1) Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get into writing?

   My introduction to writing started when I left my job back in 2014. I received a decent severance package but was a little on the picky side when it came to finding another job (lesson to folks—don’t be picky, get a new job quickly, and pocket the severance to savings!). I was following Guy Kawasaki for investments and got his book, APE – Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur where he discusses the self-publishing process. I always loved dreaming up stories and he made it sound pretty easy to write and self-publish a book. So, I was a little naive back then. 

   I was out of work for about eight months and took that time to write my first book. Back then, most self-publishing marketing advice was to talk about your book on social media sites. Which worked out well for a top-line influencer like Guy but not so well for a no-name like me. I wasn’t really into spamming my friends and didn’t really do a good job. That is when I thought about trying to turn the book into a movie, figuring as long as it wasn’t truly horrendous, it should help sell some books. So, I learned how to write a movie script then. I had to modify the original story to work in a movie and really liked the changes I came up with. This helped me create The Doom of the Gods series.

   In 2019, I wanted to write children’s books for my grandchildren, so I created a publishing company for these books. I even lined up artists and translators to work with me to produce each book in 12 languages. We produced one book, and I was able to put it out in seven languages, with another two books near completion. The problem was I was doing all the backend work and my day job was really killing me with work. I would get home and not want to do anything.

   To make a long story short, it wasn’t until losing that job, with another nice severance package, in 2023 that I discovered all of the self-publishing advice on YouTube and decided to get back into the writing game more seriously. If your readers are interested, I have put together a little history on my website: https://www.author-jgrimm.com/writing-history

2) What inspired you to write your book?

   In 2014, I finished reading Graham Hancock’s Fingerprints of the Gods when I picked up Guy Kawasaki’s APE book. I have always enjoyed the alternative history field and thought, why not tell a story about the downfall of Atlantis? I am a firm believer that most of the folks living in the modern world could not live off the land without significant help – myself included. 

   My thinking was an advanced society, if damaged enough, would not recover and most of the people would not survive the downfall. Things like the lack of medicine, food, power, and lack of knowledge of living off the land would doom most. Civility would take a back seat to the survival of your immediate group.  Civilizational knowledge would be considered a luxury that was not needed. You can’t fill a belly with writing, and books might be more prized for their help in starting a fire than the knowledge they contain. 

   The rise in sea levels and the propensity to build cities near water sources would have been an additional nail in the coffin for the last Ice Age civilizations. Sea levels were over 100 feet lower than they are now. The Persian Gulf was a river valley; Southeast Asia was a landmass, Japan was connected to the mainland, and the Mediterranean was smaller, as was the Gulf of Mexico. 

   With Plato’s story stating Atlantis was a great naval power, I assumed their cities would mostly be near the coasts. In many cases, that is land now miles off the coasts and, in some cases, nearly a hundred feet under the waves. 

   The only thing now was to figure out how the Gods would have been angered enough to destroy Atlantis and The Doom of the Gods series was born.

3) What theme or message do you hope readers will take away from your book?

   Too many people think we are the apex of human history. That a race that had over 100,000 years of carrying fire around and numbering globally less than a small city could turn around in less than 10,000 years to be capable of space flight and other feats that would have been considered magic or powers of the Gods by those before this period.  Could this have happened before?  And will it happen again? Are we doomed to repeat the past?

4) What drew you into this particular genre?

    I have always loved fantasy and science fiction. From a kid reading The Hobbit or playing Dungeons & Dragons to being in the US Navy and reading tons of books, I have enjoyed them.

5) If you could sit down with any character in your book, what would you ask them and why?

    Probably Demetri, the hero of the Greeks chasing Rogat around Eastern Europe, or Atlanta Nado in the book. He is a happy-go-lucky guy who doesn’t worry about anything and enjoys a good laugh. Of course, he is a hero and blessed by the Gods, so he has powers that the normal human doesn’t but I bet he would be fun to be around. If he doesn’t get you killed.

6) What social media site has been the most helpful in developing your readership?

    Well, I’m still building that readership, but I hope YouTube will be my magnet. I plan on releasing videos about Atlantis and other things from my books to help build the background. I also plan on putting out some short stories or novellas on my website. The short ones for free and I might charge a little for the longer ones. I am working on a story, working title “Death of Brother Death,” which talks about the early Atlanteans and their heroes killing the last of the Neanderthals, who were not the peaceful ones we hear about but more of a vicious humanoid that liked our taste as much as our women. 

7) What advice would you give to aspiring or just starting authors out there?

     Start writing or outlining, whichever you wish to do. You can always correct it later. Once I put out my first book, I enjoyed the process and decided I wanted to do more. Also, I watch a ton of YouTube videos about writing, marketing, publishing, and anything related to these subjects (I also watched the movie script creation videos). You can read a lot of blogs, too, but the amount of info out there on YouTube is great. Just don’t follow one person. Get a lot of them, and make sure you are following advice that seems to be common or makes sense to you. 

8) What does the future hold in store for you? Are any new books/projects on the horizon?

    I am running in a few different directions now. The Power of Water was my first novel with my new knowledge, like seeking out reviews from you and others. This was a learning step that I hope to reproduce with other works. I currently have a resume-writing book I plan on releasing this year (hopefully by the end of summer) and releasing one or two of the children’s books.  If I can get those all done by the end of the year, I will be happy. 

    Regarding The Doom of the Gods series, I have two more books planned. Book Two is about 60,000 words already. I have also started working on another series that will follow some Priests of Poseidon during the downfall and their descendants up through modern times. How they set up a secret society that guides humanity until the time they can reveal themselves. In this series I will pick times through history that seem like a potential intervention from the gods with the society helping out the rulers. So far, I am thinking of ancient Egypt, Rome, or Chin China, maybe the Black Death, the disappearance of the Maya, and WW2 Hitler. The last would be like a Jason Bourne-ish type story with the world’s governments learning about the society.

     I also have other universes I wish to write in, and I have a long list of story ideas I want to eventually get down on paper. I hope this becomes my day job, but I will have to wait and see.

About the Author

Instead of just daydreaming of my fantasy worlds and people, why not write about them. At least that is what I told myself when I started this journey in 2014.

Living in Japan, the land of Anime, the Samurai, the ultra modern and extremely old seems to fuel my worlds. Both the ancient and new meld together into worlds where superpowered school kids defeat evil, forest spirits help or fight humans or giant, futuristic robots battle to save the world. Where else to live for inspiration!

In the land of the rising sun, I create my worlds, that I hope entertain you.

https://www.author-jgrimm.com