Ask HN: Artists of HN, who are you/what are you working on? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Artists of HN, who are you/what are you working on?

10 pointstotetsu8 comments

I’m a SRE, but I’m on an extended vacation right now and using it to expand and pursue my photography. I host it all over at https://hec.works/photo-sessions

I really like how your photos make the best of the properties of film, without trying too hard to look filmy. How is maintaining your own site? I settled for a Hugo blog for my photo site, just to make it easy to keep up to date.

Thanks so much! Maintaining is easy now, the important part was just designing a system that makes it easy to get new updates out. After that, it’s mostly just run a script, enter a few pieces of text, and it’s good to go!

Currently working on a collection of pottery to sell in a new gallery. Cups, bowls, general tableware all in the kiln currently, hopefully no unexpected catastrophe awaits!

I’ve also got a wordless comic that is nearly complete that I need to force myself to finish. I’m moving house soon, which means I’ll be away from a pottery studio, so I’ll have no excuse not to finish it then

We'll, I've got some new pencils. So we'll see if anything comes out of that.

Working on a space opera romance novel that is part of a new series I've started. I'm currently in the stage of addressing developmental editor feedback and at the same time figuring out a launch plan.

Interesting. Space opera often seems to be able to accommodate interesting takes on romance. Like Ian Banks' Mutual pregnancy, or The expanses whole ship crew polyamory. How do you plan to market and promote your novel's launch? Any specific strategies or platforms you're considering?

I have a release planning meeting with my PA this Thursday to figure out a launch strategy. I've been self-publishing exclusive to Amazon (in Kindle Unlimited) for the last couple of years but am also still very new/unestablished there. This will be my first "wide" release on all storefronts as I'm not comfortable remaining exclusive to Amazon. I have some vague ideas for what to do launch-marketing-wise, but being totally unestablished in the wide space it'll be an uphill battle. The strategy will involved at minimum the following:

* Promoting to my modest reader newsletter

* Setting up Advance Review Copies to get reviews on launch

* Reaching out to Kobo Writing Life for launch promo options (they're currently helping out new-wide authors as they promote their new Kobo Plus subscription program, so they may be able to help me out)

* _Potentially_ doing a Goodreads giveaway, but not sure yet

Eventually I plan to apply for BookBub feature deals, but that will happen after I have a couple of books in the series out to ensure that readers have a "next in series" to progress to. The first priority right now is building up more of a backlist before starting "heavier" promotion efforts. Otherwise spending money on things like promo newsletters can be less efficient, as you don't get clickthrough sales if there's no next book for readers to click through to!

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