These two, for indies especially, will run parallel to each other. As an indie dev, you’re going to want to start early and you’re going to want to stay regular. Do you have anything to show at all? Show it. Have a twitter account and use things like the #ScreenshotSaturday and the various indie dev hashtags and hammer them with as much interesting stuff as you can without outright spamming them. Hit up indie communities on Reddit and (provided they allow self promotion) promote there too.
Always write individual promo material for each community you post in too, don’t copy/past. If you’re sharing screenshots, try and make sure that the only screenshot you have that’s the same in every community has the game’s name in it. This is a really small thing but it makes it so that it doesn’t look like you’re just putting in the bare minimum effort and that can go a long way. Also, don’t just limit discussions you’re having to your own game. Be an active community member, do things like talk in other threads about other peoples games, and you’ll stick out more than if you’re a fly by night promo drop.
When it comes to twitter, try and make sure you have your game’s name in your bio and, preferably, display name. “[NAME], [GAME NAME] dev” is a good format if people can’t wishlist, with “Wishlist [GAME NAME] on Steam” being what you probably want if it’s available. Change “wishlist” to “buy” as soon as you can. Everything about what you’re doing should be considered an angle for promotion. That said, keep it reigned in. You don’t want to start jumping into random conversations or other tweets to promote your game because people will just start blocking you. Instead, as with other communities, just talk to devs and potential players. Talk about their games, talk about what they’re interested in.
You’re small, so you gotta be grassroots
It depends. If you can’t commit to at least one reasonably sized update every month, I wouldn’t risk it even remotely. If you can’t keep up a steady update schedule, don’t even bother because people can and will start hitting your reviews with “dead game, no updates.” You can curb some of this by being active in your Steam forums and putting up regular newsposts, but that will only somewhat slow things down because the Early Access tag comes with expectations. Oftentimes it can be better to just release what can feel like a “complete” game and keep adding content after launch.
A small “complete” game will always feel better than a small “incomplete” one.
Both. There’s no reason not to do both. Just remember that you’ll be limited to keeping the price similar between both storefronts because Steam does have regulations around how big a price gulf can be between storefronts, barring sales.
Find other games that match your own in genre and general content and price accordingly, simple as that. Is everyone charging $10-15 for a game in the same genre with the same amount of stuff to do? Do that. Have you (through some miracle) stumbled on to a novel concept? Find the closest examples and base your price off that. You don’t want to undercut existing prices because you’ll likely not make any real money off that and people will think something about your game might kinda suck, which is why it’s so cheap. Price too high and people will balk. Walk the tightrope as best you can.
Cheers!