SFFMP 28: Marketing Steampunk and Working with a Small Press with AW Exley
Tonight we talked to AW Exley, the author of the popular steampunk adventures, The Artifact Hunters. She hails from rural New Zealand and signed on with Curiosity Quills, a small press, to start out. She’s since started publishing some of her work independently and spoke to us about the differences in marketing and control. Here’s a quick look at some of what we covered:
- Advantages of going with a small press when you’re starting out
- Why AW Exely decided to self-publish her more recent books
- Spending time on social media and marketing versus just writing the next book in a series
- The challenges of growing a private mailing list when a publisher is handling the backmatter (and putting their own newsletter link in)
- The advantages of wearing a corset when pimping books to the steampunk audience. 😉 (And will Jo buy a corset or will he not?)
- Tips for new writers
- Dealing with bad reviews
- Thoughts on what makes a good cover in the steampunk genre (and overused images/ideas)
- Being the big fish in the small pond and choosing a smaller category on Amazon
You can check out AW’s first book, Nefertiti’s Heart (The Artifact Hunters Book 1), and visit her on Twitter or Facebook.
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Another great episode.
I’m on book six of the steampunk series I’ve been working on for the last two years… I should be further along, I think, but I’ve made repeated digressions into other genres. I’ve definitely found it more efficient and effective to stick to the series and finish it out before moving on to the next shiny premise.
Definitely true, Michael, but I’m horrible about sticking to one series myself. So many bright shiny ideas out there. Sometimes it’s hard to balance the artistic side with the entrepreneurial side. 😉