#Fahrenbruary – Well, that’s a wrap, people!

So #Fahrenbruary is over. The month long Fahrenheit celebration comes to a shuddering halt, for this year at least. How was it for you? Personally, I am pooped. Seriously, my brain is going into a kind of hibernation right now – like a tortoise after a particularly busy summer spent eating cabbage and an especially tough bit of carrot. But would I change it in any way?

Absolutely…. not!

It’s been a terrific month in every way. Yes it’s been hard work, bloody hard work, but it has also been very, very rewarding and huge fun.

Now, before we go any further I just want to make something absolutely clear here: This was all originally MY idea. At no point have Fahrenheit Press, or Fahrenheit 13, provided any financial incentive, reward or encouragement. I had this daft little idea to rebrand February as Fahrenbruary purely because: A) I love their output and B) I had a shit-ton of their books building up and I just wanted to make a dent in them whilst telling the world via social media and via the Fahrenbruary hashtag. That really was it. There were no ulterior motives. No promises of secret nudie photos of Chris McVeigh. No free beard feels, or rides, were offered. Nothing else.

And that would have been basically it if Indie book blogger extraordinaire Matt Keyes hadn’t come aboard with his enthusiasm and joie de vivre. And thank the bookish gods that he did for together we forged the fire that birthed the fiery dragon that became the Fahrenbruary you have, hopefully, been following for the last 28 days.

This the actual fire from which Fahrenbruary was forged, and jolly hot it was too. Lit by the matches of determination and stoked by the poker of inquisition, you can still see some of the embers of the ideas that were offered unto the fire on the bottom there. Many beard hairs were sacrificed in order to bring this month to you. 🔥

Once the fire had cooled and the embers were swept away, there, still glowing white hot from all the ideas and excitement that were poured into it, was… Fahrenbruary. And it was beautiful. We looked upon it as one would a new born child; there were tears in our eyes and a lump in our throats. To be fair that was due to the smoke and ash that was blowing into our faces, but there was raw emotion there too. Even the stray, still hot, ember that blew into my beard, threatening to turn my face into something resembling Freddy Krueger after a particularly rough night, didn’t spoil the moment.

And that is how Fahrenbruary was born. I still have the singed fingers and crispy beard to prove it.

Now the question is: what do I do with my time now? Like, seriously. Fahrenbruary has been my life for the last 28 days. In fact, even earlier, since the start of January when I first reached out to a few authors to ask if I could ask them a few questions I haven’t really stopped. Every weekend and weekday evening has been taken up with Fahrenbruary; either reading for it or writing for it. My day job takes up a lot of my time; I work 50 hours a week, and I’m often out of the house from just before 7am to just after 7pm Monday to Friday, so I found myself blogging from when I got home until bedtime around 11pm-ish. Luckily, being a school worker, I had the half term off in mid Feb, so I could dedicate more quality time to Fahrenbruary and catch up on a few things I was falling behind on. Hurrah for the school holidays. I’m not complaining about any of this though, oh no! Aside from Fahrenbruary drawing some well deserved attention to a brilliant publisher and their even more brilliant authors, it also brought me massive amounts of personal pleasure as I became more and more immersed in my blog. Instead of coming home in the evenings and just staring at my phone or some utter shit on the TV, I opened my laptop and created content that, I hoped, would entertain and inform as many total strangers as possible. My blog was already a great source of enjoyment to me (and is, of course, an award winner *cough* AnnualBloggersBashAwardsBestNewcomer2018 *cough* sorry, a slight tickle in my throat there; I must still have a bit of ash still stuck somewhere), but Fahrenbruary has really cemented my love for blogging and I’m already thinking of the next thing… after a bit of a mental break that is 😉

Of course, business will continue as normal on The Beardy Book Blogger with reviews and blog tours to come, so have no fear of that.

There are so many people to thank for all of their support and help throughout Fahrenbruary. I’m not going to mention everyone here for fear of leaving someone out, cos that’s exactly what I’ll end up doing, so I’ll just say a massive…

…to EVERYONE who got involved in this daft idea and helped to promote us across the sea of social media. Fahrenbruary belongs to EVERYONE. It’s by the people and for the people. It is like a virus that gets into your DNA and then replicates itself through the fingers of bloggers and twitterers and Instagrammers and Facebookerers the world over. And I do mean the world. On my blog I have had views from:

UK

USA

Japan

Indonesia

India

Belgium

Thailand

Canada

Phillipines

Poland

Ireland

Australia

New Zealand

Italy

Cambodia

France

Netherlands

Bangladesh

Spain

Czech Republic

Iraq

Iceland

Mexico

UAE

Hungary

China

Finland

Peru

and Malaysia

That’s 29 countries! That’s truly bonkers, innit! All of those countries have been witness to the wonder that was, and forever will be, Fahrenbruary. Even if they only read one post, or even glanced at the title, a little bit of Fahrenheit penetrated their consciousnesses and has lodged there, never to leave.

But of course there wouldn’t have been a Fahrenbruary without the support and encouragement of Fahrenheit themselves and that of their wonderful authors. Their support has been truly incredible. In fact, it has been overwhelming and quite staggering at times. Not one of the people who I approached, or as far as I’m aware that anyone approached, refused to help out, and for that I am forever grateful. I’ll buy you all a pint one day.

So what else is there to say? I feel I should make a profound statement here. Something that sums up what this last month has all been about.

But I feel that there is only one thing left to say:

SEE YOU ALL FOR FAHRENBRUARY 2020!