Hi Jim,

HELP!!! I’M TRYING TO WRITE A SEQUEL, BUT I CAN’T COME UP WITH ANYTHING! I JUST DON’T HAVE THE SAME INSPIRATION WITH THESE CHARACTERS AS I DID IN THE FIRST BOOK! I GET HALF WAY THROUGH, AND JUST CAN’T SEEM TO GET THROUGH IT BECAUSE IT BADLY CHANGES THE CHARACTERS PERSONALITIES AND THE DYNAMIC OF THEIR RELATIONSHIPS!

DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE???

THANKS,
KHIMBAY

Hi Khimbay,

First of all, you don’t have to shout. Do you know how many internet etiquette laws you’re breaking by typing in all caps? You’re breaking one; Do Not Type In All Caps!

Okay, on to your question… I’m in the same boat. I know that there has been a lot of people asking about Soul Siphon’s sequel and I tried to give the audience what they wanted. However I couldn’t get anywhere with it…

What was holding me up? Well for starters, I spent a lot of time writing Mary Kelly. I was very careful to portray her in a way I think would be like who the actual historical MK was… if she was resurrected and lived for another 130 years. However I couldn’t replicate that in the second story. Why? Because all the mystery behind her was gone. We know about her soft side now, we know that her bitterness was shield against her own problems. I kept trying, but I wasn’t happy with how she was coming out.

The second issue was writing the devil. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get her (yes, HER) right. I wanted her to be flamboyant, outgoing, and an all-around like-able character,  but that came off too much like a certain TV show we all know and most of us love.

So I tried again with the devil, trying to make her lose her memory so that the one lacking her previous history isn’t even and the group is left with the moral conundrum of what to do with the devil, who may not actually be the devil. Again, it went nowhere and I couldn’t get her right in a way that would have made people like her.

So… sorry everybody, the Soul Siphon series is… at this point in time, defunct. Will I revisit the universe at some point, yes. I still have things l’d like to do there, but I doubt it’ll be in the form of a direct sequel.

So… unfortunately Khimbay, I can’t help you as I don’t have an answer to this problem either. My solution is to simply wash my hands of the whole situation and simply say ‘That’s it, no more direct sequels.’

This is something I did with Damnation. I refused to drag the characters from Divinity back out into another adventure when the characters already been possessed, beaten, one had been tortured, raped, and murdered, while the others had been put through LITERAL Hell. I know they’re characters that I just made up, but to me, that’s just cruel, and I’ve honestly seen how mean-spirited writing hurts a story.
However, I knew I wanted to do a follow-up to show the effects of what happened in Divinity and needed to find a way around that. So I created new characters and wrote a whole new story around the events of the previous novel. Yes, a few of the old characters made appearances, but they were strictly cameos.

I’m actually planning on doing the same thing with Drakin: The Story of Raiya after its published. There will be other stories (hopefully many) that take place in the same world. Yes characters from  The Story of Raiya may make appearances (if they survive), and will get honorable mentions, but the follow-up stories will not be about them. A post-apocalyptic world where humanity is recovering from literal decades of bloodshed to the point where they were facing extinction, opens up the possibility to a plethora of stories that can be created. The potential is there and the characters are waiting to be written… and I personally can’t wait. I plan on spending a lot of time in that world. Who knows, maybe we’ll see a familiar face or two along the way.

So that’s my advice to you, Khimbay and I apologize for going off-topic a little. If you don’t want to write a direct sequel, but do want to do a follow-up? Write a new story in the same universe. It’s technically still a sequel.

Hope this helps, but maybe our readers have other ideas, so I’ll open it up to the floor. What does everyone think? Do you have advice for Khimbay? Let me know in the comments.

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have multiple published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

Hi Jim,

I don’t know what to do. I saw your blog recently and thought I’d ask here. Recently, I’ve seen some of my work appearing on a site where someone blogged it. I was planning on publishing that work on Amazon and this person appears to be giving it away for free while making AD revenue. What should I do?

Thanks,
Lillian

Hi Lillian,

First things first, remain calm. There is a lot here that needs to be considered. I am an attorney, so I can only give you a high-level overview here. Please don’t take what I say as legitimate legal advice.
First, do they just have your work in its entirety published on their site or are the putting snip-its of it up and doing commentary?

If its the latter, there may not be anything you can do. That may fall under fair use if they’re doing a parody or reviewing your work.

So what is fair use?

In short, per US copyright law, the doctrine of fair use allows that brief excerpts of copyright material may, under certain circumstances, be quoted verbatim for purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research, without the need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder.

You’ll want to see if what they’ve done falls under that. If so, you can (politely) ask them to remove it. Most ethical writers will do so without argument… however they aren’t really under any obligation to. So do not be surprised if they refuse or do not respond.

Now if we’re talking about just stealing your story in its entirety and posting it, that’s something different all together. They are profiting off your work, hurting your profits, and they should not get away with that. One question I have is whether or not you have your work registered with the U.S Copyright Office?

This isn’t mandatory, but I usually tell people it is a good idea for a plethora of reasons.  Copyright protection technically exists from the moment the work is created in a tangible medium. However, registration provides a few important benefits, such as proof of ownership. Likely no court will hear your case, no will any site owner act on a claim without proof of ownership. So you’re likely going to need to do that first.

That said, before doing anything else… please, please, please, CONTACT A LAWYER!!! Get someone professional who knows the nuances of the law working for you. Do not do anything until you do. I cannot stress this enough. Any action, including contacting the perpetrator, could jeopardize your chances in court.

I hope this helps in some small way. Readers, do you have any further advice for Lillian? Let her know in the comments!

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

Take care, be well, and happy blogging.
Denny

Hi Denny,

Well… if there’s a maxim a writer should live by, it’s that if you’re good at something, don’t do it for free. Writing, creating, brainstorming, and eventual publishing take time and money and everyone deserves to be compensated for their time.

You may notice that I have several stories posted on here that are not currently in print. That’s because most of them are either abandoned stories or ones I never really considered worth publishing. In one or two cases, I posted them to gauge reader reaction and decide if it was worth publishing.

I’d leave those up because they’re really rough drafts and there would be many edits and changes made to a final product, so it wouldn’t be the same thing. However, I never post more than a single chapter of any published work.

Anyway… I know that doesn’t answer your question. So if you’re going to go against the piece of advice, let me put it this way; your work is YOUR WORK the moment you put it to paper. It is technically already copyrighted. However that’s not going to stand up in any court if you decide to pursue a claim. Posting on a blog, free or paid does not guarantee you ANY protection. You’re putting your work out there, it isn’t up to the site to protect that.

Personally, I’d stay away from ANY resource on copyrighting if the site doesn’t have a .gov at the end of it. I’m not sure what country you’re from, but for the U.S., the best thing you can do is register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office. 

I know a lot of people will say that if you’re going through traditional publishing, don’t do this because most publishers won’t take the extra time and money to purchase the copyright from you. However that doesn’t appear to be what you’re doing so it doesn’t apply. This is for posting your work and for self-publishers.

So I guess the best advice I could give is to register any work you plan on posting and do not post any work that you plan on publishing later.

Hope that helps. Readers, what do you think? Is there a better way to protect your work? Let Denny know in the comments.

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

Right now, I’ve hit a bit of snag in my writing. I’m a few chapters in and I am unsure on how to progress from where I am at. I have a storyboard and basic layout of the plot but I’m just hitting my head against the wall second guessing how I SHOULD write it.

Any thoughts?

–Jak

Hi Jak,

I actually get this question a lot. So without knowing a ton about your specific case, I’ve been in your shoes at least in some way. You’ve got a great story, great ideas, but several directions you can go in with said ideas.

Well… I remember back in High School when we were taking SATs, we were told that if we didn’t know the answer, to go with our initial thought. Like you look at the answers and the first one that stands out as being right is the one you should go with. They didn’t want anyone second guessing themselves because then they’d foul up.
At the time, I thought that there was so much wrong with that advice… however when I realized how much of a time constraint we had, and how many of my answers turned out to be right when I went with me ‘gut.’ I realized that there was some value in it.
Intuition is a very powerful tool.

The same can be said for writing. If you’ve got a bunch of ideas flowing, go with the first one that pops out at you. Write it all out and get it on paper so that you can see and read your ideas. Often you’re going to find that those ideas were better in your head, but in most occasions, those initial ideas may only need a few tweaks here and there to iron them out.

In the instances where you read through and just think ‘Eh… this is stupid!’ you can always go back and change anything (or everything) that you need to.

So basically what I want you to do is sit down, look at what you have so far and ask yourself the question ‘What comes next?’ Then just write the first thing that comes to you. Don’t bother with any second thoughts, you can deal with those later.

Hope this helps. Readers, what do you think Jak should do in this situation? Let me know in the comments.

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have multiple published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

Hello, Jim–

Hi Mark,

It’s an age-old problem to be sure. How do you attract an audience. Well to be honest there are a lot of ways. Your crowdfunding page certainly caught my attention, but really word of mouth is everything. For starters, I would update your kickstarter listing. Offer autographed copies as a perk. Collectors (like myself) love that sort of thing. We eat it up and… given how much I spent on a Lady Mechanika #1 that is autographed by the writer and artist (no I will not give a dollar amount), we’re willing to spend more on them… even if the artist is start up.

Second, I would update the kickstarter to include “advertising” as to where the funding goes. If you’ve really exhausted all other options, then you are going to need to put some money into advertising whether you like it or not. Fortunately there are plenty of advertising companies that can help you for fairly cheap. Amazon is really a great place to do it as many of their ads show up on Audible and that’s often how I find new books to read.

So I also took a look at your page as well and I don’t mean this in a negative way, but I found it wanting. What I mean by that is that you have no footer, nowhere on there other than your Amazon page where people can interact with you or get updates other than WordPress… This is very important because… most readers typically don’t have wordpress accounts. They come here for the articles, but most won’t be writing anything.

Go into wordpress, got to ‘My Site> Configure> Sharing.

If yours doesn’t look like mine (yes I know, I need to update the Linkedin one), then you’re not doing everything you can to advertise your work or yourself. Sign up for an account on each of these and spend a few hours here and there reaching out to people. Comment on the things they post, off your opinion, and/or offer help (like I do here). This is how you build a community and gain yourself a following.

A few weeks of doing this gained me a few thousand followers and a considerable boost in traffic to my pages.

The playlist has definitely gained me a following, mostly of writers looking for something to listen to while they brainstorm, but it has helped. This isn’t a method I have copyrighted or anything, so if you feel like it could help you, go for it.

Anyway, I hope some of these ideas help, but let’s open it up to the community;

Readers, do you have any ideas that could help Mark spread word of his new book??

Thanks,
Jim

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have multiple published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

Hey Jim,

Cheers.

Dacia

Hi Dacia,

Haven’t seen you comment on my posts in a while. Was starting to wonder what happened. Hmm… looks like we’ve got a multi-question one today… all right. Let’s take it one at a time.

First off, stalk away. I don’t mind frequent visitors, it helps my blog more than anything!

So beta readers… it’s tough. It’s really tough. First thing I would do when looking for a beta reader is document every exchange you have back and forth with someone if you don’t know them. Goodreads usually has some pretty trustworthy beta reading circles, but you still need to be careful. I tried to go through their a while back and honestly, got a bull assessment of my first chapter from someone who claimed to be a ‘speed reader.’ They wanted money to review the rest… and not a small amount either.

Look into the person you’re considering working with. Do they have other publications with reviews? What is their level of education? Are they an active member of whatever community you’re searching through? Don’t be afraid to ask questions and turn down offers if something doesn’t seem right.

The second thing you can do is try to forge a relationship on here with someone. That’s pretty much how I did it. I’d also recommend finding more than one person, two sets of eyes, one biased (yours), one not (a beta), are still likely to miss a few things. Multiple beta readers however will help you out a lot. So… I guess I’m volunteering if you’d be interested in doing an exchange?

That’s usually the best way to do it. An exchange with another author anxious to find someone who’s willing to sift through their work as well. Otherwise you’ll likely shell out $100-$300 for a college student to do the work… which is fine, they really do a great job, but when you’re spending $300 (min.) for a cover, $100 a piece for each ISBN needed, and $35 for the copyright fee, it adds up fast.

One piece of advice I’d give you before reaching out to people you don’t know is to REGISTER YOUR WORK! That’s right, get it copyrighted. It’s technically already copyrighted the moment you put pen to paper, but registering it guarantees that you’ll be protected and able to furnish proof against another writer who hijacks your book.

Finally, inspirational pieces with no vocals… that is a tough one.
I’m afraid I don’t work with much in the way of instrumental music, but I do have a few selections…

Since you mentioned classical, might I recommend checking into music from the Baroque era? I tend to like that a lot more with my writing. I don’t have any real selections for you as I wouldn’t be able to identify them. I usually just switch on baroque stations on spotify.

Anyway, hope this helps!

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim