Write as if you are trying to seduce the reader
You've seduced me.
Anyway, I just wanted to add something to the idea of putting your exposition in dialogue. Try writing a script. All you have is actions and dialogue at your disposal (like: (PICKS UP COFFEE) You know, you're just like your pig-headed mother. (DRINKS) - not the best example, but it serves my point - you've just acknowledged that the mother is pig-headed, and probably so is the 'other' character who isn't speaking, and you did it in dialogue) .
I myself have written about 4 books (well, 3 and 1 almost finished and 1 just started...) and only now that I've been writing a script have I gotten over my phobia of putting exposition in dialogue... I had that phobia from book 1, because I didn't feel it would ring true for the characters - it didn't seem realistic for every other sentence to be revealing something that I thought was relevant... okay, I'm not explaining it right, but in other words, though I didn't know the word 'exposition' at that point, I was afraid that putting exposition in dialogue wouldn't be true to the story or the characters, and that it would make for a bad read (for some reason I thought putting in exposition in dialogue meant ALWAYS using exposition in dialogue...).
But with this script, I've had to use exposition in dialogue - and you know what? It rings true to the characters and has given me an extra tool in my writing arsenal. I've also had to learn to "trust the reader" which is good advice too - because sometimes in the script, I can't put words in the characters' mouths which explains directly what's going on or what's relevant - you have to allude to the fact and trust that people will 'get' it. I now watch Friends (yay, I'm a geek) and see that whenever it comes to sexual or toilet humour, or at least in most cases, putting the words directly out there would void their PG rating and make it for adults more than anyone else, so they allude to things, and you ALWAYS get the joke anyway because of the way they do it, assuming you know enough about adult type things to know what they're alluding to... again, I don't say this very well, but I think you get my meaning. I'm a dirty bastard, so I understand those alluded dirty jokes.
And after typing all this, I realise that even though I had a phobia about using exposition in dialogue right from the get go of my first novel, I now realise that I used it a reasonable amount anyway, for important conversations. Chances are you already know how to weave exposition in during dialogue (if you've ever written an important conversation, you've probably done so
) - but let's not forget that you are writing a novel and not a script, so you do in fact have the opportunity and the right to use exposition in any way you see fit, so long as it's understandable.
I don't know quite why I'm still rambling, but this thread has made a light go on above my head: I now have more knowledge over what I'm doing, and what I can do, and why to do it. So I guess my ramble was an attempt to make that light go on over everybody else's heads too (if they needed it).