Slyce: Brothers and Sistah’s, please welcome our brother Nick James to “The Interrogation Room”!! Welcome my brother:-). Are you ready?
Slyce: What inspired you to become an author?
NJ: I always wanted to write. I think the first thing I ever wrote was probably on the wall 
with a color crayon; no doubt I was sent to my room. I wrote some things for the school paper and high school yearbook as a kid, then probably about a hundred different first chapters for award winning bestsellers that remained under my bed, never published. Finally, I said to myself either do it or shut up. So I started writing in earnest. My early works were all written in the dark, before sunrise or after sunset.
Slyce: What is the name of your publishing company?
NJ: I’m an indie published author, it’s just me. But I use the name Credit River Publishing as my publisher. If I went with a traditional publisher it would be a big cut in pay and I’d still have to do everything I’m doing now, covers, pay an editor, marketing. I make more money being in charge of myself, and I have a lot more freedom.
Slyce: In what genre do you write?
NJ: I write crime fiction.
Slyce: Have you penned under another name?
NJ: Yes, currently I have three series going. My “Dev Haskell” series is written under my name, Mike Faricy. My “Corridor Man” series is written under the name Nick James and my “Jack Dillon Dublin Tales” series is written under the name Patrick Emmett.
Slyce: You wrote a book titled “Corridor Man”. What was this book about?
NJ: “Corridor Man” is about a disbarred attorney, Bobby Custer, who serves time in prison and then gets a break from the feds and has a couple of years cut off his sentence. When he gets out of prison he can’t go back to practicing law because he’s been disbarred, although it’s the only thing he knows how to do. So, he starts out working in the Corridors of the court house; driving people to depositions, delivering files to attorney’s homes, driving witnesses to and from court. Through a series of events a large law firm has a criminal client who likes Bobby and he ends up ‘dealing’ with that client. I know a couple of guys who actually did this, got disbarred, served time etc. So there’s some truth to what I write. One of them disappeared and the other, well… I just released the sixth book in the “Corridor Man” series this month. I describe Bobby Custer as psychotic, psychopathic, greedy, unprincipled and always charming.
Slyce: Is the book a series or a standalone?
NJ: “Corridor Man” is the first book in the “Corridor Man” series. I just released the sixth book in the series this month, February, 2017. Along with the six books in the series, there are also three short stories.
Slyce: What does the term “Building a Brand” mean?
NJ: It means when people hear your name or see the series they automatically have a sense of what they want and what they are going to get. It’s why I write Corridor Man as Nick James, the Jack Dillon series as Patrick Emmett and the Dev Haskell series as Mike Faricy. Each series is different, Dev Haskell can be humorous. In Corridor Man although Bobby Custer is the main protagonist, the guy is an absolute villain and scumbag, yet you want him to succeed. Jack Dillon is a US Marshal, on the outs with his boss who is sent to Dublin. Each series is different and has it’s own unique brand.
Slyce: What steps are you taking to build your brand?
NJ: I work at maintaining the personality of the characters. Where they live, how they interact. The types of situations that move the story along help to brand the series.
Slyce: Do you feel a new author should have a “Team”?
NJ: I think that would be good, but in my experience it takes a while to put a team together, years. For a variety of reason people have other things they do, work, kids, life. Once you have someone who is willing to help, and we all need those people, you have to take very good care of them.
Slyce: What was one of the biggest mistakes you made as a new author?
NJ: The list is long but two of the larger ones were improper editing, asking friends to take a look. Editors need to be paid and that is tough to do starting out, really tough, but it’s necessary, especially for me. The other thing would be covers. I had some great covers, but they didn’t project the sense of a series. I ended up going back and redoing maybe a half dozen covers that had been out there for a while because as much as I liked them, they did not say to someone glancing at them, here, this is a series.
Slyce: What advice would you offer to those aspiring to become an author?
NJ: Get to it. Just sit down and start writing. I slaved over my first book and a world famous author lives in my town and I conned a lunch with him, I bought by the way. I brought my manuscript along and at the end of our lunch I asked if he wanted to read it. He said no, and told me that we all have at least one work that we keep under the bed. He was right, that manuscript is still under the bed, never released. Writing is like a pyramid, everyone is going to write a book, that’s the broad base. Some folks start but never finish, that’s the middle, at the very top of the pyramid are the folks who sit down and do it, accomplish it. Anyone who’s tried knows the work involved, you have to keep at it and plow through. If you are going to wait until you are in the right mood or until the writer’s block passes you’ll never complete it.
Slyce: What goals would you like to achieve as an author?
NJ: I always want to write the next book. A movie deal or a TV series would be okay with me, maybe an Academy Award or two.
Slyce: Is there anything else cooking in the lab for Author Nick James?
NJ: Oh yeah, drawing up the outline for “Corridor Man 7” as I write this. Plus, I have two other series, “Dev Haskell Private Investigator” by Mike Faricy. I’ve got fifteen books out in that series along with three short stories. I’m working on book sixteen at this time. I’ve got another series “Jack Dillon Dublin Tales” written under the name Patrick Emmett. Book number four, “Silver Bullet” comes out next month, March 2017.
Slyce: How important are interviews?
NJ: Very important. Hard to believe but some of the folks who will read this have never, ever heard of me before. What an opportunity! Interviews give readers a chance to find out some more general things about authors, in this case me. Sometimes with all the book hype you can come away with a distorted picture of what the writer is really like. The other thing is you learn that someone didn’t just sit down and write a best seller, it takes a lot of hard work and nose to the grindstone which isn’t necessarily too romantic. I think it was Bruce Springsteen who said it only took him fifteen years to be discovered overnight.
Slyce: How important are reviews?
NJ: Reviews are very important, you get feedback from regular folks. Hopefully everyone will like my books, but occasionally I hear from people who don’t like something. One woman told me she really enjoyed a book, but she wouldn’t read another one because my characters took the Lord’s name in vain. I don’t know what she thought bad guys talked like. Another woman wrote and said she loved my “Dev Haskell” series except for the fact that he always ended up with sexy, young women and that wasn’t her anymore. I thought, hmm-mmm so the next book in that series I had him ending up with a woman at least ten years older than he was and he couldn’t keep up with her sexually. At one point he’s in a morning meeting and he has to stand because she spanked him so hard the night before he couldn’t sit down. I find my reviews lead to a lot of people trying my books.
Slyce: Do you write for the passion or the profit?
NJ: I write because I love it, I guess that’s the passion. I work hard at it, but it’s kind of like that old adage, the harder you work the luckier you get. I start the next book the day after I release a work and try and make the new book better than the one before. Yeah, I know, I’m pretty boring.
Slyce: How can our viewers contact you?
NJ:I have a site folks can click on to get a couple of free books or they can contact me via email or Facebook. Hey thank you very much for putting me in the interrogation room letting be be a part of Slyce. Wish you and all your readers the very best!
Free books: http://www.mikefaricybooks.com/free-gift/
Mike Faricy Website: http://www.mikefaricybooks.com
Mike Faricy Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikefaricyauthor
Mike Faricy Books Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MikeFaricyBooks/
Dev Haskell Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DevHaskell/
Slyce: I’d like to thank guest Author Nick James for joining us in “The Interrogation Room”!! Thank you my Brother. You were wonderful!!
Everyone please go purchase “Corridor Man” or any book by Nick James. Also, remember to check out his page on Facebook at: 
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