I found the books because of the series I am ashamed to say .  I had heard of Jim but hadn't read any of his work.  I saw the "based on" thing on the series credits and bought the  first 5 books at my local waldens.  Within 4 days I had them read, and I went back and bought the next 4, waited impatiently for the next to come out and promptly bought it the day it came out, lol.  Since then I have reread them all twice and have had to repurchase many of them because they became casualties in my war to get everyone to read them, lol. 

I prefere to think that I found the author because of the show though, because I fell in love with the Alera books as well.