Meeting Authors Is Not As Hard As You Think

The life of an author can be a bit solitary.  We sit around in front of our screens interacting with people that only live in our mind.  We don’t go to staff meetings where we get asked for a status report on our writing.  We don’t have a boss that pokes his head up over the cube wall, like the one in Office Space, to ask us whether we’re following the most current procedure as laid out in that memo.

For me, it’s frantically dashing out words every chance I get.  Sometimes I’ll get on a kick where I’ll wake up at 5 to work on my next novel, before I have to go to the day job.  I wrote the first draft of Beside the Music long hand on a lime green journal, given to me by my friend Heidi in Wisconsin, that I carried everywhere in my purse.  Whenever I had a moment, I would write in it.  When I was in a parking lot waiting for Todd to get out of work to meet me.  When the bosses at work weren’t looking, I’d dash off a few paragraphs, or during my lunch hour when I still worked in an office.  Literally, any chance I got I was writing.   And I love it. It’s a blast to make up a world and characters out of nothing. 

Now that Beside the Music is out, I keep hearing that I need to find fans and interact with them.  But doing that from a computer on Twitter still seems so removed.  And this is why I participate in live author events every chance I get.  I’ve done a few so far: the Easthampton Book Festival in Easthampton, Massachusetts… I had a table at a farmer’s market in Scituate, Rhode Island… The New Bedford Book Festival in New Bedford, MA… the RI Author’s Expo here in Rhode Island as well. 

And let me tell you, setting up my table at these events and talking to people who love to read is the most fun I have had as an author.  If you hear about local author events in your area, I highly recommend you go check it out.  You never know where you’re going to find your next favorite author, it could literally be at the library in your town.  And maybe you’ll see your next favorite author at the supermarket—if you see me, please don’t judge the excessive amounts of Ben and Jerry’s in my cart.  It helps with the writing process.

I have some events coming up and I would love it if you could come!  I will be doing an Amazon gift card giveaway at these events, too.  You can’t win if you don’t show up and play.

You can see my calendar of events here, as well.

I would love it if you would stop by and say hello to me at my events.  I will promise not to stare at you awkwardly as you read the description on the back of my book as well. 

BJ Knapp is the author of Beside the Music, available for purchase here. Please sign up for the Backstage with BJ Knapp mailing list to get updates on events, signings, dog pictures and so much more.

added on 02.13.17

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