SFFMP 194: Selling Books and Networking at Conventions and Finding the Balance Between Writing and Marketing with Kevin J. Anderson

This week, Kevin J. Anderson joined us from a remote cabin in Colorado where he’s sequestered to do some work (and talk to us, naturally). The internet connection wasn’t the best for the first few minutes, and we had some lag, but things get steadier about ten minutes in. Kevin talked to us about his experience as a new professor directing the Certificate in Publishing program at Western State Colorado University, about the 22 conventions he went to last year, and about why he’s taking more time just to write this year. We also discussed the marketing he does for his books and the other authors he publishes through Wordfire Press.

Here are some of the specifics of what we covered:

• Teaching students about publishing in today’s quickly changing environment.
• The challenges of working with the slower schedule of traditional publishing.
• The challenges of all you have to learn to be successful as an indie author.
• Tips for successfully selling at conventions.
• Using conventions to meet other authors in your peer group.
• Advice for first-time authors interested in going to conventions.
• The challenges of keeping backlist titles selling while working on publishing new titles.
• What kind of advertising Kevin is regularly doing and finding effective.
• Advice to new indie authors on branding and how to find fans.
• Books Kevin recommends for speculative fiction writers: Writing the Blockbuster Novel, David Farland’s Million Dollar Outlines, and his own World Building: From Small Towns to Entire Universes.

You can find Kevin on his website, on Facebook, and on Twitter, among other places. If you want to check out some of Kevin’s work, he just published a collection of his short stories called Selected Stories: Science Fiction. He also has a new novel out with Sarah A. Hoyt: Uncharted.

| Open Player in New Window

Click to download the mp3.

Subscribe to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast on iTunes.

Subscribe to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast on YouTube.

Subscribe to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast via RSS.

Like us on Facebook.