Sunday, December 16, 2012
author site is hacked
My author's page has been hacked by something called Crazy Hacker. I know whoever does such things is getting a big kick out of it, and I know he/she/they could care less whether someone like me is upset about it. But I, for one, am clueless as to how this person or people benefits from doing things like this. It reminds me of people who purposely squish chameleons with their boots or purposely run over squirrels on the street. It is so senseless and ignorant and ugly. Anyway, I'm working on getting my site back online.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Whew, what a month!
November has been eventful for my series, to say the least. Forged In Death's November promotion on Amazon turned out to be a big success, with Book 1 going as low as 500 or so and staying beneath 2,000 for the entire month. My short story, Torg's First Death (a tale from The Death Wizard Chronicles), also went well below 1,000. And book 2 titled Chained By Fear, which was released on Nov. 28, is also selling well. Plus, reviews -- mostly positive -- are starting to roll in. Overall, the momentum is building, and I'm confident it will continue to build in the months to come.
I do see one potential problem-spot. I think that a lot of today's fantasy readers, more so than in year's past, really like the gritty stuff with heroes that are half good/half bad, as opposed to the loftier, more black/white tone that I've taken, which is more like Tolkien and less like, say, Martin. A few have said that my hero is too strong and that he's not realistic.
Well, here's my argument against that. Let's say you've got three kind of sassy/dirty heroes running through a cave to escape some bad guys. And they find a troll blocking the entrance. It ends up taking the three of them about an hour to finally find a way around the troll, which is fine and fun. But in the meantime, the bad guy's army has about a thousand of these trolls in it. So, how in the world will the good guys stand any chance at all if the toughest of them can't even take on one of the trolls? That to me is as unrealistic to me as a loftier story is to others.
Still, it's a matter of taste, and when a person spends hard-earned time and money on a book, he or she has every right to say whatever they feel about it. It's an honor to the writer, regardless.
I do see one potential problem-spot. I think that a lot of today's fantasy readers, more so than in year's past, really like the gritty stuff with heroes that are half good/half bad, as opposed to the loftier, more black/white tone that I've taken, which is more like Tolkien and less like, say, Martin. A few have said that my hero is too strong and that he's not realistic.
Well, here's my argument against that. Let's say you've got three kind of sassy/dirty heroes running through a cave to escape some bad guys. And they find a troll blocking the entrance. It ends up taking the three of them about an hour to finally find a way around the troll, which is fine and fun. But in the meantime, the bad guy's army has about a thousand of these trolls in it. So, how in the world will the good guys stand any chance at all if the toughest of them can't even take on one of the trolls? That to me is as unrealistic to me as a loftier story is to others.
Still, it's a matter of taste, and when a person spends hard-earned time and money on a book, he or she has every right to say whatever they feel about it. It's an honor to the writer, regardless.
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About Me
- Jim Melvin
- Clemson, SC, United States
- I was born in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., but grew up in St. Petersburg, Fla. I graduated from the University of South Florida (Tampa) in 1979 with a B.A. in Journalism. I now live in South Carolina near the Blue Ridge Mountains, a pleasant setting for writing, to say the least. I was an award-winning journalist at the St. Petersburg Times for twenty-five years and I currently work at the Charlotte Observer. I am married with five daughters.
The author
Jim Melvin, a veteran journalist, debuts as novelist.
