Grab a free copy of Stealing Destiny: Immortal Obsession

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This week has been a good week for me. No I haven’t had any one real specific thing that made it a great week it just was so I decided for the next 48 hours I would give away free copies of the first book in my Immortal Obsession series Saving Destiny. Below if the blurb. Please enjoy.

It took one kiss for Destiny to steal his heart and Damien lived his life for another one from the woman he loved. If he only knew that that one kiss would lead to his death and eternal damnation, would he still have kissed her? In one mere second of time, Damien loses his life because of a supernatural twist. On a stormy night in the back roads of nowhere his car careens out of control and into a field claiming his life. Suddenly, everything he ever thought about heaven, hell and angels takes on a whole new meaning as he struggles to get his life back. Falling from heaven, Zahir makes the ultimate sacrifice but who is to benefit from it? When Zahir stole Damien’s future, his destiny and his body, he decides it’s time to steal it back. But then he is offered a choice between the life he was destined to live and the one Death offers him, putting him at a crossroad. Damien wants to make the best choice he can so that he can carry out his plans to marry Destiny. However, what Damien fails to recognize is that getting his life back is going to take him into a whole new dimension of what the afterlife means. In every lovers triangle there has to be someone who loses. No romance ever truly sees the happily ever after. One fell from heaven, someone is headed for hell and Destiny is the prize. When your heart and soul hang in the balance, is there ever really any second chances?

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/533635

Coupon code: UQ97D

Smile

JD

 

Find your passions

I wrote a little love story called "Little White Lies" for NaNoWriMo a couple of years ago. It was meant to be a charming little love story. Now it received good reviews, which is great, but two comments were always added at the end of the review. Rather predictable and the author could have done so much more with it. I left the book for five months then reread the book. They were right. I realized that as much as I want to write an epic love story, I can't write one without adding in action, scary creatures and lots of darkness. I liked the story, but it was too run of the mill to really stand out and I wasn’t truly passionate about the story, just the challenge of writing it in a month.

Anybody can write a book. I have proven that, but to write an epic story you must be passionate about the actual story. I am a true romantic at heart, but I don't read love stories or watch them on TV. I read Stephen King and watch Supernatural so even though all my books have a theme of undying romance, the bonds of true friendship and absolute loyalty, if there's nothing dark and scary I am not passionate about the story.

I know that my writing improves with every book I write. Innocence Lost was a great theme for a story, but I didn't really know how to make my readers care about the characters. I was passionate about the theme, but the story was written for other people, not me. It was the same way with Little White Lies. You should know your target audience, but write the story you are passionate about.

You will be hanging out with the characters and whatever world they live in for months to maybe even years, so be sure that they are who you want to be with, have a passion for. If you aren't passionate about what's going on, then nobody else will be. Find your passion and have fun with it.

I know writers, that I hang out with, who follow trends. They read about the current top selling book in a trendy genre and immediately try and emulate that type of story whether BDSM or zombies or vampires, but they don't feel passion for the craft or the story just the idea that there reproduction might be the next great thing. Then after a few months they just stop because they don't have a personal connection to it.

A friend understood this idea and decided to find his passion. He chose three disposable pen names and wrote one little science fiction book, one detective book and one horror book and released them. He actually just put them out there for free and forgot them. When he was asked why, he said, “I found out I like the idea of writing, but my passion is making book trailers not writing books”.

So whatever genre you write in make sure its something you are passionate about. I like to think of my genre as paranormal romance filled with action and the darker things because that's where my passions lie. In my world those scary creatures do live under your bed and love nothing more then screwing over men lives, but the romantic in my always hopes that love conquers all. Right now even I am rooting for Damien and I don't really like the guy as much as my readers do.

Smile

JD

Writers Craft - The prize in your writers toolbox

My first book “Innocence Lost” had a pretty good amount of weak fighting scenes. Everybody raved about the car accident like it was pure gold. It was flattering to have strangers email me telling me how realistic and believable the whole accident was. So I looked at my fight scenes trying to determine what was the difference in them. My car accident was based on my own life experience. The fear, tension and wide array of emotions that I was able to pull it flowed onto the pages easily. Now when I was a child I had been in fist fights, but the closest thing to a knife fight I had scene was on TV or playing Zorro with my cousin so I had no real life experience to call on. Now I had thought of taking a self defense class or karate and I might still do it, but I truly didn’t think it would allow me to understand the basics of fighting properly.

Luckily I was reading on twitter and someone had mentioned that they had stumbled upon author Rayne Hall’s book “Writing Fight Scenes: Professional Techniques for Fiction Authors (Writer's Craft Book 1)”. They described it as an author’s fighting bible so I had to check it out. I immediately went online and read the reviews for the book. I wasn’t really sure if the book would help me or not, but I figured I would spend the three bucks and buy it. I am just way too small and pretty for prison so reading a book was a logical step rather than experiencing it.

It was a fantastic book that delivers exactly what it promises. It provided detailed in-depth understanding and steps on how to write realistic fight scenes. It was amazing to learn how a skilled and non-skilled person could use them and make it a believable not only for me, but my readers. I immediately reread what I thought was my best fighting scene and found so many flaws and best of all was following the five step blueprint outlined in the book helped me improve my fight scenes. Now I am not talking about copying what Rayne so skilfully outlines and gives you in examples, but learning the skills and adding to them to make them your own. This is an awesome resource for writers. Now I think the whole series is absolutely amazing and eagerly bought the whole writers craft series.

Now I know authors who act out fight scenes with action figures (Vintage Starwars action figures), some hang out with karate instructors or cops. Everyone will have their own way of dealing with fight scenes. I highly recommend Rayne’s Writers Craft series. I have a giant collection of books on my kindle and Rayne’s books are the ones I refer to repeatedly. It’s how my fight scenes went from being described as weak and awkward to epic and so believable.

How to sell a million books in seventy easy steps

How to sell a million books in seventy easy steps. I really wish that I could tell you how to sell millions of books, become famous and accomplish your dreams of becoming a bestselling author, but if there is such a system I don’t think it exists. I decided though that I would write about my personal journey in self-publishing. I am not famous yet and you won’t find me on the New York Times best sellers list yet, but what you will find here are my experiences and dreams in writing and promoting my books as well as my successes and failures along the way.

I will explain what motivated me from being the guy who always thought I have one great novel in me to actually writing a book. I just wanted to write and publish a book. That was all the motivation I had. The challenge of taking the images that have been developing inside my vivid imagination and trying to put them down on paper to share with the world. There wasn’t a dream to be famous or rich just write something half decent that I was proud of and that people enjoyed reading. I accomplished half of that goal. After a year and a half of writing and re-writing my treasured story I finally produced 39728 words that I rushed to release so that whole world could tell me how great it was.

Now my book “Innocence Lost” wasn’t a total waste of time and even though later I would think it was probably the worst book ever written. Those few people that read it actually liked it. I am not talking movie of the week liked, but they liked the theme and message behind it plus everybody found something they did and didn’t like about my little treasure. I was embarrassed though. So embarrassed that I pulled the book from being sold. Even though my mom still brags that her son wrote a book and with each new release she is the first to ask me for a signed copy.

I read the reviews from bloggers, readers and others reviews and comments then read my book again. Now it’s easy to realize that your book really does suck and give up on a dream. A lot of people do. On a book I released later that received one star with the added insult, “Not worth the price and predictable” was absolutely horrifying for me. Yes for a minute I was ready to give up. I gave the book away and was really proud of it so that was hard for my pride to handle. It wasn’t until I decided to actually look at the reviews as a learning experience rather than an insult that everything changed. My goal hasn’t changed. I still want to write a great novel that I am proud of and people enjoy reading and I did it with my third book, but then I decided that I could do it better.

Well back on topic. I read my book “Innocence Lost” and despite all its numerous flaws I still liked the theme and thought it was an amazing story if told properly. Now I looked at it as a reader. My characters weren’t as relatable as the ones I had imagined, the fight scenes weren’t believable if a fight between a man and a fallen angel can be believable and it was just too over powering with emotions, but I could write it better. That’s exactly what I did with Stealing Destiny the first book in my Immortal Obsession series. The same theme only tweaked and perfected until you can’t see that the books tell the same story. Better fight scenes, a bigger book that flows and relatable characters. I discovered in the process of going from Innocence Lost to Stealing Destiny a lot of useful information, but the most shocking thing for me was that everybody who reads my book has a favorite character, but it’s never the same character.

Now I can’t tell you how to sell a million copies of your book or even how to give away a million copies, but what I can do is tell you what I have learned. What has worked and what’s really flopped and failed as well as the tools that have worked for me. I have a kindle full of books about writing, self-publishing, marketing etc. Some are absolute treasures that I think everybody needs to read and some aren’t worth the time it takes to read. Now I won’t list the books that are a waste of time just the ones that have helped me. I don’t want to leave negative comments about other peoples work because of my experience, but I will tell you about my experiences so far and those that I am trying. I will list what worked and what didn’t in my journey.

I love being and author and embrace the fact that each book I write is better then the previous one. I have taken the challenge to keep writing better books and sell a million copies. How long it takes and how creative I need to be is what makes the challenge fun.

So follow me on my journey. I am making my very first attempt at writing available for free through my news letter from now until January 12^th 2016 ( Those who are interested will find it at www.jdselmser.com ). Not that I think it’s a great or horrible book. Just so that those who struggle and have self-doubt don’t feel alone. Read it for free and follow my journey. Hopefully you will find some inspiration, ideas and tools to help you along the way.