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NINC 2019 Schedule of Events
Wednesday, September 25th
1-7 PM: Registration Open (Lobby)
5-5:45 PM: First Timers Orientation (Tarpon Key)
6:00 PM: Industry Guest Reception (Sawyer Key)
7:00 PM: Welcome Reception (Courtyard weather permitting)
8:15-9 PM: Night Owls (Tarpon, Sawyer and Long)
Thursday, September 26th
9:00 AM-12:30 PM: Workshops (Tarpon, Sawyer and Long)
12:30-2:00 PM: Lunch
2:00-5:30 PM: Workshops (Tarpon, Sawyer and Long)
7:15-9:00 PM: Night Owls (Tarpon, Sawyer and Long)
7:00-10:00 PM: Sponsored Night Club (Lobby)
Friday, September 27th
9:00 AM-12:30 PM: Workshops (Tarpon, Sawyer and Long)
12:30-2:00 PM: Lunch
2:00-5:30 PM: Workshops (Tarpon, Sawyer and Long)
7:15-9:00 PM: Night Owls (Tarpon, Sawyer and Long)
7:00-10:00 PM: Sponsored Night Club (Lobby)
Saturday, September 28th
9:00 AM-12:30 PM: Workshops (Tarpon, Sawyer and Long)
12:30-2:00 PM: Lunch on your own
2:00-5:30 PM: Workshops (Tarpon, Sawyer and Long)
7:00-9:00 PM: Beachside Blowout Buffet
Speakers Joining us for the 2019 PLANNING FOR SUCCESS Conference
Alex Newton
Alex Newton is the founder of K-lytics.com, a leading provider of book market research. His Genre Reports and Amazon category performance database have brought the power of "Big Data" to the indie publishing world. Alex's research from analyzing millions of books over the last five years has helped thousands of authors to spot opportunities, sell books in attractive market niches, and optimize their book marketing.
Alex spent more than 20-years in top management consulting for Fortune 500 companies. He lives in Switzerland with his wife and daughter and looks forward to joining us in sunny Florida at NINC to share his latest insights.
Learn more about genre trends, book market analytics, and Alex's tools at: => k-lytics.com and k-lytics.com/blog
Carol Saller
Carol Saller is a longtime contributing editor to The Chicago Manual of Style and author of The Subversive Copy Editor. Her posts on language and writing can be found at The Subversive Copy Editor blog as well as at CMOS Shop Talk and the Lingua Franca blog. As a creative writer, Carol has written books for all ages of children, mostly recently the YA novel Eddie’s War.
Chris Fox
Chris Fox firmly believes that talking about yourself in the 3rd person makes you sound like a giant jackass. He’s written over 20 novels, but is best known among authors for his Write Faster, Write Smarter series. From 5,000 Words Per Hour to Plot Gardening to Write to Market Chris has engineered a road map to take any writer from hobbyist to professional. Chris spent many years in software and data analysis, and has used this model to sell over 300,000 books through Amazon and Audible since 2015. He resides in Marin, California, which can be found by following the scent of entitlement until you reach the town with teens driving Teslas.
Damon Suede
Damon Suede as earned his crust as a model, a messenger, a promoter, a programmer, a sculptor, a singer, a stripper, a bookkeeper, a bartender, a techie, a teacher, a director… but writing has ever been his bread and butter. Though new to romance fiction, Damon has been a full-time writer for print, stage, and screen for over two decades. He has won some awards, but counts his blessings more often: his amazing friends, his demented family, his beautiful husband, his loyal fans, and his silly, stern, seductive Muse who keeps whispering in his ear, year after year.
Danielle Marshall
Danielle Marshall is the Editorial Director of Lake Union Publishing. Notable acquisitions include the #1 Amazon Charts and USA Today bestseller Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan, The first of the million-selling Everything Series, Everything We Keep by Kerry Lonsdale, and the bestselling Leftie and Agatha Award–winning title, In Farleigh Field by Rhys Bowen. Danielle has held a wide range of book retail and publishing positions, starting as a bookseller. Other positions included book buyer and promotions manager for Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, and marketing and public relations director at Simon & Schuster. She joined Amazon’s publishing team in 2012 and helped launch the imprint now known as Lake Union.
Dave Chesson
David Gaughran
David Gaughran lives in Dublin, where rain comes up from the ground and everyone has pints for hands. He writes historical fiction and science fiction, and has helped thousands of authors publish their work through his workshops, blog, and writers’ books: Let’s Get Digital, Strangers to Superfans, Amazon Decoded, and BookBub Ads Expert. He has also created marketing campaigns for some of the biggest self-publishers on the planet.
Geoff Symon
Geoff Symon is a 20-year Federal Forensic Investigator. His participation in high-profile cases includes the attacks on September 11, 2001, the War in Iraq, the Space Shuttle Columbia explosion, among countless other cases. He has direct, first-hand experience investigating cases including murder (of all types), suicide, arson, kidnapping, bombings, sexual assault, child exploitation, theft and financial crimes. He has specified and certified training in the collection and preservation of evidence, blood spatter analysis, autopsies and laboratory techniques. His Forensics for Fiction series has become the go-to resource for genre authors. You can reach him at GeoffSymon.com.
Houston Howard
As the Chief Storyteller and Co-Founder of One 3 Creative, Houston Howard is a recognized producer, author, speaker and thought leader in the entertainment and branding communities because of his unique and proprietary transmedia approach to story. Advising entities such as Mattel, Disney Imagineering, Reliance Media Works, West Coast Customs, Samuel Goldwyn Films and Harper Collins Publishing, as well as designing a number of transmedia-focused projects for Fox, the CW, TNT, Slinky and the writers of Toy Story, Houston has an impressive amount of of experience designing projects that are primed for the 21st Century.
Jordyn White
Jordyn White has published over a dozen books under two pen names. She launched her third contemporary romance series with the novel Heart of Glass. Her debut novel, the epic fantasy adventure Gift of the Phoenix, has won several awards.
Jordyn co-founded the Idaho Editor and Writers Association and still leads alongside her co-founders to facilitate the group’s mission to develop and nurture the professional growth of its members.
Every year, Jordyn teaches at several writers events, both big and small, and is known for her engaging, insightful presentations.
For more information about her contemporary romance novels, visit JordynWhiteBooks.com
For her epic fantasy, visit DonnaCookAuthor.com
Kilby Blades
Kilby Blades is a 35-time-award-winning author of Romance and Women's Fiction. Her debut novel, Snapdragon, was a HOLT Medallion finalist, a Publisher’s Weekly BookLife Prize Semi-Finalist, and an IPPY Award medalist.
When she’s not writing fiction, Kilby helps authors overcome marketing barriers by exposing myths and teaching them how to think like pros; she also runs the collaborative advice portal, Six Figure Author. Kilbyholds an MBA from the University of Chicago and managed more than $50 million in ad spend as Media VP with a NYC digital marketing agency during her 15-year career.
At the end of a long day, she loves an evening walk, Netflix and a drink with lots of bourbon.
Liz Pelletier
Coming out of the dot com era, serial entrepreneur Liz Pelletier has more than thirty years of experience in software engineering, systems analysis, and business management. In 2011, Liz channeled her love of romantic fiction and co-founded Entangled Publishing. Over the past eight years, Entangled has gone from a small start-up to a powerhouse romance publisher, with more than 1600 titles released to date. Liz lives in Colorado, is surviving twins in college, and holds an unwavering love of Game of Thrones.
Mark Dawson
Mark Dawson is the bestselling author of the John Milton series and the founder of the Self Publishing Formula.
Sarra Cannon
Sarra Cannon is the indie author of more than twenty-five Young Adult contemporary fantasy novels, including her bestselling Shadow Demons Saga. Her novels often stem from her own experiences growing up in the small town of Hawkinsville, Georgia, where she learned that being popular always comes at a price and relationships are rarely as simple as they seem.
With close to three-quarters of a million books sold, Sarra is also passionate about helping fellow authors learn to self-publish in a way that puts joy and creativity at the forefront. She is the host of the successful YouTube channel and blog Heart Breathings, where she talks about everything from productivity to plotting. Sarra lives in Charleston, South Carolina with her supportive husband and her adorable red-headed son.
Tom Colgan
Tom Colgan is the Vice President, Editorial Director at Berkley. He started his career at Berkley in 1985. In those days he worked on everything from the novelization of the movie ET: The Extraterrestrial to westerns. He then spent six years at Avon/Morrow and returned to Berkley as an Executive Editor in 1996. He has worked with such bestselling authors as Tom Clancy, W.E.B. Griffin, Mark Greaney, and Janet Evanovich. Among the New York Times bestselling titles Tom has edited are Look Alive Twenty-Five, Tom Clancy Oath of Office, and Mission Critical. Follow him on Twitter @TomColgan14
Julie Braunschweiger (Barnes & Noble Press)
Julie Braunschweiger, Senior Associate for Barnes & Noble’s self publishing platform, is responsible for author outreach, promotions, and social media strategy. Previously, Julie spent four years in Los Angeles working for DreamWorks Studios, providing support to the story department, as well as at Arad Productions as a Development Assistant. Before joining B&N, Julie was also the lead bookseller for a local, independent bookstore in Katonah, New York.
Katie Donelan (BookBub)
Katie Donelan is the Head of Partner Relations at BookBub. Katie's team works with all the major publishing houses, mid-size and smaller publishers, and thousands of independent authors to help them market their books to BookBub’s millions of engaged readers. Katie joined the BookBub team in early 2012 and had formerly worked in the editorial department at Random House Publishing Group and on the digital advertising team at Conde Nast.
Carlyn Roberston (BookBub)
Carlyn Robertson is responsible for partner education on BookBub’s Partners Team. She’s an expert on BookBub’s promotional tools and ensures that authors, publishers, and book marketers know how to use those tools to accomplish their marketing goals.
Damon Courtney (Bookfunnel)
Damon Courtney is a Fantasy author and creator of BookFunnel.com. Though he spends more time writing code than words these days, he still considers himself an author at heart and is always working to make the indie publishing community more awesome.
Kevin Tumlinson (Draft2Digital)
Kevin Tumlinson is a bestselling and award-winning thriller author, Director of Marketing for Draft2Digital, and Host of the Wordslinger Podcast. He has worked with thousands of authors worldwide, from newcomers to seasons pros, to empower them in building and growing a successful author career.
Tara Cremin (Kobo Writing Life)
Tara is responsible for the overall author experience on Kobo Writing Life, from optimizing current features to looking for new avenues of growth. Her aim is to make KWL the greatest and most user-friendly self-publishing platform available.
Tara has worked for KWL since inception and was previously responsible for Content Operations. Combining technical expertise with an in-depth knowledge of the self-publishing community, she loves talking to authors and using direct feedback to make improvements that benefit the whole user base.
Ricardo Fayet (Reedsy)
Ricardo Fayet is one of the founders of Reedsy, an online marketplace connecting authors with some of the world’s best editors, designers, marketers and website designers. A digital marketing enthusiast, he’s currently writing a book to help authors manage Facebook ads more efficiently. He’s also the author of several online courses on marketing as part of Reedsy Learning.
James Blatch (Self Publishing Formula)
James Blatch is the co-host of The Self Publishing Show and a co-founder of the Self Publishing Formula. Along with Mark Dawson and John Dyer he has helped create the SPF community and series of online courses for indie writers. James is a former BBC Television News reporter and presenter and a former film examiner for the British Board of Film Classification. He is writing his debut novel, a Cold War aviation thriller, due for publication this year. James lives near Cambridge in the UK with his wife and two children.
Becca Syme
Becca Syme (MATL) has been a success coach (primarily utilizing the Gallup Strengthsfinder®) for thirteen years. She’s coached 2000+ authors and creatives through her Write Better-Faster and Strengths for Writers classes: six- and seven-figure authors, major award winners, midlisters, and new authors alike. Becca is the co-host of the DBW-nominated Smartypants Book Marketing Podcast and the host of the QuitCast. She is also a NINC member and a mystery author, and lives with her wine-drinking cat in the mountains of Montana. http://betterfasteracademy.com
Caro Bégin
Caro Bégin is a French-Canadian writer and web developer with a serious case of wanderlust. Her eclectic background includes an engineering degree, military service, classroom experience, and well over a decade of search engine optimization and website development. She writes fiction under two pen names, so she understands the challenges that authors face while marketing their books online. Her web expertise and teaching experience make her uniquely qualified to help authors with their websites. Visit GoCreate.me to learn more about Parallax for Writers, a powerful, intuitive, and affordable WordPress theme built especially for authors.
Chasity Jenkins-Patrick
Corey Alderin
Corey is the lead developer and co-founder at Book Brush. He is responsible for making the user experience exceptional, implementing new features that authors love, and making it easy for authors to create great graphics. He has been developing websites for 10 years and enjoys the challenge of creating something that solves a user’s pain point but is also easy and fun to use. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife and three kids where he enjoys golfing, listening to good podcasts, and watching his kids play softball.
Diane Garland
Diane Garland and her company Your WorldKeeper, specializes in the world of continuity. She has presented at several conferences and her articles have been published on various online sites. Multiple best-selling and award-winning authors in various genres rely on her system of cataloging and organizing the minutiae and rules of their story worlds. Growing up as an AF Brat, Diane traveled extensively as a child, which has fueled her passion for travel and reading. She, along with her husband and two cats, have recently relocated to Columbus, Ohio from the Seattle, Washington area.
Gwen Hernandez
Gwen Hernandez is the author of Scrivener For Dummies. She helps authors all over the world find the joy in Scrivener through her online courses, in-person workshops, and private training. Gwen has been using Scrivener to write romantic suspense (Men of Steele series) since 2009. In her spare time she likes to travel, read, jog, flail on a yoga mat, and explore southern California, where she currently lives with her husband and a lazy golden retriever.
Joe Solari
Joe Solari is the founder of IndieAuthorAlchemy.com. He wants to help authors craft a business that delivers an HEA. Joe helps authors achieve their life goals while doing what they love. He does this by applying his 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship and his fancy MBA from the University of Chicago to the author business issues. As an author himself, he understands that the perils and pleasures of a career as an author can be balanced by using business practices to deliver the results an author desires.
Josh Wiley
Josh is the co-founder of the Book Brush image creation platform. He has had hundreds of phone consulting calls with authors over the last few years and is an expert in all things marketing. Josh has grown email lists and messenger bots totaling over 500,000 subscribers. He is also blessed to work with several publishers on various ad campaigns throughout the year. Josh married his high school sweetheart (Karen) and they live in Tennessee with four amazing kids.
Kathleen Sweeney
Kathleen is the Manager of Customer Service and the Image Creation Specialist at Book Brush. She has over 17 years of client service and business assurance experience across the financial recovery and healthcare industries. She thoroughly enjoys working with authors and helping them create eye-catching images. She lives in central Illinois with her husband and three busy, fun-loving boys. Her hobbies include reading and turning socks right side out in her houseful of boys!
Kathy Williams
Kathy is the Marketing Manager at Essentially Chas, a boutique Marketing Agency for authors. She’s an innovative marketing professional with extensive experience in communications, social media, content management, and brand management. In the romance publishing industry, Kathy has worked directly with both traditional and indie authors, as well as publishing houses, public relations agencies and author content marketing sites. Before her work in the romance industry, Kathy enjoyed an extensive career digital communications and marketing with national brands such as WebMD, Wounded Warrior Project and iVillage.
Kimberli A. Bindschatel
Kimberli Bindschatel’s a thrill seeker, travel adventurer, passionate animal lover, and author of the Poppy McVie Mystery series.
When she’s not busting bad guys with her pen, she’s out in the wilderness getting an adrenaline fix. She has rappelled down a waterfall in Costa Rica, faced down an Alaskan grizzly bear at ten feet, and white-water kayaked a Norwegian river.
She lives in Michigan where she loves to hike in the woods with her rescue dog, Josee, or sail Lake Michigan with her husband on their boat, Priorities.
Kimberli also co-writes the Charity Styles Caribbean Thriller series with Wayne Stinnett.
Mark Lefebvre
Mark’s experience in publishing and bookselling spans more than three decades and includes creating Kobo Writing Life for Rakuten Kobo, Inc, running one of the world's first Espresso Book Machine (POD) operations at McMaster University, and President of the Canadian Booksellers Association. Mark is the Director of Business Development for the world's premier author-first indie publishing platform Draft2Digital (Ask him how NINC 2018 played a role in that). He thrives on innovation in relation to digital publishing opportunities, and loves to continue learning and sharing insights about writing and publishing via his weekly podcast Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing.
M.L. “Matt” Buchman
Michael Banner
Michael Banner is an international best-seller, penning eleven novels as ML Banner.
A serial entrepreneur, Michael has formed dozens of businesses over thirty-five years, including SmallBiZ.com, which has helped more than 100,000 to start their own corporation or LLC. He serves on boards of other start-ups and has consulted with thousands, assisting them on how to setup and manage their own enterprises. Recently, he and another NINC member, co-founded Mission Critical Publishing LLC.
Next up, the Self-Publishing Empire Series of books, starting with How to Form Your Publishing Entity. Michael’s wife “forces” him to relax at their Mexican beach or cruise to another foreign port.
Victoria Stone
Formerly writing as bestselling romance novelist Victoria Dahl, Victoria Helen Stone is now embracing the darker side of fiction. She has written the critically acclaimed, bestselling novels Evelyn, After; Half Past; and False Step. Her Amazon Charts bestselling thriller Jane Doe has been optioned by Sony Television, and a follow-up novel, Problem Child, will be published by Lake Union in 2020.
Brad West
Brad West is one of the creators of Vellum, which has been used by thousands of authors to create beautiful books.
Albert Wu
Albert is the Director of Product for Barnes & Noble Press. He is responsible for developing features and services that help make self-publishing easy and delightful for independent authors to sell their books to millions of readers on BN.com, NOOK and Barnes & Noble stores.
Mel Jolly
Mel Jolly has been "Keeping Creatives Out of the Loony Bin Since 2009." Mel's mission is to teach authors how to be more productive and less stressed so they can unleash their creative awesomeness on the world. If that sounds good to you, sign up for Mel's quick tips at meljolly.com.
Kate Tilton
Kate Tilton has been serving authors since 2010. Founder of Kate Tilton’s Author Services, LLC, Kate helps authors of all stripes navigate the publishing world and connect with readers. She loves cats, tea, and all geeky things. You can find Kate on katetilton.com.
Amy Atwell
Amy Atwell is the author of two romance novels and founder of Author E.M.S., where for the past six years, she’s provided services focusing on formatting digital and print book files and uploading to online retailers for over 350 indie authors and small publishers.
Marsha Zinberg
During a publishing career spanning more than thirty years, Marsha Zinberg served as executive editor at Harlequin Enterprises, where she ensured the strategic direction of a wide range of evolving publishing programs, including continuities, mysteries, all categories of romance and women’s fiction, men’s adventure and reissues. Through her company, The Write Touch, she now consults on and edits projects in genres such as women's fiction, mystery, romantic suspense, thriller, romance, and memoir.
Victoria Thompson
Victoria Thompson is the bestselling author of the Edgar ® and Agatha Award nominated Gaslight Mystery Series and the Sue Grafton Memorial Award nominated Counterfeit Lady Series. Her latest books are Murder on Trinity Place and City of Secrets, both from Berkley. She has published 20 historical romances and 24 mysteries, and she currently teaches in the Master’s program for writing popular fiction at Seton Hill University. She lives in Illinois with her husband and a very spoiled little dog.
Charlotte Hubbard
Charlotte Hubbard sold her first story to True Story magazine in 1983. In the 36 years since, she’s sold more than 70 confession stories, along with 50 traditionally published novels, 2 serialized online novels, and numerous novellas to 6 different publishers—everything from bodice rippers to hardcore erotica to the Amish inspirational novels she’s writing now—under 3 different names. Her theme song is “Stayin’ Alive.”
Susan Meier
Susan Meier is the author of over seventy romances for Harlequin, Silhouette, Entangled, Tule and one of Guideposts' Grace Chapel Inn books. She's a frequent workshop speaker and regularly teaches for RWA chapters online. Her most requested workshops are CAN THIS MANUSCRIPT BE SAVED, KEEPING THE TENSION ALIVE IN ROMANCE NOVELS WITHOUT SEX and KNOW YOUR STORY.
Wayne Stinnett
Wayne is an American novelist and Marine Corps Veteran. Between those careers, he's worked as a deckhand, commercial fisherman, and dive master, among other things. He lives in Beaufort, South Carolina with his wife and the youngest of their four kids. He grew up in Melbourne, FL and has also lived in Marathon, FL, the Bahamas, and Cozumel, Mexico.
Yumoyori Wilson
Yumoyori Wilson is a Full-Time Author with over 70 books in her two-year career. She previously was a Pediatric Registered Nurse, working her night shifts away and reading her kindle during her breaks. She decided to take the chance at becoming an author and is now working on multiple projects in various genres, including Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and more. She has many plans for the fiction and nonfiction world, including the future production of a non-profit organization for indie authors.
Tricia Gallagher
Knowing a little bit about a lot of things is what ultimately drove Tricia Gallagher to follow her passion into education. Once her head became so full of semi-useful knowledge, the only thing left to do was share it with other people.
Tricia spent the first 15 years of her career in the Graphics and marketing industry before moving into the education field. She spent 10+ years educating before leaving the field for her first passion which is books. Joining the CreateSpace team 4 years ago started Tricia on her new journey that brought her full circle back to design and education. A year and a half ago, she was able to put all her experience together to help start KDP University. Now Tricia happily spends her days compiling all that semi-useful knowledge and sharing it with KDP authors.
Ashley Wells
Ashley’s passion for the arts has led her career in a variety of directions. With a background in graphic design, she began her career as an exhibition designer at a history museum in Orlando, Florida. After several years, she was asked to become a senior designer for a print media company, where she handled many clients’ projects.
When Ashley and her husband moved to Charleston, South Carolina, she joined the CreateSpace team as a designer before making her way to Kindle Direct Publishing. She now works with the KDP Author Relations team and is delighted to be a part of the self-publishing world.
