Author
The Indie Author Reality
Stevie Hosler shares her journey as a multi-genre author, her creative process, and how she integrates her love for witchcraft and spirituality into her writing, with insights on indie publishing, author community, and balancing creativity with business.
Episode notes
Stevie Hosler writes new adult paranormal fantasy inspired by the shows she grew up on, including Buffy, Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries, and True Blood. Her first book, Shadow of Lilith, follows a secret society of vampire hunters, and she is drafting the sequel, Blood of Lilith. Before that, she took a side quest with The Stars in Our Hearts, a cozier collection of connected short stories about two witches in the 1500s who are reincarnated through five time periods and find each other again.
That book began with a meme about best friends who must have been burned together in another life, and she plotted it with her own best friend, Laura, with each of them guiding one character. Stevie also talks about her lifelong interest in Ouija boards, her cousin who is a medium, and learning tarot.
She speaks openly about identity too. Writing her main character, Piper, as a bisexual woman helped her process a part of herself that she had kept quiet for years, and she came out publicly last year. The rest of the conversation is the reality of being independent: running the website, the finances, shipping, editing, events, and social media, then saving up for an audiobook. Group chats and cross-promotion with other authors make it all easier.
I think that we all do better when we cross promote each other.
Stevie Hosler
In this episode
- Paranormal fantasy inspired by 1990s and 2000s TV
- Co-plotting with a best friend
- Queer representation and coming out
- An author as a small business owner
- Cross-promotion and author community
Books mentioned
- Shadow of Lilith
- Blood of Lilith
- The Stars in Our Hearts
Listen to this episode
Find it on the show's page in your favorite app.
Keep browsing
Newer: Why Human Audiobook Narration Still Beats AI
Older: Author Panel: The Brutal Truth About Writing Characters You Love