette Dances With the Golem of Albany," that has specific ties to the city.

Now I've got a great reason to do so.

Update 3/14/17: Okay, I am signed up. Now it's a question of finding out which hotels the guest artists are staying at if they've got one lined up.

Official Invitation to Wesley Chapel Barnes & Noble on May 21st

I have been formally invited to attend this year's Local Authors event at the Wesley Chapel Barnes & Noble bookstore on Saturday May 21st.

It will be in the afternoon from 2pm to 4pm, and most likely on the Second Floor as always.

This year, I will have a few more ebooks to promote as well as the third volume of the Strangely Funny series.

I really would like to see my friends in the Tampa Bay area show up for moral support.

There will be more details to follow.

Things About ePublishing February 2015 Notes

1) There's a lot of work to put in to keep up with your Author's pages on Amazon.com and Goodreads.

1a) Does Barnes and Noble carry an Author's page like Amazon does?

2) Wondering if I can submit my self-published stories to the Florida Writers' Association awards for this year.

2a) Tempted to write a story for the FWA's annual anthology.  This year's theme is Revisions.

3) Keeping an eye out for when local authors' events might happen so I can try and shill some of my work.

Still working on my Ocean Dancers rough draft for NaNoWriMo.

Tim Dorsey at Bartow Public Library: The Early Warning

We're hosting Tim Dorsey - of the Serge A Storm series - this Saturday at Bartow Public Library (Bartow, FL).

We expect Mr. Dorsey will talk about his travels across the state, and how he determines the proper method of killing off rude characters in each unique touristy locale.

I'm serious.  If Tim Dorsey includes a character based on you in any of his Serge novels, you will die in a painful and creative manner...

So be very polite when he shows up, and no sudden movements, and STOP TURN OFF THAT AUTOFLASH ON YOUR SMARTPHONE NOOOOOoooo... Oh no... OH NO.  RUN...

April Event! Get Your Calendars Out

Just to let you seven blog readers know, I've been invited to a Local Authors Event at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Wesley Chapel, FL (address is 28152 Paseo Dr also known as the Shops At Wiregrass).  The event is Saturday April 14th from 2 pm to 4 pm and involves about 10-12 local self-published or small-press authors hawking our titles.  I'll be offering up Last of the Grapefruit Wars in print as well as promoting my estories Welcome to Florida and The Hero Cleanup Protocol.

For some reason, that store's website doesn't have anything scheduled on their calendar (not even Nook training classes, so I think they're just late submitting one), so for linking purposes I have the Event notice from Facebook right here.

Please tell anyone you know in the Tampa Bay area that's within driving distance of Wesley Chapel to please show up and support our local authors!  (good turnouts always encourage the stores to keep hosting these events...)

Here's a promotional sign I've made for Welcome to Florida:

How does it look?

New eStory: The Hero Cleanup Protocol

by. Paul Wartenberg
cover by.  Paul Wartenberg, 'cause I'm waiting on word from Adam Withers if he's available to draw a cover for me... ;-)

The story is an idea I'd been bumping about for ages: my own little superhero reality where it's a world where Superheroes exist... but because they didn't know they classified as supers, by the time they could do anything about it (the Sixties) all the superhero names were claimed by the comic book industry.  So they have to go with fake "real names" like Charlie or Vicky... except for the rare few who can afford to pay a name squatter the rights to those names.  This is also a world where Superheroes have to be registered: either work under legal guidelines for the U.S. Marshals or the military (where supersoldiers rarely worked out well...), or "retire".  The mechanics of the world is that 1) anyone can be a hero: there's no defining DNA or chromosomal trait or mutating process; 2) most super powers are basic such as improved agility, speed, and flight... but that's usually it, there are few advanced powers like firestarting, telekinesis, or scrying; 3) the powers are mental in nature, not physical, even the powers of strength and invulnerability; 4) Most supers don't even know they have powers because they're rarely in a situation to employ them; and 5) there are few true Superhumans or God-like beings: most are mortal humans (there's one or two notable exceptions, and they're terrifying...).

In this world, there's (supposedly) one potential superhuman per 500,000 people.  Most supers organize into teams per city/metro, dedicated to stuff like bounty hunting, emergency response to disasters, and public relations (they're treated like sports athletes and celebrities: the third thing you get when you become a Registered Super - AKA Talent because "Super" had been trademarked - is your own playable trading card).  And in this world, every wannabe hero goes through rigorous training with the FBI and Marshals offices at Quantico.  They also go through rigorous psych evals, because the last thing anyone wants on their team is a superhero ready to snap at any second.

My story is about what happens when a new hero arrival snaps on his first day.  That's the Cleanup Protocol.  And it's my introduce to the key character of my superhero universe: Powersurge, the exception to all the rules I made...

It's been uploaded into Smashwords, made available for various ereader services.  I think it has a converted format for Kindle as well, which is a bit surprising because I thought Kindle was still using an exclusive format...

This was part of my Local Authors event presentation: I wanted to demonstrate the relative ease of getting a story uploaded straight from Word document format into an epublishing market.

The tricky part now is, obviously, how to get 50,000 people to buy that estory... ;-)

Local Authors Event: Tarpon Springs April 5th

I will be at the Tarpon Springs Public Library today to promote my book Last of the Grapefruit Wars, my eshort story "Welcome To Florida", and possibly see about posting a new eshort through Smashwords to demonstrate how that might work.  No guarantees though.

Enjoy the Issue 20 updating to City of Heroes!

Authors Den

As mentioned in the previous entry, I had attended the Feb. 5th Authors Event in Wesley Chapel, and had come away meeting fellow local authors such as Philip Rice, who recommended to me a website called Authors Den.

It's a directory of independent authors, listings of their works, links to those titles available online, contact info, and so on.  I signed up for it.  It's a question now of figuring out how to use the site to market myself, to increase interest in my work, so on.

By the way, I still need to pay off this new computer.  BUY MY BOOK AND ESHORT!

I Survived The Feb. 5th Local Authors Event in Wesley Chapel

I sold one paperback copy of Last of the Grapefruit Wars and handed out about twelve bookmarks for the eshort story Welcome to Florida.  Have to admit most of the book shoppers were curious but few were buying.

I sat next to, by the by, Philip Rice with his memoir Mixed Bag (he was a fellow survivor of the XLibris experience) and also next to Madonna Wise who was promoting a pair of local histories on Zephyrhills.

Feb 5th: Local Authors Event at Barnes and Noble Wesley Chapel FL

I will attend the Local Authors event at the mid-Pasco Barnes and Noble store in Wesley Chapel, FL, this Saturday Feb. 5th from 2 pm - 4 pm.  Its at the Shops at Wiregrass Mall, 28512 Paseo Dr.  It's off of State Rd 56, east of the I-75 intersection along the Pasco-Hillsborough border.

I will be marketing my collected shorts anthology Last of the Grapefruit Wars, and will see about advertising my recently released estory "Welcome to Florida".

Please attend.  I need a few people to show up and scream like I'm a Beatle.  :-)