Cartel Hunter by Robert Goluba
TPP EP 11

TPP Episode 11 Robert Goluba

Mark: Hello and welcome to the Thriller Pitch Podcast where you come for the pitch and stay for the story behind the story. I’m your host, Mark P.J. Nadon and this is episode 11.

If you love discovering new books and the stories behind them, hit follow now so you don’t miss next week’s conversation with Steve Stratton, author of The Action Thriller Caribbean Harvest Book three in his Shadow Tier series. And if you wanna be part of the show, check out Patreon members. Get to submit guest questions. Hear episodes early. Enjoy the exclusive after show. With now rapid fire questions. Read bonus stories from past guests and grab my own novella, cognitive breach. The links are in the show notes.

Today’s guest is Robert Goluba, author of Adrenaline Fueled Action Thrillers with Grit, [00:01:00] wit, and Heart. He was born and raised in central Illinois where he attended college, served in the Army National Guard, and met his wife at age 30. After a self-diagnosed allergy to snow, he moved to Sunny Arizona where he now lives with his wonderful wife, two kids, and canine companion. Hello, Robert. Thank you so much for being here today. On this episode, we have the Cartel Hunter here. I have your book with me. Thank you for providing that.

Robert: Glad to be here, mark. I’m excited to talk about Cartel Hunter.

Mark: So we’re gonna get right into the pitch. Just pitch me this book.

Robert: Well, Cartel Hunter is a, I would call it a, vigilante justice thriller. You know, it’s about a, an everyday Joe kind of person who’s an avid outdoors man. But he gains his skills through, uh, his time in the military as an Air Force pararescueman. And, uh, [00:02:00] um, he gets a black belt and Kra maga. He’s a, a, actually a just an everyday kind of guy that I thought more people could relate to, but he has skills to, attack and, and bring Cartel to justice.

That’s terrorizing, you know, the mountain town in, northern Arizona where he, he grew up.

Mark: Awesome. And where did this book idea come from?

Robert: Well, this idea, I am, I’m based in, in Arizona. I, I live in Phoenix, the, the Sonoran Desert. A couple hours north there’s a lot of national forest and, I was visiting the National Forest, specifically it’s, near Payson, Arizona, and the, it’s called the Mogollon Rim.

And when you go to the Mogollon Rim, it’s a 2000 foot escarpment above the, the largest stand of Ponderosa Pine National Forest in the United States. So, when I was looking over that on the standing on the edge one day I was like, somebody could really hide in here and if they [00:03:00] didn’t wanna be found, it would be really hard to find them.

You know, people do get lost there and takes weeks sometimes to find them. So I’m like, well, what if someone didn’t want to be found, you know, like a Cartel? And that was kinda what planted the seed. And, so I just started, working through the, the outline and, and. The other thing, one of the reasons I chose a pair rescue men, you know, because a lot of the thrillers have your Navy seal, have your green beret, you know, your delta force and I wanted someone that could have some like outdoorsman tracker skills, but still have that kind of special forces skill. And, the, the pararescueman, you know, I learned that they have the longest, training. It’s two years, you know, they’re essentially kind of a combat medic?

I’ve seen some memes that says, you know, pararescueman. It’s who Navy Seals call when they, when they need help, you know, behind enemy lines. So that’s kind of, you know, who they, who they are. They’re just an amazing group of guys that kind of, you know, have so much respect for what they do. And then also made the perfect character [00:04:00] for, Jason Molder.

Mark: Yeah, it was a very cool take on that and I appreciate that you did that. ’cause it was, it was fun in the opening too when you had him doing that rescue and that action scene that the book opened with, it was really interesting to see him as a pararescueman doing his thing. As opposed to the whole that Navy Seal approach, so I really appreciated that. Where did the plot idea come from, like having him in that vigilante kinda role? Where did that come from?

Robert: Well, I had to kind of bridge the gap from him being a pararescueman, you know, to actually helping, you know, a, a family member out. And, I, I didn’t wanna make it a pure military thriller, you know, and I knew that he would have to, go home to help his, his brother out.

That was the inciting incident in the story that brings Jason out of active duty in the Air Force, and, and, and did become a vigilante, when the Cartel, chose his brother as a victim. Law enforcement [00:05:00] wasn’t doing their job, so he came home and so it was, it was partially to, really just bridge that gap from, the skills that made him believable as a, you know, a hero and, and the, and the protagonist, that could do what I have him doing.

And, but still, you know. Doing it in the forest of Arizona instead of maybe a battlefield somewhere in, in the Middle East.

Mark: And what was the timeline for all this to come together for you from the original idea, seeing the forest to you know, him as a character and actually putting the words down on the paper.

Robert: It took several years. I, I had the idea for a long time and I kept, putting it off. You know, I’ve had written one series before and a totally different genre. And, and I, this was the one I always kind of wanted to write and, and actually it was book two that was actually the one that, led me to, to, to start the series.

But I knew I needed to establish Jason Molder as the pararescueman and, as the protector [00:06:00] of the family and all of that to make book two make sense. So, that’s was, how it all started and, and, but I end up, thinking Cartel Hunter turned out to be one of the better books of the entire series.

The book two was, was really the inspiration that I kept thinking about. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t get out of my head. I’m like, I have to have to write this. But I knew it couldn’t be the first book, I had to establish the, the character, and the second book is actually called Reverse Pursuit.

You know, where he’s, it’s kind of almost like a modern day, fugitive, in the, forest of Arizona. So that was kind of where the idea came from. And then, but, Cartel Hunter leads perfectly into that. So if you read that, the Reverse Pursuit will make a lot more sense.

Mark: So did the idea for book two come first and then you decided to write book one to set the story,

Robert: It did. Yeah. It was book, it was book two. And I just knew, I, I, just to give, give a little quick overview of that. He’s, in the DEA and he’s framed, you know, for taking drugs that he never actually took, [00:07:00] convicted and, decides he’s not gonna go to jail when they’re, you know, transporting him.

So he escapes, and then it’s probably 40 chapters of him trying to find out who framed him, while he’s, on the run and all these different, you know, settings in, in Arizona, all the forests and, and the rivers and the mountains and stuff like that.

So he’s running around there and it just, it, to me, I didn’t think that was the best place to start, with the character. I wanted to have, establish his backstory as a pararescueman, his, skills at Krav Maga, his outdoorsman experience, you know, his, his, partners that he ended up working with in, in reverse pursuit as well.

That was, how that all, took place. And it took years, it took several years for me to kind of figure this out, get it all laid out to where it made sense. To where, where you see it today?

Mark: Did you find book one or I guess two and one in this case? ’cause you had the two idea first, but did you find it’s getting faster and faster for you to put out books? You have four in the, in this Jason Mulder series, right?

Robert: Correct.

Mark: is it [00:08:00] getting faster to put out books now after one was done.

Robert: It, it is, and, and especially one, you have to really, I did a ton of research. You know, I, I, read several books on pararescueman. I, there was a, National Geographic, I guess miniseries on what pararescueman did over, Afghanistan, and I watched that twice. You know, there’s probably about eight episodes of it.

So I just did a lot, a lot of research, to really establish who he was as a character. And, so then everything did get, get faster, and, book four was my fastest of, of all of ’em so far.

Mark: Awesome. And you have a, I’m pretty sure I read somewhere you had experience in the Army National Guard. Did that impact this book, like that experience in how you wrote this book or some of the situations you were able to put him in? ’cause you have that. That experience of having been in the forest and and lived a lot of that.

Robert: Maybe a little, I mean, from what I did in National Guard, what Jason Mulder as pararescueman or like a, a Grand Canyon, you know, [00:09:00] separation. I was a, I was a combat engineer and, and so we like to say we were grunts with, C4, so, I did have some good experience. It really taught me about the military, you know, so just the the hierarchies and the ranks and, some of the language they used with each other, was a little bit easier, you know, when I, but in terms of his skills, it was quite different from me, and it’s, and I was in long, long, long time ago. It’s already been, I’ve already been out for almost 30 years.

So, I went like halfway through my senior year in high school is when I signed up, so I went right after high school. I was on basic training and and then I spent six years, in it. So I did learn a lot, but, it, it really didn’t translate to this book. I, I started calling it an M-16, you know, when I, when I started writing, and then I know everything, the terminology changed and everything, so I had to do a lot, a lot of research on making it meaningful, you know, for a reader in, in 2023 when I launched it.

Mark: Okay. Yeah, I was thinking some of the, the minor details too of like shadows in a forest when you [00:10:00] have that experience of, or the amount of fatigue you can feel as a soldier. Like I was in the infantry reserve for a while, here and I can I try and put that into some of my books, those moments of like pure exhaustion or the shadows where you think you’re seeing things, but they aren’t there, like when you’re, when you’re in the heat of, of, uh, training and stuff.

Robert: I did take advantage. I, I wanted to use some of my knowledge, so, and in book three, you know, the villain is use any explosives, so that was one I knew a little bit more about, you know, so, I did wanna take advantage of that, but, yeah, as much as I like to say some of my, some of my skills came through, I will say just kind of an interesting, tidbit is, Jason Molder is a, a black belt in Krav Maga and, I started to try to write that watching YouTube videos and I couldn’t do it. So I signed up and, took about eight or nine months of Krav Maga myself, and got my yellow belt, and I was on my way to my orange and, and when you have yellow belts sparring with each other, we don’t really know how to do it, like the black belts and brown belts [00:11:00] do. And I got, I got, you know, a pretty good, short-term injury from it so I decided I was going to hang up the Krav Maga training and focus on writing a little, little safer.

So, but I, I, I loved it. I really learned how, how it is such a valuable skill to have in terms of self-defense specifically kind of in a, in a, a fight like Jason Molder has, with, you know, maybe taking on two members of a Cartel, for example. So, so I did, I did learn that, you know, the moves he has were ones that I learned and, and then again studied a little further to make sure it came across in the best way for, for the book

Mark: Did you do craw, my God. Before you started writing, so you knew how you were gonna write it, or did some moments in the book have to change because you’re like, oh, this is not gonna go that way. I have, it’s gonna go this way.

Robert: Had to change. Yeah, a couple of ’em. I’m like, oh, what was I thinking? You know, I read that, and ’cause yeah, I was about, ’cause that book did take me a couple years to write, you know, and I was, I might even been almost done, but I, when I, started the Krav [00:12:00] Maga within a couple months, I, I knew that I had to rewrite certain sections of it.

And, specifically there’s one scene at the end, where the, the villain, Victor Romero, puts a gun like at his chest, and that was something we learned a lot, about how to, How to get out of a situation like that. So that was a, kind of step by step, the training that I, I picked up.

Mark: No, that’s very cool. I did jiu jitsu for a while and although I haven’t put it in any books, it was surprising with some of those martial arts where you’re just completely helpless. It doesn’t matter how strong you are and sometimes how small the guy is that you’re dealing with. You know, for jiu jitsu put pressure on you and you’re just like stuck there, it was, it was very humbling experience. I could imagine Krav Maga would be similar in that when you apply some of these skills.

Robert: Yeah, I was one of the older people there as well. So, that was a, a, a yellow belt, I wish I would’ve started sooner. I, I actually really enjoyed it. But, bumps and bruises at, at my age and working full time and, and, you know, doing the family full time and writing full time, [00:13:00] essentially. I just made the decision to make that a short term opportunity and, focus on the writing.

Mark: Awesome. Yeah. Oh, hey, that’s great. That’s great that you had that experience to pull into the story and it was, it did come to life with what he was doing in the book, which was good. The Arizona caves, the landscape, the distance, he drove a lot. That was also, is that all real? To, like, is that all factual or is that, did you use creative license when it came to that cave escape and the creek and the falls and all these little places that he ends up going to.

Robert: So, so I just, the fall specifically is very real, and I, the way I describe it, I, I just, I’m very, I’m a researcher, I, I, I did a, in the Enneagram, that’s what I am. I do research, I go in rabbit holes. If I go look up something, I, I can spend two hours looking around and CQ Falls is, is real. It is on the Ford Apache Reservation, during the time I wrote it, they were shut down during COVID, so I have not physically been there, so I had to use images. But I have been to to show [00:14:00] low and, and, and payson, many times. So I know those areas very well. And, so everything’s real.

The one thing I probably took some license on is, is that maybe actually longer. And I didn’t want Jason spending like four hours driving somewhere. It’s not, doesn’t make for very good thriller content, so, you know, some of his drives were probably like someone was from Arizona they’re like, how can you get there that fast? You know? So, so I did some things with that. But like I did a lot of research on the National Forest, and one thing that is true is, like the all, just the national forest in Arizona could fit to the entire New England, of, of, the United States in it.

So it’s vast. And so that’s, when I say it’d be hard to find somebody, it really, it’s, it’s a big area and. And, and the, the ruggedness I tried to describe and just the, you know, the change, from an elevation, how tall the trees can get and how, you know, rugged the, mountains can get is all, all true.

Mark: Cool. Yeah, that was well done. What made you choose to have Jason try many times to have the police [00:15:00] deal with the Cartel as opposed to going full vigilante. I think you mentioned earlier that you were kind of trying to make it real to life, but I appreciated that because that’s what it felt like. It felt real to life in that even with the experience and the training that he’s having and what he’s seen in combat, A, a person wouldn’t just rush into murder all the Cartel. Like he tried, tried to get the police on his side and you know, all those things happen. What made you choose to do that instead of having like a John Wick kind of moment where you hurt my, you hurt my dog, now I’m gonna murder everyone involved.

Robert: No, that, that was very, very intentional. You know, like, like I wanted Jason to be somewhat relatable to an average person. It’s, if you are an avid outdoorsman and you get a black belt and Krav Maga and you become a a PJ in the Air Force, you may be able to do some of what he does.

You know, so I did. I wanted to make him more relatable, you know, to, to the average reader. And I also, Jason has a very [00:16:00] strong moral compass. That was something that was important to me. In all four books, Jason never murders anybody, he has a pretty high body count by the end of four books. But it’s, it’s all kind of in self-defense or, you know, in, in line with, his job defending others usually is what he does. So he’s a strong protector. And I, that’s why I wanted that to come out, that he was kind of pushed to, to do this. Jason just wanted to be left alone.

He wanted to be a pararescueman, but the Cartel forced his hand, and then because they forced his hand and then, that brought out the skills that he has. And, he has a couple, sidekicks that help him, which was something I really was excited to do and something that was intentional.

I, I wanted to not have the lone wolf John Wick I wanted to have something that was, a little more realistic, but still brings the excitement and suspense, of a vigilante action thriller.

Mark: Yeah. And Shauna and Tarek have two of the big character arcs. Did you pre-plan those arcs? Because they [00:17:00] seem to have, well, I guess I was the two biggest arcs of the story. Those two.

Robert: Yeah. Yeah. And then, his, uh, um, partner, in the Air Force, Clay Landry was the, the other, the, the one, but yeah, I, I, I did plan that, I wanted like I wanted to have because I, I kind of knew what was coming in book two and book three. I had, I had most of my books planned, at least through book three, when I started at least the idea for book three.

So I, I knew what I wanted to have come, and, and that’s where Shauna came in. As you know, wife is, eventual wife is supportive. And, and, uh. And she also has an arc through all four, all four books, but I, and I wanted, again, I wanted to make it seem a little more organic. I just didn’t want to throw ’em together, you know?

So in, in the book, she’s a grief counselor and comes to try to help, after the tragic loss in, in Jason’s life. And, and TAR is actually her cousin, and so you even get to see how Shauna gets, she has some debate, like, she doesn’t like fighting. She doesn’t like you know, what Jason does, but she understands, so she ultimately [00:18:00] helps him, with her cousin, who’s like a expert tracker.

He’s, part of the for Apache reservation and, he has skills that Jason didn’t have, you know, so that’s why the collection of, Jason, Clay and, and Tarek. You know, made a fun group to write, but also the, you know, they had strengths that the others didn’t have, that played out throughout the book.

Mark: When you’re creating characters, how do you go about that? Is it, do you feel like they just come to life as you’re writing the book, or are they also pre-planned in like a list of things that you know need to happen because you’ve planned this series out?

Robert: That’s a great question. I, I ca I call myself a plotser, so I’m not, I write like I’m a, I’m a big fan of Kyle Mills, I know when he comes to town to launch a book, I go see him. And one thing he always talks about how he writes these like 30,000 word plots or, or, outlines. And, and that’s kind of what I do too, they’re getting shorter, but then when [00:19:00] I start after about the first five or eight, six chapters, I, I, I, it all changes.

Mark: Yeah, I’ve done that.

Robert: It, it allows me to, put things through my mind. But I spend a lot of time, especially getting on the, the first book, maybe second book in the series, or whenever I had a, a main, another new character. I, I, kind of go old school. I, I read a book when I started years ago on how to create a compelling character and I create a wound and I create, you know what, and a lot of it doesn’t even make the book, but it helps me create the character in my mind so I can keep them consistent and, throughout, throughout a series, which is I what I always hope to write, you know? So, I do spend a lot of time, you know, and, and, and Jason Mulder, there’s so much I have on him. I, I, I, I, I released some of it to my newsletter fans because I have so stuff about his parents and his grandparents and, and the grandparents have never, I don’t think, have been mentioned in the book, but I have who he was growing up, and I, and I spent a lot of time looking at what their fears are, what they’re driven by, and, and that helps [00:20:00] me make sure that the character does what’s consistent throughout the entire book.

Mark: And that’s pre-planned then.

Robert: It it is, yeah. The, the characters don’t change too much. And, but some of ’em, I don’t, spend a lot of time on, like, I will say Clay Landry, I just, he’s a, a special cognizance in the Air Force, which is, they, they used to be, they we’re actually called like, combat Weatherman, I think, or something like that. So, so that, that MOS changed and so, but I knew I needed him have a capable sidekick that was a little more morally gray than Jason. So just, just to kind of, you know, kind of push him sometimes. ’cause, ’cause Jason is kind of a by the book person, you know, so for him to go do what he did, it took some pushing sometimes.

And, and that’s where Clay came along. So I had Clay’s character planned, but he evolved to be a little more, gray than I originally had anticipated. But I think I, I, I felt it was good, for the, either the scene or the book. So I continued to let, let those, let those play out. So I would say the main characters were [00:21:00] pretty well planned and they stuck to it, but the kind of secondary, little less planned and the, they tend to kind of flow with the, the scenes and the, and the arc by the book.

Mark: And if we go, you can take a step back to the, the planning with the vigilante thing, the police, and their role in this story was that i, well, two part question. One, is that real? The politics of policing in that area, is that real? And then did it impact your story?

Robert: It did a little, and I had to be really careful because I’m a, a huge supporter of law enforcement and, and, the military and I, I, I, I didn’t wanna paint the police in a bad light. But there are some corrupt, police specific, specifically some of the politicians, the, like the sheriffs who are elected, sometimes they do things, to win elections.

And, and that’s why I felt it did fit. For those who may be familiar with Arizona, there was a, a famous sheriff called, Joe Arpaio. He called himself the world’s toughest sheriff. And he, as a sheriff, he was in the news like every day. [00:22:00] So, my character is not necessarily based off him. But I just remember seeing like how he would act, when, when he had a camera in his face.

Mark: Yeah.

Robert: And, so that inspired some of the, the traits and behind the, the, the law enforcement that, was on the wrong side of the law.

Mark: What about local police and like reserve police, is that governed the same way, where if you’re in this area, these, this is the force that deals with this? Or did you, was that creative licensing?

Robert: Yeah, it’s a little, ’cause I, living in Phoenix is a huge metropolis. I would say it’s the, the police, there, the more local police and, and like the Phoenix police are very large. You know, they, I would say they’re pretty typical of what you’d see in a large US city.

But when you do get out in the smaller towns, in the mountains and stuff, you do get a little more, and, and Arizona has a, you know, that rugged individualism, kind of in our culture, and you get a few characters. you’re, you’re gonna see a lot of, lot of cowboy hats and tough talk, you know, from, sheriffs and, and, so, so that, that’s pretty, pretty realistic, in the, in the smaller communities, lots of, lots of, [00:23:00] lots of ranchers, lot of outdoors men, and, it’s the police govern differently. When that’s your citizens in your area.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. Small town kind of feel. So we are running a little bit low on time. I have a couple more questions for you. This is going out to authors who are listening to the show, so it’s a bit a bit of a specific question for them. What advice would you give to someone who just published their first or second book?

Robert: Well, one thing that I, I learned is I was a little slow on the, on the marketing. Which is, shameful because my full-time job for many years is I’ve been, I do marketing, consumer marketing, but I, I would, the first thing I would tell someone is, just make sure you write a really good book for your target reader. And this isn’t the, write to market, you know, type of, recommendation, but just make sure it’s, it’s a really good book. And, and if you write a good book they’ll wanna read that second book, so I do see writing books as part of my marketing plan. But, when I added, you know, Facebook to just give myself additional awareness, then that’s [00:24:00] when the sales started to, you come in at a level that was a lot more, interesting and, rewarding, based on all the work you do, I know most of us write, for, for the love of, of writing like myself, but it’s a lot of work. And I also like people to read what I write. So, marketing is, is part of it.

So even thinking about that in the beginning, helps me, as I am writing the third and fourth book. I, I had the marketing a little more in mind, going into it, and then it just helped the writing process and the, process of getting it into reader’s hands. So that’d be, be my advice. Write a good book and have a plan, plan for marketing.

Mark: When you say marketing, do you mean. And you said mentioned Facebook, so it’d be like Facebook page. Are you also using like Facebook ads and like paid ads and like newsletters and stuff?

Robert: Yeah. Yeah. Email newsletter and paid Facebook ads are my two primary ways. And I’ve, chased the shiny object like a lot of new authors. I, I try a TikTok page. I tried Instagram. I. [00:25:00] I, I tried Twitter and, and, or X now. And it just, I, I never, I didn’t enjoy it, , so then I, my, I, I didn’t stick with it, as soon as I when, a couple weeks without any traction, I just, I just gave up and I’m glad I did. I feel like I’m just gonna kind of pick my lane, for me it’s gonna be email newsletters, you know, writing, I’m trying to write more often, and give the readers more, more to read and then, Facebook ads to, you know, get them out there.

I’ll, I’ll dabble a little bit with Amazon ads, like with a launch, ’cause I think it’s a little faster. Most my books are, are, currently in Kindle Limited, just a little announcement, I am taking all the Jason Molder series, out of Kindle Limited. And probably by November it should all be wide, so I’m gonna make it available to a, a larger, larger audience.

But either way, I would still do the same things, I would use a little Amazon ads in the beginning to get that quick the, the quick eyeballs onto the, the new books. And then do long-term Facebook ads.

Mark: Okay. Thank you. [00:26:00] That’s great. That’s great advice. Yeah. And where can listeners find your book?

Robert: You can find, in my, my website is robertgoluba.com and, and there’s links to, right now they’re all on Amazon. But that, that’s where you can find out if you’re interested in, my books, I have a couple free prequels for for readers to read other stories.

One of ’em is a, you know, real military version, was the first one I wrote, and then I’m like, I probably need to make it more similar to the book, so it’s more similar to Cartel Hunter. But yeah, you can find, robergoluba.com is the best place. Or, just if you look up a Cartel Hunter on, on Amazon, you’ll, it’ll be, my book will be one of the first you find.

Mark: Thank you. I’ll link to all that in the show notes. So thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it. If you don’t mind sticking around for a couple minutes after the show, we have some bonus questions for our newsletter subscribers that just go out to them. And thank you so much for taking the time.

I really appreciate it. I really enjoyed reading Cartel Hunter and we’ll be getting [00:27:00] into the next book and yeah, thank you for your time.

Robert: Had a blast and thanks for giving me this opportunity, Mark

Mark: Thanks for listening to episode 11. If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to follow the show so you don’t miss episode 12 with Steve Stratton. Author of the Action Thriller Caribbean Harvest, and if you’d like to go deeper with early access bonus content, the after show, and a chance to ask future guests your own questions, join me on Patreon.

The links are in the show notes.