Indie fantasy authors to watch: K.C. MAY

There's a new breed of author on the frontlist: the indie. Now it has to be said, significant sales earn respect, and I'm as guilty of making this snap judgement as the next man.

In the bad old days, self-published authors had limited access to the market, and so limited sales, which meant on the whole, they were laughed off as vanity publishers regardless of their literary merit.

When Lulu and Createspace offered POD technology to the masses, self-pubbed authors became slightly more visible, but still uncompetitive on price. It just meant you didn't lose so much money on printing books that didn't sell.

But digital books have removed the restrictions and levelled the battlefield, and lo and behold, some of those indie authors that the 'industry' overlooked are gathering masses of fans to their standards, and clouting the big name authors, even without the benefit of marketing departments and publisher connections.

This makes it doubly impressive that they are visible in the melee; not just visible, but leading the charge.

In my recent post about the Kindle Fantasy Bestseller List I spotted KC MAY raising her banner proudly in the top ten. She was kind enough to tell me the inside story about being a successful indie fantasy author.

KC MAY is a traditionally born author living in her own little fantasy world. She is best known for having curly hair and rottweilers and playing video games.

ON THE PAST
Do you hear voices?

No, but I have voices. I talk to myself as my dog and cat, and as my characters, especially when I'm alone. When I'm in the car, I pretend to sing along to music as I talk to myself, so that people don't think I'm too strange.

What led you into this crazy profession?

I'm not sure. I decided one day that I should try writing down the stories that were inside me. My husband talked me into submitting the first novel to publishers, and while I was waiting for the rejection slips, I wrote another book. And another. And another…

ON WRITING

Speculative fiction takes a lot of 'world-building' brainpower. How long does it take you to 'switch' into your imagined world, and do you have any tricks for shoe-horning your writing hour(s) into your working day?

For stories like the Kinshield Saga, the alternate world is as comfy as an old pair of jeans. I have no problems switching into it on short notice. In fact, I switched in and out of it five times while writing this sentence. New worlds take quite a bit of time to imagine because there's just so much detail I have to envision and figure out.

ON FANTASY

In this age of high-tech science and reason, how do you build a credible magic system?

That's always tough because we don't want to copy what someone else has done, yet *someone* has already done whatever I think up! The trick is to make it my own — to customize my best idea so that it doesn't seem like someone else's magic system.

ON SCIENCE FICTION

With fantasy you explore a world; with scifi: a universe. How did you keep it all in your head?

For me, fantasy is actually harder because the world is completely made up. I use world generators to plan out a continent, then have to figure out where on the planet it is and come up with weather systems, wildlife, and so on. Science fiction might be more difficult if I wrote off-world stories, but I prefer to write near-future stories that take place on earth. I only have to think about the technology and the "future history" based on some event that has happened or could happen. The rest is already done for me.

ON PUBLISHING

You're currently riding the wave of the ebook bestseller lists. Can you outline your progress?

For the first nine months or so, I did all the usual promotional things — jumped on every new review blog to get reviews, did give-aways, tweeted and Facebooked, etc. but my sales didn't really start increasing until a few things happened:

- I put The Kinshield Legacy on sale for 99c on April 1. Sales started picking up.

- On April 8, it was featured on Pixel of Ink. Sales went from 4-5 per day to 15-25 per day.

- Game of Thrones aired on HBO on April 17. (My book isn't that similar, but it's in the same genre.) Sales went from 15-25 per day to 25-40 per day.

- On May 7, it was featured on Ereader News Today. Sales went from 25-40 per day to 50-70 per day.

Then things really began to take off. The Kinshield Legacy sold over 2000 copies in May, over 4600 in June, almost 6000 in July, 7700 for August… The sequel, The Wayfarer King, came out August 3, and it sold 6300 copies its first month. By the end of September, I'd sold over 50,000 books.

How much promotion work was required to get there?

I'm not all that sure promotion helps, but I guess it depends on how you define promotion. I submitted my books to review blogs and cheap ebook sites (Pixel of Ink, Ereader News Today, Daily Cheap Reads, etc), and I'm a frequent contributor on the Amazon Kindle fan page on Facebook. Those are the only forms of promotion that work for me. Some use Twitter effectively, but I haven't got that quite figured out yet.

You recently got some really professional covers done. What sort of investment is that for an author, and was it worth it?

A good cover costs roughly $300 and up, though you can get decent covers for $200-300. I'm going to pay upwards of $1200 for the cover of my next science fiction novel. Custom covers are worth it if they attract readers and make them read the blurb. If a cover doesn't do that much, then it's a failure, regardless of its cost.

ON THE FUTURE

How far away is full-time writing for you, and would you choose to write full time?

I can't really speculate on how far away it is. My day job provides health insurance! One day, I do hope to write full time, though I'm not planning to make the leap anytime soon.

What's next for KC May?

My readers tell me they'd like another Kinshield novel. I left the door cracked open in The Wayfarer King, so I'll tell the story of what happens to Cirang. There's more to the mystery of why King Arek did what he did, too. After that, I've got a science fiction novel in mind in which I'll explore our ability to communicate with dolphins.

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