Another 5-star review for The Pit

This review is from J. Kaye Oldner of J. Kaye's Books, one of the top reviewers on the blogosphere.

The Death Wizard Chronicles: The Pit by Jim Melvin
Rating: 5 Stars

Torg, the Death-Knower wizard who is the main character in Jim Melvin’s The Death Wizard Chronicles, is like a mixture of Merlin and Conan, but with a Buddha twist. The Pit is book one of a six-book epic fantasy, where readers get to know Torg, king of the Tugars -- the mystical warriors of the Great Desert.

Torg is up against the evil sorcerer Invictus, who has threatened to engulf the world in darkness. Invictus is the greatest threat the land has ever known, and cannot be defeated by ordinary means. The Death-Knower believes that in order to combat this great evil, he needs to perform an act of virtue, something to even the scales between good and evil. A selfless act of such magnitude would set larger forces into motion.

When the Death-Knower gives up his freedom in order to save the free people of Triken, he does so knowing that this battle will not be fought on an ordinary battlefield. He orders the Asekhas, who are Tugars of the highest rank, to not follow or try to rescue him from the pit in which he is imprisoned. The Death-Knower escapes the pit, but runs into Vedana, a 100,000-year-old demon who is also grandmother of Invictus. Could the product of their brief union be what’s needed to destroy Invictus? Or will something even more disastrous come to be?

It’s hard to tell. Melvin’s tale is not predictable. We’ll just have to keep on reading to find out.

How hard do you push? (No sex jokes here)

Most of you will be disappointed to learn that -- in terms of pushing hard -- I'm talking marketing, not sex. But I've been told that if you work the word sex into your blog items, your hits will increase dramatically. So I'm going to write the word sex into this item several times and see if my hits rise. Rise, get it? That's another sex reference. Let's just hope it doesn't cause my hits to shrink. (Sex, sex, sex.)

Here are my questions, in terms of marketing: Can you push too hard? Can you become so excited about what you're doing that it turns off the very people you're trying to turn on? For instance, do you as a potential reader become annoyed when you receive emails from publishers or authors regarding purchasing information and updates on their books? Has an email ever prompted you to buy a book? How about reading a blog? What if I told you that my series has sex in it? Would that prompt you to buy? Or not to buy?

The past several months, I have marketed my butt off -- though I mean that figuratively, because without a butt, having sex would be kind of weird.

Sex, sex, sex. Does sex sell? Will it increase the size of my hits counter?

I'll check tomorrow and see, see, see.

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Join Jim Melvin live tonight at The Plot

Good evening, everyone! For anyone who might be interested, I'm appearing live tonight (Jan. 9) from 7 till 11 (Eastern Standard) at The Plot. It's Pub Night, so the drinks are on me (figuratively, I'm afraid). If you're an author and/or a reader, please click here and join in the fun.

epic fantasy, Pump Up Your Book Promotion, Dorothy Thompson, virtual tour, blogosphere, sexy R-rated, Fear of death, Death Wizard, Judi Moreo, You Are More Than Enough, The Plot

The Death Wizard is in the building

Torg the Death Wizard makes a personal appearance today on The Plot. Please check it out here.

epic fantasy, Pump Up Your Book Promotion, Dorothy Thompson, virtual tour, blogosphere, sexy R-rated, Fear of death, Death Wizard, Judi Moreo, You Are More Than Enough, The Plot

Come meet Torg at The Plot

Today through at least Wednesday, The Death Wizard Chronicles and my main character (Torg) will be featured on a new blog called The Plot. Click here for the bio and here for the excerpt. Today you'll find my bio and an excerpt, and upcoming is a Q/A with Torg and then a very cool comment session called Pub Night that I'm certain will soon develop into a very popular feature on The Plot. So, pull up a chair. It should be a lot of fun. I'll keep you in touch on the where and whens.

epic fantasy, Pump Up Your Book Promotion, Dorothy Thompson, virtual tour, blogosphere, sexy R-rated, Fear of death, Death Wizard, Judi Moreo, You Are More Than Enough, The Plot

Friday Feast: One Hundred and Seventy-Four

Appetizer:
When was the last time you received a surprise in the mail, and what was it?
You know, this is going to sound sad, but I really can't remember a surprise in the mail other than a bill that I wasn't expecting. But when I was a boy, I used to send in the tops of cereal boxes and get all kinds of cool stuff.
Soup:
If you could have a summer and/or winter home, where would you want it to be?
Summer home in Costa Rica. Winter home in Asheville, N.C.
Salad:
Pick one: pineapple, orange, banana, apple, cherry.
Love them all dearly, but banana edges orange by a nose.
Main Course:
Describe the nicest piece of clothing that you own.
A business suit that really wasn't that expensive. All my clothes combined are worth less than a thousand dollars. But I do own an expensive set of golf clubs! The problem is, I use my clothes a whole lot more than my clubs.
Dessert:
If you could forget one whole day from your life, which day would you choose to wipe from your memory?
That day is yet to come ... but I can feel it, looming like a predator.

The realization of dreams

"Every step I take brings me closer to the realization of my dreams." -- from You Are More Than Enough Achievement Journal by Judi Moreo. (To order Judi's book, click here.)

Throughout January, inspirational author Judi Moreo will embark on a virtual tour of the blogosphere that will include the participation of other authors. Judi is giving people like me a chance to let the world know what steps I've taken to realize my own dreams.

Thanks Judi! Here's what I have to say:

For me, The Death Wizard Chronicles were the culmination of a lifelong dream. From age 20 to 45, I lived and breathed this series in my mind, but none of the words found their way from my fingertips to a keyboard. To be honest, a large part of me believed that I would never write this series and that I would die an old man regretting it.

Instead, I refused to allow that to happen. Rather than work until I turned 65, I took a huge financial risk and stepped out of journalism in my mid-40s so that I could bring the Death Wizard to life. In September 2004, I wrote the first word. Seven-hundred-thousand words later, I'm finishing the last draft of Book 6, the final book of the series.

Realizing this dream truly was a step-by-step process. First, I retired from a job that I had been working at for a quarter-century. Then I moved my family from Florida to the mountains of South Carolina. Then I began an extensive research project, reading more than fifty nonfiction books (on everything from weapons and armor to Horses for Dummies) in little more than three months. Then I disciplined myself to write for at least four hours every day, seven days a week. All told, we're talking more than 5,000 hours of writing and revising.

Now that the series is nearly complete, a good deal of my energy has been transferred from the writing process to the marketing process. Rain Publishing (a mid-sized house based in Canada) and I are working very hard to sell this series, but it's a long, difficult climb up the ladder of success -- literally and figuratively one rung at a time.

"Every step I take brings me closer to the realization of my dreams." Man, ain't that the truth. I'm maybe halfway to where I want to be, so there are a lot of steps to go. But once I got walking in the right direction, I'd have it no other way.

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