2017 is setting itself up to be a massive year for me.  Whether it will be massive success or massive failure I honestly don’t know, but I feel everything slotting into place, building to a crescendo.
Barring any major disasters, this will be the year we take Black as Knight to market.  I don’t care how many rewrites we still need to do.  Whereas I felt slightly overwhelmed by it all last year, this year I feel ready to take on new and ever greater challenges… and if that means taking a couple of weeks off the day job to do further revisions, I’m totally up for it.
I feel pumped for the year ahead and I want to do everything I possibly can to give Black as Knight every possible advantage.  Despite having tweaked and revised that book more times than sanely possible, I’m really proud of it.  I think it’s fun, action-packed, and a little different.  I can’t wait to nerd out with everyone about the characters and their stories.
But being an author in 2017 is more than just being a great writer.  In many ways you are your own publicity machine.  If you’ve been to conventions, you’ve probably heard writers and editors talk about the importance of Twitter and email lists.  It’s difficult, because most writers are not natural extroverts, and for every great interaction, we’ve all had an online discussion that turns into shouting, name-calling and general negativity.
In 2016, Twitter started becoming so negative that I (wisely) stepped away from it.  With the focus being on the rewrites I felt I had nothing too interesting to say, and so I didn’t do as many blog posts either.  In fact, the only social media I probably did was the occasional Instagram post (which linked to my blog, and subsequently to Twitter and Facebook – because, automation.)
And yet, as someone who dreamed of one day becoming a professional author, I was always fascinated by the agenting process, the work it took to get a book to market, the nitty gritty.  It was pointed out that me, ten years ago, would have lapped up every bit of social content from someone in my current situation.
And so, because if the book does crash or fail to sell (It won’t – it’s awesome!), I don’t want to feel there was more I could have done; because sometimes your nose is so close to the grindstone you don’t appreciate the absolute privilege and joy you have to be in this position; and because I want to document this amazing journey… I’m changing up my social media.
I’ll be posting across a number of platforms – mainly Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and this blog.  But rather than just post all the same content across five platforms, I’ll be varying it more based on the platform.  So more in depth articles might go on the blog or Facebook, whilst images of my journey might be found on Instagram, and general everyday fun and silliness will be found on Snapchat.
I’m still figuring this all out but come figure it out with me.  I’ve always said my motto is “Let’s Have An Adventure” and the next few months and years are likely to be the biggest adventure of all.
Twitter: Figures
Facebook:  AdrianFaulknerWriter
Google Plus:  AdrianFaulkner
Instagram: AdrianFaulkner
Snapchat:  AdrianAuthor
 
Image Credit: Christiaan Colen