Aria and David Griffey

Previously, I wrote about my plans for revamping this website in light of my return to the indie author world alongside my husband David. Our debut novel, The Heart of Resistance, is coming out in just a couple of weeks (March 25th to be exact!) and as we draw closer to that date, I find myself rethinking and honing my vision for our online platform, especially as I start to send out the book to review websites and local papers.

This website is…fine, of course. There’s nothing wrong with it per say. It could use some work, certainly. And there are a lot of archives of my old nonsense from my ~quirky~ blogging days in the 2010s too, and some other remnants I’d like to clear out. I’d like a clean slate, a fresh start, though I do want to hold onto my old posts and preserve them as a reminder of all of the work and writing that got me to where I am (yes, even all the nonsense).

Hence, my current plan, subject to change if/when our needs change. Often, I want to box myself into the “perfect solution,” convincing myself I have to find the be-all-end-all idea or platform or message before I even start (which means I never end up starting at all). So today, I’m not doing that. Here are my plans for continued migration for the foreseeable future. I’ll let you know if anything changes. 🙂

• My archive of over 150+ posts spanning 2016-2019 will be moving permanently to my Substack The Unquantified Life. The posts have been fully migrated as of today, and I will be deleting everything pre-2024 from this site in order to clear out in preparation for a complete overhaul. I haven’t written a ton on my Substack, and I actively avoid visiting the Substack website itself because it’s become way too much like Twitter (the hellsite that destroyed my mental health in the 2010s lol). But I love reading several Substack newsletters in my email inbox, and if I have any weird or random essay ideas they will likely end up over there. I’m still debating whether or not to import my email list from this site into Substack as well, so we’ll see if that happens or not. If I do, and if you don’t like what I post over there, you can always unsubscribe and I promise not to be mad 😌
• This website will be getting a complete overhaul. I have already updated the domain name to match our new “branding”/pen name, and over the next few weeks or months, depending on my schedule, I will be revamping the entire site with new pages, a fresh design, and hopefully a better experience for people looking to learn about our work. David and I collaborate creatively on everything we write, and even though that collaboration isn’t always strictly 50/50 like it is with Heart of Resistance, we have decided that pooling our resources together and publishing everything under the name A. D. Griffey is probably the best way to go if we want to build a strong author brand. So if you don’t like steampunk, don’t worry! We both have plenty of projects in the works in other genres including sci-fi horror, mystery, epic fantasy, and more. You might just have to wait a few more years for those…
• I am still trying to streamline my social media presence, so here is the current arrangement: I have transitioned my personal Instagram account and my old Aria E. Maher Facebook page into joint “Aria and David Griffey” pages. Currently, I am trying to figure out how to link the Instagram and Facebook without turning my Instagram page into a “business” page (which may or may not be possible, we’ll see) and I haven’t been the best about reposting everything from the Instagram to the Facebook page manually. So if you want to see some more quotes and cool character intros for Heart of Resistance, definitely check out the Instagram; the Facebook page has a bit of catch up to do at the moment. The @a.d.griffey pages still exist as of right now, but I will not be updating them anymore. I also run the FB and IG pages for Griffeys’ Book Emporium, so 6+ social media accounts was a bit too much for me to juggle 😅

That’s about it as far as my “digital platform” plans go for the moment. I am slowly starting to put feelers out in regards to promotion through traditional newspapers, review sites, etc. but those are slow to get moving and sometimes you aren’t sure if you’ve actually reached anyone! The launch date is coming up fast, but we plan to be in this for the long haul; we’re already planning for events in 2026 and beyond. Our first event, though, will be the book launch on March 25th at Griffey’s Book Emporium! If you are in the Central Ohio area, we would invite you to join us there at 6pm for a reading, Q&A, book signing, and a very special surprise we are super excited about.

If you’re not in Central Ohio and still want to preorder the book, it is currently available for preorder from Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, your local independent bookstore, or wherever you get your ebooks! You can also submit a request for your local library to shelve it (we’d really appreciate that!) and add it to your Goodreads TBR. Thank you for your support, and we can’t wait to share this story with you.

Okay, that’s all from me for now. Thank you for reading, and I will talk to you again soon!

^_^