Sharing a post I made about the title of Jake's Magical Market and a brief history of writing my first book and publishing it
Added 2025-04-27 16:50:00 +0000 UTCComments
Thank you so much!
J.R. Mathews
2025-06-30 18:50:42 +0000 UTCJust wanted to say I really enjoyed listening to the audiobooks of Nova Roma and am looking forward to the next book. I’m interested in how the school arc will go, sounded like it will eventful at the least. Also how deep does the Underdark go?
DeadSlime
2025-06-30 18:46:50 +0000 UTCHaha, thank you for the support! I'll see if magic robot fusion fits but if it doesn't in the next two books it might in a future standalone/spinoff book set slightly further forward in time that I've had bouncing around in my head! 😄
J.R. Mathews
2025-06-27 13:53:59 +0000 UTCI just signed up to say I want mithril nano bots in Nova Roma. Keep up the good work. Love the stories. You don't need to put those bots in if they don't fit. But I want magic robot fusion, mithril nano bots please.
Michael Ferguson
2025-06-27 13:48:18 +0000 UTCThank you!!
J.R. Mathews
2025-04-28 00:15:57 +0000 UTCI want to thank you for picking up writing and being a public defender. Your story honestly was a amazing and a massive help for me to just decompress. It has been placed as one of my favorite books of all time. I would love to see more of the Jake story of some sort.
Jayhester12
2025-04-28 00:11:57 +0000 UTCThank you! And yeah, I told my wife we don't have George R.R. Martin money we can't afford to not publish any more books for ten years, haha. Gotta keep working over here!
J.R. Mathews
2025-04-27 18:15:01 +0000 UTCI knew some of these cuz you mentioned it in a past post on Reddit but, WoW!! That’s a lot more than I expected. Don’t worry, no one expects you to be like George R R Martin and be over a decade late writing Nova Roma 4. You’ve got a day job and a family so we understand it’ll take some time. I think I speak for everyone when I say so long as we get Nova Roma 4 either by the end of 2025 or the start of 2026 we’ll be content 😁👍
Rex Regun
2025-04-27 18:07:20 +0000 UTCThat is so wonderful! Jake's is so heavily inspired by games like Chrono Trigger and that era of gaming and just that entire world/era. I'm so glad I could help introduce you to some new interests! And your wife sounds awesome too! My wife and I knew we were right for each other on our first date (almost 15 years ago now) because we had both played World of Warcraft and old Obsidian games, haha. It's great to have shared interests and not make each other feel guilty for having fun and healthy hobbies like games and books. I wish you both the best!
J.R. Mathews
2025-04-27 17:35:36 +0000 UTCThank you! And I love Drew Hayes! I met him at DragonCon by the way and he was awesome. I told him how much I loved his books, haha.
J.R. Mathews
2025-04-27 17:31:41 +0000 UTCHaha, I'm kinda hoping that I'll have some time in between my larger series to write some fun standalone adventures for Jake or Nova Roma as time goes on. Like finish a series, do a fun 700-1,000 page adventure for Jake in his new world with new bothers and crazy new things going on. Finish a series, do a 700-1,000 page Nova Roma standalone adventure. Kinda just keep dipping my toes in as a fun refresher from time to time. We'll see!!
J.R. Mathews
2025-04-27 17:30:14 +0000 UTCThat is absolutely one of the things that I was expressing as I wrote it, Tavis. It was something I was dealing with too. Finding out way through the change and the loss and the confusion and hoping to find something at the end that makes it all worth the struggle. That was Jake's journey, for sure.
J.R. Mathews
2025-04-27 17:27:50 +0000 UTCThanks for always being so open with glimpses "behind the scenes"! For what it's worth, Jake's was the first LitRPG I ever read and it hit all the right notes for me. My wife has been an RPG fan her whole life, but I didn't play my first one until late 2023 and then really dove into old school titles like Earthbound and Chrono Trigger. I had finished Mother 3 and was looking for a new game that could also mix a fun/goofy world with some heart (something that Mother 3 did incredibly well, especially given the limitations). Nothing jumped out at me, so then I started looking for books and found one on Amazon with a cool cover and decided to give it a try (the cover really IS awesome). It was such a treat to discover the world in Jake's! I was initially thrown by the turn, but quickly learned to just "trust the author" and then I started looking forward to different changes and twists throughout the books because I knew it'd end up leading somewhere totally different and better than what I was expecting. And I also LOVE long books, so the two-in-one is ideal. Then of course having two other complete books was a huge bonus. It's like an embarrassment of riches. My wife started reading Jake's too and then was like, "Hey if you like this, you should try Final Fantasy FFXIV" which is her favorite game and now I've been playing that for the past 7 or 8 months and it's awesome. She's been trying to get me to play it for years, but the deck-building/card system in Jake's finally made it click and then it was so fun to feel like that's what I could do with all the skills in the game and stuff. I also devoured the Nova Roma books and have started dipping my toes into other LitRPG books while waiting for 4 and 5 (which I'm happy to wait as long as it takes since I know it'll be worth it). Anyway, this post is super long, but I just wanted to share a bit about my experience since I'm sure the critics can often be the loudest, but for me Jake's is not just one of my all time favorite stories, but it introduced me to an entirely new world of literature, gaming, and media. I'm also trying not to gush about how amazing Nova Roma is, so I'll just end it here 😁
Tom Buck
2025-04-27 17:24:04 +0000 UTCThanks, J.R.! Personally, I loved Jake’s the entire time. Additionally, it’s dope seeing the growth you’ve had as an author. It’s like my other favorite author, Drew Hayes. The speech tags in Super Powereds Book 1 were so cringe, but there were improvements every book. As a fan, that’s a cool journey (I think he even scrapped a whole side story book because he didn’t like where it was going, but I’m moving off track). Coming back to you, Jakes explores aspects I still haven’t seen in other books and will inspire future authors to build on it (or that you can expand on). Keep your head up, you’ve got a dope mind that we as readers are grateful to be allowed to tag along for the ride.
Martin Garcia
2025-04-27 17:23:14 +0000 UTCI don't know if it's actually been years, but it feels like years.
Reno
2025-04-27 17:20:24 +0000 UTCI lied. That wasn't the final thing. To me, it doesn't matter how much a story deviates from its promised themes (as long as it's well thought out and the characters are still compelling)... because 1. LitRPG often feels kind of stale and 2. How will I find new stuff to enjoy if someone doesn't shove it in my face? There are millions of books out there and most of them aren't great. I can't look for stuff I don't know I'm missing out on. So thank you for expanding my horizons with both of your series. The imagery from your books is still with me, years later.
Reno
2025-04-27 17:19:42 +0000 UTCSoooo... I really don't like that you had to explain all of this. JMM didn't become one of my favourite books of all time because it picked a theme and stuck with it until we all died of old age. And the suggestion about splitting the first book into two is, with all due respect, horseshit. Firstly, authors should publish whatever stories they want to tell, and the author-reader contract only begins at book 2. Imagine all the people upset that book 1 took a turn away from the promised cozy, but in a position where they loved book 1 for what it is and spammed (deserved perhaps?) 1-star reviews that the series did not continue what the first purchase promised. It would have been ugly and I think you were lucky not to even attempt it. Then again, perhaps the criticism is deserved that some people felt misled into purchasing a book they didn't want to read. That's what reviews are for, and I saw those reviews myself before starting and thought "oh boy what is going to happen here..." but it turned out fine for me. You should take a few steps to help attract the right readers and drive away the wrong readers, and maybe you did enough, but you can't be expected to do everything about it and spend days agonizing over how to present a perfectly good story in a more realistic light. After all, most of us are still waiting for Nova Roma. 🙃 And one final thing (for now) which I've said before. You're one of the few writers who shifts the themes of their stories in such a compelling way and builds upon them. Like, THAT class in Nova Roma was not on the menu and I'm so glad you served it. And I bet thousands of people must have hated it, but it added something precious to the narrative and characters and I wouldn't want it gone.
Reno
2025-04-27 17:14:24 +0000 UTCHonestly I think Jake's Magical Market was amazing as it was. I really enjoyed the chaotic journey and found it really resonated with me. The sudden spanner in life that throws everything out of synch and the chaos and confusion that follows is a natural response built into humanity as we struggle to come to grips with change. During that struggle for air while we drown in uncertainty it is extremely easy to lose sight of what we care about and treasure. Jake's Magical Market is, to me, a profound example of that. I loved that the title shows us exactly what he treasures most before we even started reading and acted like a lighthouse on a dark and stormy sea. A beacon in the chaos to show there was a haven somewhere even if we couldn't see what it looked like. I know that probably wasn't the intention but that's how I felt while I enjoyed the series. Thank you for the background information as it helps to see some of the characters actions in a new light as well
Tavis
2025-04-27 17:10:50 +0000 UTCThx for the insight. Truly loved both books. But the main takeaway I got from this is…. Your saying…. That we could get a continuation of Jake story after all his struggle to happiness?! What new characters will we see?! Maybe his family this time? His mother??! Maybe the old squad he infiltrated and learned how to access dungeon powers from?? But more importantly… more power systems?!
Goldfish2
2025-04-27 17:06:09 +0000 UTC
