Yesterday, I talked about ideas\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhere they come from\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhow to come up with fresh ideas for books, articles and stories. Today, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to offer you some tips for parlaying those ideas\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfor expanding and expounding on them. <\/p>\n
I speak often about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spin offs.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A spin off is a by-product or a follow-up to the original. Within the context of a book, it might be a sequel or any number of other writings related to the theme of your book.<\/p>\n
The point of a spin off is to generate more sales. Not only will you have additional items to sell, but each book, pamphlet, guide, article or list that you produce is a marketing tool for the original book. Here are some ideas:
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tFollow up your novel with a book or articles featuring bed and breakfast inns in the area where your story takes place.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tCreate a mystery for readers to solve based on some of the characters in your original book.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tEnhance a book of poetry by producing a pocket calendar or greeting cards highlighting some of the lines from your poems.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tWrite a companion book for you historical novel profiling real people from the period.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tDesign a quaint book of quotes from the time period of your historical novel.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tProduce a sequel to your original story.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tCompile a pamphlet of additional resources related to the subject of your nonfiction book. For a medical, fitness, diet, health, finance or real estate book, for example, produce a booklet with updates in this field.<\/p>\n
Use a good article idea by writing additional articles on aspects of that topic or theme. The following article topics developed from my piece featuring family togetherness:
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tCamping activities for families.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tFamily spiritual activities.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tExercise activities for families.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tHow the computer can bring the family together
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tCollecting family history around the Thanksgiving table.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tPlay together\/Stay together.<\/p>\n
I wrote an article once on how to teach your child responsibility and that one developed into articles on:
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tTeaching your child the work ethic.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tTeaching children money awareness.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tTeaching children responsibility through pet ownership.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tEncouraging a child\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s independence.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tHow corporations are linking with schools to prepare kids for their future in the workplace.<\/p>\n
You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen authors take their original theme (a cat that solves murders, for example) and use it over and again in subsequent books. You can do the same thing. Maybe the main character of your story has a lisp that gets him in all sorts of verbal trouble. Let him shine in new stories. You might feature this character as a librarian, a newspaper hawker, a pizza delivery guy, a tour guide, etc. You can create many new book manuscripts and short stories using the same idea for a character.<\/p>\n
In freelance writing, first there is the idea and then those ideas should be dissected to create new ideas. <\/p>\n
Patricia Fry is offering a 6-week online article-writing course. Sign up at http:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/course_magarticles.htm<\/a><\/p>\n Additional courses include: Book Promotion Workshop at http:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/course_bookpromotion.htm<\/a> Write a Successful Book Proposal at http:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/course_bookproposal.htm<\/a> and Self-Publishing Workshop at http:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/course_selfpub.htm<\/a><\/p>\n I still do not have a way that we can communicate through comments, but I welcome your comments sent to my email address: plfry620@yahoo.com <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday, I talked about ideas\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhere they come from\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhow to come up with fresh ideas for books, articles and stories. Today, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to offer you some tips for parlaying those ideas\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfor expanding and expounding on them. I speak often about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spin offs.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A spin off is a by-product or a follow-up to the original. Within […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,3,4],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t