Slightly Off the Mark

Books For Holiday Buying or: It's Not Promotion If I Keep It Fun

It occurs to me that time is running out to convince you to buy our books for Christmas. Okay, time actually has run out, depending on how you take delivery, but there are New Year’s presents, of course. It’s traditional in many parts of the world to read a book New Year’s morning while nursing your hangover.

*I use this photo a lot because it’s handy to remind me about that one book I always forget when listing them.*

Say, maybe I could sell more books by lying! After all, that’s what fiction is: Making up stories. Some people would say that’s what advertising is, too. Advertising is also short, so I’ll just give you a tasty sample, as if the books were made out of chocolate. (They aren’t—don’t try it.)

At the bottom of this blog, as always, are sites where you can find our books and/or find us. I use "us" in this case because without my wife/editor/cover designer/setup person/IT Department/butt kicker Emily, most of these books would have never seen the light of day.

Have you ever wished your history teacher stopped lecturing, and did a standup routine making fun of the subject, instead? That's Hoosier Hysterical. I've started taking notes for a sequel.

Imagine you attended a summer camp, and it turned out to be a series of disasters in which you and your friends must become heroes and save everyone. It's like getting a taste of what Harry Potter and his friends do over summer break, only funnier. That's The No-Campfire Girls.

I used to write a weekly humor column for some small town newspapers. Being paranoid, I wrote a bunch of columns in advance so I wouldn't miss a deadline. Not being paranoid enough, I didn't see it coming when the papers were bought out by a larger newspaper. They went in another, not funny, direction.

So all those unpublished columns ended up in a book. Later I collected some of the older published columns and put them in another book, so you can read Slightly Off the Mark and More Slightly Off the Mark without getting newsprint on your hands. And that saves soap.

My first published novel, Storm Chaser pairs a disaster photographer with an overprotective cop who just wants to get rid of her. In real life the whole thing would have led to arrests and protective orders, but this is romantic comedy land. Much to my surprise, it's now a series, including the short story collection Storm Squalls, a spin-off with the cop's sister, The No-Campfire Girls, and The Notorious Ian Grant, currently being prepared for republication. There is, of course, another sequel in the works.

As I said, in real life most romantic comedies would end in legal action of some sort. "She's stalking me!" "He's trying to destroy my world!" Coming Attractions involves an actual legal battle, to save a drive-in theater. I put the climactic scene in a courtroom right here in my home town, and although it's completely unrealistic, it's also a lot of fun.

Sadly, there are no (current) plans for a sequel, although just for fun I did once cross this world over with Storm Chaser in a Christmas short story.

Storm Chaser and Radio Red were originally released by the same traditional publisher. After that publisher was bought out, I got the rights back to the Storm Chaser stories. Radio Red doesn't get as much love because I don't have those rights back yet, and in my opinion they have the e-book price set too high for seven year old book by an unknown author. You're welcome to spend the $3.99, of course! And I had a lot of fun writing Radio Red, a romantic comedy pairing a small radio station owner with his new air personality.

But am I an unknown author, really? Well, according to official sources there are some 50,000 book authors traditionally published in the U.S. Including self-published works, about four million new books are published every year. So yes, unknown, just like everyone else. This is why I'm ~~begging~~ working for an audience.

Finally we have Images of America: Albion and Noble County and Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century or So With the Albion Fire Department. They were a lot of work, but well received by anyone who's read them. But both are local history books, which by nature are usually of interest only to local readers. My newest local history book, Haunted Noble County, Indiana, is with the publisher right now, but should come out late in 2025.

So that's it ... for now. But I have--brace yourself--no less than ten other books in various stages of production, from initial note taking to submitting completed manuscripts to publishers. Meanwhile here's a list of websites where you can peruse books, buy books, or just ponder my genius or lack thereof.

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

Remember: You read Christmas books, don't eat them. They're not chocolate.

R.I.P. Firefighter / Dispatcher Mitch Fiandt, a friend

A week ago I wrote here that Mitch Fiandt was fighting cancer, and now he's gone.

Just like that.

That's Mitch on the left, still in his dispatch uniform pants. Yeah, that's me on the right. We were so young.

I've had so many friends fight and beat cancer, at least for awhile, that it never occurred to me he wouldn't. But Mitch died just short of fifty years as a volunteer firefighter, having started at Orange Township Fire before he was even eighteen, back in the days when you could do that kind of thing. Cancer takes a lot of firefighters, especially the ones were around in the days when breathing protection was a mild suggestion. He told me once he breathed in some particularly bad stuff off the hot side of a burning house, back before he moved to Albion and joined our Department.

That old lung damage was one reason why he usually drove the fire trucks and ran the pump, rather than going inside--not that I didn't see him go in, more than once. And yet, when we had our annual lung capacity test, he always passed and usually ran circles around the rest of us.

There's not much I can say that isn't in his obituary, here:

https://www.harperfuneralhomes.com/obituary/Mitch-Fiandt?fbclid

If memory serves, in addition to being the Albion Fire Department Chief Engineer--a kind of honorary title acknowledging the fact that if we needed an apparatus operator, he was there--he also served as Secretary and Treasurer on the AFD.

He was also my boss for several years in Noble County Communications, or the 911 Center, or Dispatch, or whatever people will call it next year. He was there for 35 years, which did not bode well for his sanity, and was 911 Director from 1999 until he retired in 2015.

Here Mitch and John Urso, also a combo firefighter/dispatch, present me my 25 year dispatcher award, along with a certificate for a free psychotherapy session.

Mitch and I both served at various times on the Albion Town Council and the Albion Plan Commission, and he was in about a hundred other things as well, being the type who was always helping out. Even with my writing gig, he stayed busier than me. He was the first to tell me I should write a book about dispatching, which I will, as soon as the statue of limitations runs out.

The last time I saw him was at my grandmother's funeral: He had a part time gig with Harper's Funeral Home here in Albion. I don't believe he ever had a job or hobby that wasn't, in one way or another, about helping people.

And if that it's the best thing you can say about a person, I don't know what is.

Firefighters, Death and Cancer

UPDATE: Sadly, Mitch Fiandt also passed away, late on November 24th, from his cancer.

We lost one of our past firefighters this month, and a present long-time member is fighting a deadly disease.

Joe Meyer was one of my trainees when I was an Albion Fire Department instructor, and he remained a member for ten years, alongside his brother.

That's Joe second from left, beside me. I particularly liked this group of trainees, only partially because they came in a group--it can be hard to train one or two firefighters to do a job that requires a team. They were a great bunch.

Here's Joe's obituary:

https://www.harperfuneralhomes.com/obituary/Joe-Meyer

Joe was a character, and not just because he could pull off a cowboy hat with his turnout gear. (I don't remember the circumstances behind this photo ... maybe he just got cold easily, like I do. That's probably not it.)

Mitch Fiandt remains a member of the AFD, after transferring from the Orange Township Fire Department when he moved many years ago. He has, I think, six or eight years on me in the longevity department.

Now Mitch is fighting cancer, which is sadly not an unusual thing for firefighters. I've had a couple of scares myself, but Mitch is pretty sick--treatment is ongoing. Chemo, as anyone who has experienced it themselves or through loved ones knows, is rough by any standards.

So say a prayer for Mitch, Joe, and their families, and if you don't pray send good thoughts their way. I expect it's not going to be a fun holiday season for anyone involved.

We and our books can be found ... everywhere: