Local author TJ Buck is seeing a lot of international reviews on his books recently, including many from India. Submitted file photo

Local author TJ Buck spends his time writing his novels at his home in Jamestown.

With most of his books based in the United States, it came as a big surprise to him when he started noticing a large amount of reviews his books were getting were coming from places internationally.

Buck checks reviews on Amazon and Goodreads about once a month, and said he began noticing more international reviews around his eighth novel.

“I began seeing some international reviews but didn’t pay that much attention to them at first,” Buck said. “I began seeing them more and more, and I saw how many there were when I put them together in one document. I was shocked.”

The international reviews for Buck’s work come in quite a lot from India, but also specifically from places such as Australia and England. Buck said he did not really know why his books were getting such international traction, but guessed it had a lot to do with Amazon’s worldwide reach. While he added he is not a fan of Amazon’s business practices, he said without Amazon he probably would not be getting these international readers. The amount of reviews coming in from India were the biggest surprise for Buck.

“It’s pretty cool to be an author in Jamestown and have people in India and Australia reading your books,” Buck said. “People all over the world are reading my work. That’s not something you expect when sitting on your couch writing.”

Any writer wants a wider audience, Buck said, but he did not expect that his work would travel to so many places, especially with most of his books being set in the United States. He added that crime novels can travel well and that worldwide people also like the supernatural or vampire aspects as well.

In the future, Buck has more novels coming out, including a June release of a duo comic novel with one of the novels based on Frankenstein, as he said he felt it would be funny to release that on Father’s Day, as Frankenstein created the monster and was not good at taking care of it. The second novel in the duo is focused on Dracula, from his point of view being fed up with all of the Dracula myths.

Overall, getting such international traction is something Buck said is cool for him.

“You really never know what is going to happen,” Buck said. “I never expected this international attention. It’s bizarre that people in India and Australia are reading my novels. It’s cool, but not something you’d ever expect when writing in Jamestown, New York. The internet has a lot to do with it; 30 or 40 years ago it wouldn’t have happened.”