Today’s a big day for Gail Carriger, as her debut novel “Soulless” has been officially released. Since an interview on my blog is, of course, the surest guarantee of a book’s success, we sent her a few questions which she was kind enough to answer.
Tell us how you got the idea for “Soulless”.
I knew I wanted to write something with an urban fantasy feel but which challenged all the tropes of that genre: so I went with a light-hearted tone, steampunk elements, and a historical setting. Basically, I wrote the book that had everything I liked to read all in one place. I never thought it would sell, because I figured something with so many disparate elements wasn’t marketable. Luckily, Orbit didn’t agree with me.
What’s “Soulless” about?
It’s an “everything but the kitchen sink” mash up of genres in which a startlingly assertive spinster (who just happens to have no soul) takes on Victorian London’s supernatural upper crust one parasol whack at a time. There’s a grumpy werewolf investigator, a gay vampire, a dirigible or two, and some highly suspicious activity involving a wax-faced man and very ugly hats.
The market is a rather saturated with books about vampires. How is yours different?
Aside from being irreverent to the point of flippancy over the whole vampire thing (e.g. newly minted vampires suffer from fang-lisp), there’s no magic. None at all. Instead, Victorian scientists are struggling to understand vampires, werewolves, and ghosts using the scientific standards of the day. This results in steampunk gadgets and crazy theories centered about the existence of the soul.
Why parasols?
You would prefer, perhaps, octopuses?
(Editor’s note: We do see her point. Octopi are not an improvement.)
Did any other books (or movies, or songs, etc.) inspire or influence yours?
For this book authors like P.G. Wodehouse, Dickens, and Austen all have had some influence – but I try to ensure my language is accessible to a modern audiences. Those who know me well claim they can detect Pratchett and Adams lurking in Soulless as well.
You seem to have taken quite a vigorous approach to self-marketing “Soulless”. What strategies have you been using?
Ah, yes, the result of over exposure to the podcasting community, I suspect. That, plus the fact that Orbit has been really supportive of my crazy schemes. I met my publishing team at the Denver WorldCon and we got along like a house on fire (alcohol, I suspect). They liked how excited I was and that I had all sorts of promotional ideas and was clearly willing to be pro-active. It’s kind of the way I am: awful bouncy, enthusiastic, and outgoing for an author.
I think they decided I was presentable because next thing I knew they flew me out to BEA. There, by pure chance, mine happened to be one of the few urban fantasy (and the only steampunk) ARCs on offer. People got excited to read it on the way home and started talking about it at BEA. This got me a press release mention along side the likes of Dan Brown! It snowballed from there. I made friends with the manga editor of Yen press, who loved the book, and then stuck me in Yen’s magazine. I met Ron Hogan of GalleyCat who interviewed me, blogged it, and put me on youtube. Then the twitterverse started finding out. Urban fantasy fans are voracious, and super sweet, and, I suspect, getting a little exhausted by Hamilton clones. They liked the idea of my book, and that was really all it took.
As to my strategies? I like new media and I enjoy internet socialization, so that helps. I don’t feel like it’s a task to meet new people online or in real life. Whenever any review bloggers asked, no matter how small, I always put in a good word with Orbit to get an ARC sent out. A couple times I sent my own copies just to make sure. Orbit had this amazingly awesome paper doll game made featuring my main character. One of my podcasting buddies, who’s a killer audio producer, offered to do a full cast audio drama of the first chapter. So I pulled my mom and some other actor friends together and got Orbit’s permission to put the resulting audio up for free. Podcaster friends dropped it into their feeds. I also tend to think outside the genre norm, I’ve gotten permission to leave book business cards at my chiropractor’s office, at historical dance events, and in a corset-making booth. Why not? They all read too.
A lot of it has been propinquity, right place, right time, right people. A lot has been my friends: I’m peculiarly rich in that regard and have been shamelessly taping into their skill sets for everything from website design to special jewelry making to business card production to cover modeling. And a lot has been the good will of strangers – librarians, booksellers, and reviewers like the book; they find me easily on the net; and I always try to respond to questions or compliments promptly and politely. That’s all it takes to make new friends who are out and about, ground zero, promoting the book themselves. I’m not ashamed to ask people for help, and I put myself out there enough to hope people know they can come to me too and I’ll do what I can for them. If I can make it as an author, I’m dragging as many of them with me as possible, loyalty is really important to me.
I still have more up my sleeve too: contests, book launch parties, signings, trade shows, that kind of thing. The book may be out, but that’s no reason to stop having fun with it.
Recommend one book other than your own.
Everyone should read the YA scifi novel Feed by MT Anderson – brilliant because it could happen, and terrifying for exactly the same reason.
-JM
