Hi! It’s almost half-way through June, and as I am scheduling these ahead of time, I really have no idea how the first weeks of the 9nth Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off are going … I hope there’s been no more drama though. And with that let me present Benjamin Aeveryn, who has a jumpy cat and a novel known as …
Salt in the Wound
Our world is lost to time. Only our myths remain.
Once rain was a symbol of hope and harvest. Now it brings only death.
Humanity survives in sheltered cities and canvas-covered towns. Travel between these patches of safety is rare and dangerous.
It’s what Galahad lives for.
But while seeking a lost cache of salt—a fortune he plans to use to build a shelter over his hometown—Galahad is betrayed by the friends he holds dearest.
They leave him for dead. Unfortunately for them, he lives.
Torn between seeking justice or revenge, Galahad knows one thing for certain: that treasure is his, and he’ll do anything to reclaim it.
Does this smell like a grimdark take on Arthurian legend?
Well, onto the Questions!
As a Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) Entrant, you’re not just independently published, but self-published. Can you start by explaining a bit about why you chose that route and how it’s been for you?
It was a combination of things. Really a decline in confidence in traditional publishing. I kept seeing these horror stories about authors not getting a hardcover release, tiny advances, not getting in bookstores. Trad pub investing no marketing into authors then blaming them when their books didn’t sell. Cheap and ugly covers tanking a book’s sales. All together it really put me off the idea of going with a big publishing house—at least for now.
The biggest thing for me was the idea of authors being expected to do their own marketing when all of the marketing tools are taken away from them. To market effectively you need to be able to liaise with your cover designer. You need access to the back end of kdp so you can control pricing, see detailed reports, etc. I figured, if I’m going to have to do my own marketing anyway, what benefits are there to going trad?
This was all happening at the same time I was discovering some great indie success stories. Reading some fantastic indie books. And I figured, yeah, this is where I want to be.
I’d love to work with a small press someday, but that’s something to think about in the future.
Absolutely! What’s the good of being traditionally published if they expect you to do all the marketing?
On a related note, why did you enter the SPFBO contest? How do you expect to find it? Refreshing your blog’s page every five minutes, or sit back and chill?
Half for exposure, half for community. I honestly never considered not entering once I found out about it!
I’m trying to be chill and enjoy the ride, though that’s easier said than done…
Well, at least it’s so large this year, you’ve got at least some exposure from it already, and community, I hope!
Book titles. Why did you choose the title, Salt in the Wound?
In the past I’ve leaned towards literary, pretentious titles, but knowing I was going to be self-publishing I wanted to pick something snappier, something easier to market to a wider audience. Salt in the Wound was the perfect fit, since it aligns nicely with the core plot—a bloody revenge tale—but also has a double meaning, since the stolen treasure the plot revolves around is a lost cache of salt.
Neat!
I won’t ask for your favourite scene since I know some people don’t have those (like me; I never have favourites), but can you share a (non-spoiler) scene you really like and you just can’t believe how awesome it is every time you go back to re-read it?
There’s a moment later in the book where Galahad sits by a river and has a conversation with a stranger. I really love that scene. I enjoy these moments of quiet reflection and I’m proud of my prose and dialogue there. I’m a very prose-focused reader, so as a writer my favourite scenes tend to be those slower moments where I have the space to flex and let my prose breathe. To really get inside the moment and flesh it out.
Nice! I can’t say I’m a prose-focused reader (though I do enjoy it), but I certainly like moments of quiet reflection a lot!
What are some elements or themes, or combinations thereof, that really make your book stand out to you?
The environmental themes, disability and mental health representation, and the juxtaposition of decay alongside new growth—something present in both the character arcs and the world around them.
The most striking thing about Salt in the Wound is probably that it’s a genre mashup (post-apocalyptic, fantasy, horror, and a dash of a few other things). It’s also intentionally anachronistic, being ostensibly in the future, with late medieval technology, and Victorian fashions. This makes the book kind of hard to market correctly, but the payoff is that the world has this fresh feeling. It’s equal parts The Last of Us, The Witcher, Elden Ring, Best Served Cold, and King Arthur’s search for the Holy Grail.
The really neat thing I think is how well your back cover hints at most of these! (Even to someone like myself who knows nothing of most of these!)
Thank you for sharing with us!
Benjamin Aeveryn is an author of SFF from Cambridge, UK, where he lives with his beautiful fiance and a grumpy old cat. Salt in the Wound is his debut novel. People say his work is grimdark fantasy, but for a vision of England where it’s always raining, infrastructure is crumbling, and nobody trusts their neighbours, he only has to look out of his window.
You can find Benjamin on his Website or check out his Twitter.
And you can check out his SPFBO 9 novel, Salt in the Wound, on Goodreads or get it from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Enthralled By Love 