Bob Mayer – How Did I Become A Published Author?

How Did I Become A Published Author

by Bob Mayer

Thanks for having me guest post on your blog.  I appreciate the opportunity as my 51^st title, The Green Berets: Chasing the Lost is now out and #1 in Men’s Adventure, even though a woman is at the core of the story.  Aren’t they always?

The question is:  How did I become a published author?

The answer is, of course, convoluted.  I grew up in ‘da Bronx and to be able to afford college decided to attend this place that actually paid you to go there, called the United States Military Academy at West Point.  Hmm.  Let me tell you, you might not pay in money, but you pay.

My first tour in the Army was as a platoon leader in the First Cavalry Division.  Then I volunteered for Special Forces, went through training and became a Green Beret A-Team leader.  Eventually I got married and my wife was also military and we had to make a choice, so I resigned my active duty commission and followed her to her command in South Korea.  Besides studying martial arts six hours a day, I had a lot of time on my hands.  So I had the original 512k Mac, and since there wasn’t much to read, decided I’d write my own stories.  I wrote three manuscripts before someone read them and said “This is like a real book.”  Well, hmm.  Duh.  So it took three years from them to get my first agent and my first book published.  My 51^st just came out, The Green Berets: Chasing the Lost.

Let me back up.  As a kid in ‘da Bronx, I was always reading.  I think it was a form of escapism.  If I wasn’t reading, I was on my bike tooling around, inventing stories in my head.  I think the best preparation for becoming a writer is to read A LOT.  That’s why I’m a big fan of libraries.  My company, Cool Gus Publishing will actually give free eBooks to any library that asks.

I had 42 books published by New York, hit the NY Times and all the other bestseller lists, but in 2009 I went out on my own with my company.  The publishing world is changing so fast, large corporations really can’t keep up with the changes.  Because of my Special Forces background, I was trained to thrive in Chaos, so things have gone really well.

I use also my Special Forces background in my writing.  The two lead characters in Chasing the Lost both have Spec Ops histories.  One is a retired Green Beret, and the other served in Special Forces, Delta Force and some other covert units.  While they might be well trained in the dark arts, that doesn’t mean they can understand the heart and mind of a woman and that’s what the book is about.  The feedback I’ve been getting from readers is that the ending really blows them away.  And it blew me away, because I what I considered a great ending and was talking to my wife, who is a story whisperer, about it, and she came up with a twist I wouldn’t have thought of in a hundred years.  It is very, very wicked.

Hope you enjoy and feel free to visit us at CoolGus.com

NY Times Bestselling Author, former Green Beret and West Point Graduate, Bob Mayer.

“A pulsing technothriller. A nailbiter in the best tradition of adventure fiction.” Publishers Weekly ref Bob Mayer

Horace Chase arrives on Hilton Head Island to pay his last respects at the Intracoastal Waterway where his late mother’s ashes were spread and to inspect the home his mother left him in her will. He’s been recently forced into retirement, his divorce is officially final, and now he’s standing in the middle of the front yard of his ‘new’ house where a tree has crashed right through the center of it.

What could possibly go wrong?

Within six hours of arriving on Hilton Head, Chase is exchanging gunfire with men who’ve kidnapped a young boy and tried to grab the boy’s mother, Sarah Briggs. Soon he’s waist deep in an extortion plot to funnel a hundred million dollars of Superbowl on-line gambling money into an offshore bank account or else the boy dies.

Dave Riley has long retired from the military and living peacefully on sleepy Dafuskie Island off the coast of South Carolina. Sort of. Actually he’s bored, feeling old, and just a bit cranky running his deceased uncle’s small-time bookie operation.

Horace Chase, meet Dave Riley. Riley-Chase.

Chase and Riley assemble a team of misfits and eccentrics as they take on the powerful Russian mob in the lawless tidal lands of the Low Country to get the boy back.

Meet Erin: Chase’s long-ago summer fling, now a veterinarian and not interested in men any more, at least that way. But her suturing skills and her knowledge of the island bring assets the team needs. Especially after Chase’s first visit with the Russian requires a bit of the former.

Meet Gator: an ex-Ranger, iron-pumping, fire-breathing hulk of a redneck, with a soft spot in his heart for Erin, and steroids burning in his muscles to hurt people. As long as Riley and Chase point him in the right direction, the rest of the populace should be all right.

Meet Kono: a Gullah, descendant of the free slaves who fled to the barrier islands in the 19th century and developed their own culture. He nurses his own pain and secrets, but heeds Chase’s call to renew their childhood friendship. Especially when he learns the target is the Russians.

It adds up to a fiery confrontation to rescue the young boy, and settle some old scores.

But Riley and Chase need to remember a basic tenet from their days in covert operations: Nothing is ever as it appears.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Thriller

Rating – PG

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Website http://www.bobmayer.org/