Eye for Eye

L.J. Martin makes a movie.

- Henry C.Parke

Western author L. J. Martin, with more than 40 novels to his credit, is not one to wait for things to happen: he makes them happen. Eager to help writers who, like himself, had too many books that were out of print and not generating income, he cocreated the online Wolfpack Publishing. The first writer he took on hadn’t made money in 10 years, he said. And in eight months I would be sending him $10,000 a month. Thirty-five authors and 500 books later, I sold out to (partner) Mike Bray. It’s one of Forbes 500’s fastest growing companies.”

His wife is Kat Martin, a constant New York Times bestselling author of romantic suspense novels. When they met, both were in the real estate business. He had just written his first book, “a 500- page historical. Couldn't sell it: lousy spelling and not the best grammar. She read it, and she corrected my English for me. After we were married, I started writing again in the evening, and she looked over my shoulder and thought, 'Well, I can do better than that.' And she did.”

It’s not unusual for an author to write a screenplay from their book, hoping it will become a movie. But for the author to script, then finance, and then direct that movie? That’s pretty much unheard of, but again, Martin makes things happen. He chose to adapt his novel Eye for Eye (Wolfpack), one of the nine in his Montana series, each of which has the word “revenge” on the cover. “I like revenge stories, and luckily the reading public likes revenge stories. I think we all have somebody we'd like to get even with.”