Book Review: The Hunted by James Reasoner

A few months ago, I bought and read James Reasoner's long-lost, but recently e-published novel Diamondback.  I will review that book here shortly, but suffice to say that it was good enough and piqued my interest enough in Reasoner's work that I went out and bought his 1997 novel The Hunted for the Kindle.  It was actually the first book I read on my new Kindle, and while I'll have a short article soon about my impressions of the device, I will say that it was a pleasure to use.

The Hunted follows the adventures of Evan Littleton, a Confederate soldier who has spent two years in a Yankee prison camp until the end of the Civil War, at which point he is turned loose and walks all the way back to his home in Texas.  Or what used to be his home - he discovers that a lot has changed in the four years since he has been gone, and now Evan must range across much of West Texas in order to find his children and bring them together again.

Trouble seems to rear its head wherever Evan goes, and the former soldier finds himself pitted against the Texas State Police, squatting carpetbaggers, outlaws and bandits, marauding Indians, Mexican renegades - a whole rogue's gallery of ne'er do wells and scoundrels.  At the same time, however, Evan also meets and befriends a number of honest, compassionate people who help him in his quest.  The story shows you the best and the worst of human nature and how Evan handles both extremes is both entertaining and heart-warming.

While I have seen my fair share of western films, I haven't read many novels.  These days, the Western is a mostly forgotten genre (and according to John Locke in his kindle publishing "how to" book, the western is the worst-selling fiction genre on Amazon).  But it wasn't too long ago that many of our culture's most profound and engaging stories emanated from westerns fiction.  There is something so perfectly archetypal about a Wild West tale that you can't help but be pulled into these stories, and yet, not all of it is fiction; there were gunfighters, marauders, bandits, noble farmers, drunkards and whores, fortunes made and fortunes lost.  The Hunted isn't an epic story, but in a way - sure it is!  You can see a touch of The Odyssey deep down in there, mixed in with a number of other classic "quest" stories.

As an aside, coming from a background of almost twenty years playing pen-and-paper tabletop role-playing games, I find it curious that while the Wild West is the archetype frontier environment upon which Dungeons and Dragons was built, there have only been a tiny handful of Western-themed role-playing games, and none of them have really been extraordinarily popular.  I guess it is a credit to the genre that so many of its themes are, instead, ported to other places - fantasy worlds, science fiction and post-apocalyptic settings - where the themes work just as well.

So if you're looking for a fast, fun, easy read, and you've been intrigued by the western genre but haven't yet dipped your toe, give The Hunted a try.

Hatchet Force Journal #1 Receives Warm Reception

My new action-adventure e-zine, Hatchet Force Journal, went live on Amazon.com a week ago.  I've been averaging a few sales a day, enough so I know it's not just a handful of loyal readers who're always commenting on this site.  It's an exciting but nerve-wracking feeling to know that people you've probably never even corresponded with are now buying your product, but that's what happens when you take the Big Leap and click "Save and Publish".

So far the responses I've gotten have been great.  Jim Cobb over at Survival Weekly declares that HFJ is "...awesome drenched in win".  Jim makes an especially insightful comment about my essay, The Children of Vietnam, noting how I discuss "...the interesting dichotomy of being part of a generation who grew out of the hippy and counter-culture movements, yet became fascinated with violent movies, gory books, and really what should be considered to be the early days of torture porn."

Adventure and westerns author James Reasoner writes over at Rough Edges that HFJ is "...a fine piece of work".  James was, as best as I can figure, the second person to purchase the Journal, and he was kind enough to give me a lot of good advice in private about what can be done to make it better.  I'm currently reading one of James' e-book westerns, The Hunted, and it's a lot of fun.

Special Forces veteran and weapons expert Jack Murphy, who can now add "Self-Published Badass" to his resume, gave a review of HFJ over at Reflexive Fire, noting "Overall, Issue One is a solid effort and much more worthy of a periodical reader’s time than what is frequently available on physical news stands".   Jack's new paramilitary action novel Reflexive Fire  went on sale the same day as the Journal, and if you're a fan of action, intrigue, and conspiracy, you need to check it out.

Paul Bishop over at his super-cool blog Bish's Beat put up a promotional post, and over at Amazon he was kind enough to give me a concise and almost embarrassingly good review.  Bish says HFJ "...kicks off a whole new world, not only for Men's Action and Adventure novels, but for the whole concept of fan-type zines for niche interests. That said, The Hatchet Force Journals is one of the most professional entries in the field. Good articles, great interviews, and strong reviews".  Bish has just re-released a couple of his own book as e-books, namely Hot Pursuit and Deep Water.  Do the man a solid and check 'em out.

I've received a number of other positive responses, both public and private, and they have all been very encouraging.  I've requested from a number of professionals that they give me an "extraordinarily blunt" critique of the first issue, and even when there were a number of suggestions for improvement, as well as praises for what definitely worked, all have said they thoroughly enjoyed the Journal's debut.

With Issue #1 barely out the door, I'm already planning #2.  From here on in, every issue is going to  have a featured theme, plus a number of regular columns focusing in various topics.  The theme for Issue 2 is going to be "21st Century Action & Adventure" and will focus on movies, books, and other adventure media from the last 10 years.  I'm aiming for a release date some time in the second half of August.

Thank you all again for your support!

Book Review: THE DEAD MAN #4 The Dead Woman

Fourth in the DEAD MAN series of short action-adventure stories published by Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin, The Dead Woman is written by David McAfee, who has a number of titles in both print and eBook editions up on Amazon.  McAfee drops our (un?)dead hero Matthew Cahill in the small town of Crawford, Tennessee.  Of course, as luck would have it, there's been a serial killer on the loose in town, and pretty quickly Matt gets himself embroiled in the local drama.  Offering to aid Abbey, a young woman trying to close up her mother's antiques shop, Matt runs afoul of Abbey's ex-husband, Dale, one of the town's police officers.  Killers, cops, and beautiful young ladies, oh my...

I won't ruin the plot by giving much else away, but Matt winds up discovering that he is not the only person to possess his gift of seeing the evil within a person's soul manifested as rot and decay eating away at their bodies.  There is also more conflict with Mr. Dark, the ancient and demonic entity who torments Matt on his adventures.  We are given glimpses of more layers beneath other layers; the plots of the DEAD MAN stories continue to shed light on something much more elaborate, perhaps even epic, taking place with Matt caught in the middle having far more questions than answers.

The DEAD MAN series has gone on for some months now, with several more books on the way, and it is in no danger of growing stale.  In fact, with each new author comes a new perspective, a new lens through which we are viewing this twisted world.  While The Dead Woman doesn't have the jaw-dropping gratuity of Ring of Knives or the brutal violence of Hell in Heaven, there is found in The Dead Woman one of the more well-developed and interesting secondary characters thus far, and I hope this isn't the last time Matt runs into this character again.  Maintaining each of the DEAD MAN stories as its own complete episode, while at the same time drawing out an overarching plot that pulls us along, this series has legs enough to carry us through for many more installments to come.

Hatchet Force Cover Gets A Pro Makeover

What do I find upon waking up this morning? A couple of e-mails from Christopher Mills, a fellow whose blogs I've been following for several years now.

And what does Sir Christopher have for me in said e-mails?  Why, a professionally re-designed cover for HFJ#1, of course:

When I originally designed the Hatchet Force cover, I drew heavily from the old vintage paperback covers (the font I picked is as close as I could get to the font used for the Phoenix Force books) as well as old 70's and 80's Soldier of Fortune magazine covers. 

But it's not 1981 anymore, and Christopher saw that my cover needed a little modern pop! to give it some bite.  I couldn't be happier with the results.

I'm taking on Christopher as my cover layout and design artist from here on out, and will be sure to offer up my firstborn to a god or godling of his choice as a sign of my appreciation for his support.

Jack Murphy's Reflexive Fire Coming This Week

Former US Army Special Forces Sergeant Jack Murphy's debut novel, Reflexive Fire, will be hitting Amazon's Kindle store this week.  I've read Reflexive Fire, and it is one of the coolest, hardest-hitting military action thrillers I've read in a long while.  Think a mix of 80's anti-terror commando novels a la Phoenix Force or Able Team, mixed with some Tom Clancy techno-thriller (only fun to read) and sprinkle on a little bit of the computer game Deus Ex, and you'll come close to what Jack has achieved with this novel.

Books like Reflexive Fire are what independent e-publishing is all about.  This isn't "Amazon Spam", or "The Drivel of the Masses", this is a solid, well-written novel that is a true pleasure to read, and it's going to be published without any gatekeepers, without any ivory towers, and with the majority of the profits going into Jack's worthy hands.  Exactly as it should be in this day and age.

This is the action-adventure renaissance I am championing with the release of Hatchet Force Journal.  I uploaded the file to Amazon last night; the Journal is "in review" and should be available in the next day or so.  As soon as it's up and ready for business, you'll all be the first to know.

Congratulations to Jack Murphy for his debut novel - I'm hoping to see many more to come.

My Decision to Price Hatchet Force at $2.99

When I originally decided to put together and sell an eJournal built around my interest in action-adventure fiction, my gut reaction was to make it as cheap as commercially possible.  You can't sell anything on Amazon cheaper than $0.99, so that was going to be my initial price point.

But in reading a lot about independent e-publishing and pricing, I have seen a number of people making solid arguments against pricing your wares "as low as you can go".  For one, the buyer will look at the price of the product as a reflection of the creator's value of their own work.  You sell something too cheap, the buyer is wondering if there's a reason you feel it is of such little value.  Selling something at $2.99 helps say "I think this is worth more than the absolute lowest price I can charge". 

Another, more personal argument is that giving the product a more respectable price means I am taking the project more seriously.  I've been promoting action-adventure fiction for ten years now, and what first started as simply a preference in reading and a desire to talk to other fans has now become a commercial venture for me.  Giving this product a serious price tag helps solidify in my mind that this is a serious undertaking, and I have been investing a lot of time and effort into learning as much as I can about e-publishing, contacting and communicating with contributors, and promoting the work as best I can. 

Also, I hate to say it, but $2.99 makes this venture much more profitable.  I've seen arguments for the theory that pricing a book at $0.99 means you'll get more sales and make up for the lower profits, but the arguments against this idea look much stronger.  The way Amazon sets the royalties for independent publishing, a product sold at $2.99 gives 70% of the profit to the author, while $0.99 only gives 30%.  This means pricing at the lower value, I'd have to sell more than six times the number of copies at the lower price to make the same royalties as a $2.99 product.  Many authors have actually seen sales figures (not profits, but actual numbers of sales) go up with the higher price; I think that is a solid argument for my first point above; that the higher price gives the buyer more confidence in a better product.

Finally, I don't really think for a niche product like HFJ a price difference between $0.99 and $2.99 is going to sway a purchase one way or another; either you think this is a product worth investing a few bucks to buy, or you're not the sort of person who'd probably read the Journal in the first place.  For those fence-sitters out there who'd actually reconsider - hey, skip the three dollar iced coffee, and invest in some quality reading material instead!

I'm still aiming for a June 20th release date, hoping to put the Journal up on Amazon Sunday night, but it may take 24-48 hours for it to process through and be available for purchase.  As soon as it is available, I'll be sure to let everyone know.

Thank you all again for your support - I literally couldn't do this without you.

Hatchet Force Journal #1 On Deck For Next Week

After what has been a relatively short but incredibly encouraging journey, Hatchet Force Journal #1 is almost ready to land on Amazon's Kindle bookstore.  All the material is in hand, layout is mostly complete, and I hope to have the final editing finished by this weekend.  My hope is that the Journal will go on sale Monday morning.

As a little bit of a sneak peek, here is the cover for Issue #1:

Do I sound like a jerk if I say I'm really excited that this is coming together?