This is J. Crockett, author and world-class hustler.
On my recent visit to Portland, Oregon, I was walking out of Powell's City of Books and heard someone ask, "Miss, who is your favorite author?" I looked up to see who was asking. It was a man, all bundled up, sitting in a tall camp chair. I started to answer and he said, "Is it me?" and held up a paperback copy of Nostalgic Blood Part 1 : Shhhh, don't say a word. It was then I realized I had been hustled hard. He said, "Read the back." I started to and, while it sounded like nothing I'd ever think to read, I laughed and asked, "How much?"
"Twenty dollars."
I complimented him on a fine hustle and handed him cash. He started signing my newly purchased book, clearly having done it many times before, and immediately tried to upsell me, "Thirty dollars for both volumes, one AND two." I laughed again (this guy!) and said the first volume was enough. I left but soon came back to get photos of him. I mean, you have to respect a writer who is willing to self publish some books and then sit outside the "largest new and used bookstore in the world" to get them in people's hands.
Here's his bio, from Amazon:
Author J. Crockett was born and raised in Miami, FL. He started writing "Nostalgic Blood" twenty years ago, the idea came after a poem he wrote. Someone thought that it would make a great story. From there he used his seven years of military experience, including deployments on the USS Midway, USS Car Vinson, USS Enterprise and world travel to the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Australia, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and Canada. Creating a plausible world, and developing amazing characters that gives your emotions a test.
Through out the twenty years of off and on writing, battling adversities, that everyone struggles with, he manage to finally complete one of the four books he has started. At a young age, one of his teachers told him that he could be a creative writer. Meaning nothing at the time, because it came so natural and now it's no longer a school assignment, it's a fulfillment.
