WRITEARMOR: You have an interesting story. You told me how Instagram led to publishing your first book via Amazon Createspace. You've had your account for less than a year but you've grown it to a few thousand followers with super engagement for your size (8%). Your likes and comments have taken off too. I've followed you since the beginning and seen you documenting your writing journey on Instagram, when you would post pictures of your writing.

@N.GRAYLING: First of all, thank you for your time. One of the things that promoting my book on social media has taught me is that time is our most important asset. Time and paying attention to others.

@WRITEARMOR: What have the impacts of Instagram been on you and your future career as a published author?

@N.GRAYLING: Instagram was, and still is my main social platform, though I have joined other networks such as Goodreads, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, LinkedIn, Xing... you name it.

I chose Instagram in the first place because of its simplicity.

When I started writing my debut novel, I used Instagram as a tool to keep me focused and motivated. I found the perfect strategy to track my progress and give myself something to hold on to.

I posted 3 times daily: one picture of the chapter I am currently working on; one picture of something that inspired what I'm writing at the moment; one picture of me while #amwriting.

I knew that if I missed just one, nobody would have come to me to point it out, but my conscience didn't let me miss a single day. Instagram was like a lousy boss that came in and checked on my daily progress. It worked. I finished my 70.000 words first draft in 33 days. Also, the feedback I got from other writers inspired me to do more.

Nowadays IG is less of a boss, more of a co-worker. We work as a team now. I know the more we work together, the more we can achieve. It's amazing for me to be able to connect with people through my favorite things: books, Alaska, dogs, coffee, traveling >>> my most frequently used hashtags.

My hopes regarding my future on Instagram involve making life-long friendships and business partnerships based absolutely on mutual interests. These are things you really can't buy - you have to put in the work.

WRITEARMOR: Do you or have you blogged elsewhere? If so, what is the comparison, do you have a preference, and why?

@N.GRAYLING: I have blogged on Blogger and Wordpress before ( none of those blogs are live anymore ) but I found them chaotic. I get distracted easily, almost ADD-like.

I know that probably if I took the time to systematically learn how they worked, I could have figured it out, but my biggest concern was the time it took to make my posts look alright.

Writing entries was just about 10% of the work. All the rest were tedious tasks I didn't enjoy. I'm a writer, not a web designer. I love taking photos, editing them, etc. but to a certain extent. Positioning, scheduling, widgets, categories, those are not for me. Thank goodness, Instagram does all of those for me.

WRITEARMOR: If you had to start all over from scratch and couldn't use any tools to grow your account, what would you do to get the same results faster than it took you to get to where you are now?

@N.GRAYLING: If I could start over, I would only change one thing: my attitude. I would not wait for others to make the first step, I'd do it myself. I would start connecting with interesting people through comments, messages, tags. It was silly of me to think that people would find me through hashtags only.

There are too many of them! I can only stand out if I forget being shy and when I see something that takes my breath away and inspires me, I give proper credit and initiate conversation. It's like leaving reviews on a book.

Now I know. I wish somebody had told me earlier, but I learned it in a fun way so I have no regrets. Likes only scratch the surface of the amazing things you can do through comments. I have many IG friends now who could be strangers, had I not started talking to them. Not everyone will take the time to reply, but I am sure it's their loss. This is the way I look at it. Being connected is awesome!

WRITEARMOR: I notice your bio takes readers to your Amazon page. What were like at the beginning, how are they now, how have they changed, and what do you do to "bridge the social media gap" to get people clicking over?

@N.GRAYLING: The link in my Bio doesn't scream "BUY ME!!!" but I like it that way. I don't want people to feel like they're obligated to click that link.

However, I know that once they scroll through my posts, they will want to. If they won't, that means they won't like my books anyway. I'm not their cup of tea ;)

Fortunately, my attitude towards selling books has not changed over time: I would rather have a hundred people buy my book, read it cover to cover and love it, than a million who will read only one page and put it on a shelf for decoration.

This will never change, and I wrote a lot about this topic in my upcoming novel, #california, so I'm very excited to share my thoughts about different purposes of writing.

Hint: in the story, my point of view is often displayed as naive and foolish. Let's see where we can go from there, shall we?

WRITEARMOR: What aren't you asked enough about and what is your answer that to that?

@N.GRAYLING: I am rarely asked about my readers, though I think that's the most important question: who are my books for?

After publishing, it was still a mystery to me how people sell books. I had no idea how to market an independently published novel.

Luckily, I don't see marketing as something you have to master before you start. I see it as a constant learning process, and I'd say I'm somewhere in the middle.

All I know is that once we have a steady idea who our future readers could be, once we find out what our target audience is looking for when they search for new books to read, we can start thinking of ways to grab their attention.

We have to read people the way we read books. We need to become invested in their stories, in their daily lives, in their motives, emotions, to find out what they need. My readers are people, regardless of age, who feel like they're living their lives in a waiting room, plotting their great escape to a more fulfilling, spiritually stimulating life.

My readers live in a world wired by social media and high-speed development. They reminisce over much less complicated times and they long to be self-sufficient, to be reconnected with nature - and the humanness inside them which they feel they've been robbed of by society.

I know that because that's the way I feel. That's why I wrote #alaska, because I needed a book that was for me, entirely, but I couldn't find it anywhere.

Only distorted versions of it, written by people who only know parts of what it's like to be like this: nostalgic, always coveting.