Author Jim Overstreet talks about the real meaning behind his new book The Pickup Men

Yaya Diamond TV

Book link: https://a.co/d/0dDyTduT  Spanning the ranchlands of Montana, the brutal arenas of professional rodeo, and the backroads between them, The Pickup Men plunges readers into a world where old grudges never die-and loyalty comes at a cost.  Rodeo pickup man Boomer Augustine is violent, ruthless, and driven by an inherited feud. Determined to punish World Champion steer wrestler Rusty Blackstone simply for his last name, Boomer sets in motion a chain of events that threatens families, careers, and lives.  Without ever meeting, Boomer's wife and Rusty find themselves in an uneasy alliance, forced to protect what matters most while navigating a world where silence can be deadly and courage isn't always enough.  Gritty, emotional, and fiercely authentic, The Pickup Men is a story of loyalty tested, grudges revived, and the dangerous choices made when conflict rides in after dark. Written by a lifelong cowboy, this fifth installment of the Rodeo in the Blood series delivers tension, heart, and hard-earned wisdom-proving that in rodeo, the toughest battles aren't always fought on horseback.  ⚡ VidChapter AI generated these chapters, try it out https://vidchapter.com/?affiliate=yayadiamond Recommended podcast platform get 10% off: https://podopshost.com/register/?ref=yaya   Tools and Services I use: Appsumo has the best lifetime deals ever!!! I love this site.  appsumo.8odi.net/yayadiamond The easiest way to make your graphics: https://buff.ly/2RTQLn0 Best website for musicians. Try it for free on me: https://buff.ly/2GMYugG Make money with Fiverr.com: https://buff.ly/2KjTVvV   Our Amazon store: https://buff.ly/34RYNlm DISCLAIMER: Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. My affiliate links usually provide either a free trial or discount so go try them out on me! Thank you for supporting DreamChasersRadio.com  so I can continue to provide you with free content each week! Privacy Policy: https://buff.ly/2XSrflS ™Yaya Diamond Red Hot Reality Ent. LLC

Transcript

00:10Hello, I'm Jim Overstreet, author of The Pickup Man.

00:30Diamonds, dream chasers, we won't wait. Subscribe today before it's too late. Inspiration flowing just like the breeze. Chase your

00:40dreams and feel at ease. Be good. Be very good.

00:53I'm trying. I'm trying to be good. I was smiling because I was really trying to be good. I can

00:59only be me. And sometimes I'm not good. But that's okay. That's okay. Because my name is Yaga Diamond and

01:05I am the host and founder of Dream Chasers Radio.

01:07And here we have fiction, nonfiction, music, biographies, all kinds of stuff. All kinds of stuff just to inspire you

01:16to go after your dreams. We have authors just like Jim Overstreet. He's here today. He has a new book

01:21out. Let me go ahead and put it up here for you.

01:24And it is called The Pickup Man. And we're going to be talking about that inside the Rodeo in the

01:29Blood series, which is The Pickup Man. Okay. And then from his passion to his publication.

01:36Listen, let me tell you something. A lot of times we have something on our minds and we really want

01:41to get it out there, but we're so scared to do it. It's just, it's nerve wracking. It really is.

01:46But just do it. Just do it. And Jim and I are going to tell you exactly what he did

01:51to get that out. Jim, thank you so much for being here.

01:54Thank you for having me.

01:55Oh, anytime. So, okay. So we have to go to the main question. The main question is, why? Why did

02:01you put this out? What made you do it? Like, what was the idea behind it?

02:06Well, when I first started writing, I did mostly magazine articles, mostly for horse magazines. But there's an awful lot

02:15about the West today and the contemporary West that I find interesting.

02:22And then, then I wanted to try to get some of it down on paper and preserve it. And also,

02:30I wanted to write fiction so I could tell a story. And I hope that my stories are entertained.

02:41When I wrote the first book in this series, it took me between 25 and 30 years. But the last

02:48few months when I finished it, I got going pretty good. And when I finished the first book, I just

02:56went on to the second one because there was more story to tell.

02:58And as you just mentioned, we're up to five now. And I'm partway through book six.

03:09I just, I guess that I was hoping maybe that I could make a little money writing books, but I'm

03:16happy to have to tell a good story.

03:19I hear you. You know, making good money, a lot of people have that misconception that this is just going

03:24to take off right away. It's just going to take off right away. And it's going to be the biggest

03:29thing since sliced bread. And I mean, how has that been for you, though?

03:35Oh, you know, when you when you when you publish a book without a lot of support, it's a it's

03:44an uphill battle to get your book out there and to get people to read it. And so I've done

03:51it more out of love than anything. I I don't know. It's it's it's it's difficult.

04:00It is. And I don't have the technical knowledge to do it. Most people that read my books like them.

04:06I mean, sometimes I'll be walking up the street running to somebody I know and maybe I haven't seen for

04:11a while and they stop and tell me how much they enjoyed my novel.

04:14So that's a pretty good reward in itself. It really is. It's just like a musician that does a song

04:21and it and it's an uphill battle. It's battle. It's the same thing. It's the same thing.

04:25You know, it's it's difficult to get that that word out when you don't have support, but you have support.

04:32Oh, I do. Yes, that's good. I mean, what's the difference between having support and not having support in your

04:39opinion?

04:40Oh, it's it's it's it's a big deal, you know, especially when you're doing something you don't know much about,

04:46like like advertising your book or or getting getting the word out.

04:52If you're a cowboy, that's not your thing. So you have to have someone else help you.

04:57Yeah, that is a wonderful thing. So tell me about this book.

05:00OK, so we got we got the book here and it is book five of the Rodeo in the Blood

05:07series, The Pickup Men.

05:09Tell me about this. Well, my my characters by my book five, they've got a lot of history.

05:18Oh, yeah. I I try to get if you if you read the novels out of order, I think you

05:25can make perfect sense out of them because I try and sneak in enough backstory in each one.

05:30But the pickup man in particular, I I'm not sure that was the best name I could pick.

05:37But one of my characters, actually, the villain in my piece is a pickup man.

05:45He and his father own a rodeo string and they put on they produce rodeos.

05:51And it's the pickup man. And in one of the earlier books, he got in a fight right in the

05:56arena with my one of my heroes.

05:58Wow. Wow. In in in this one.

06:03And then the other the other thing is a little tongue in cheek in this title, because one of my

06:09other characters who is sort of sort of interesting,

06:12but amoral kind of character is is driving his his pickup up, pulling a horse trailer up up a road

06:21in Texas and and on Christmas Eve, actually.

06:26And he's and he picks up this woman walking along the road.

06:31And so that makes him a pickup man, kind of.

06:34And even when when the lady gets in the pickup, she's she said, boy, you sure keep your pickup clean.

06:41He said, well, it's old. But I said, I I like it to look nice.

06:44And she said, well, I've kind of got a soft spot for a pickup man.

06:48So there's a little tongue in cheek there on the whole thing.

06:52Ladies, this is not that kind of book. OK.

06:56A lot of ladies are like, oh, the pickup man. I want to hear that.

07:00So this is about this is about the characters about, you know, going into the fifth generation, if I would

07:09say, of the book, you know,

07:11and it's so important that we have that line, that lineage, that that I guess those connections to those characters,

07:20how they've evolved.

07:22How have you been able to evolve these characters to have a fifth book?

07:29You know, when I when I finished that first one, my mate, I had I had two really main characters

07:35not and they were at odds.

07:37But I like both of them. And and there were some secondary characters that were pretty major that I liked.

07:44And the the the villain in this piece, I didn't I didn't pick him up and I didn't find him

07:52till the book three when when he and when he he was trying to hurt my one.

08:01And one of my characters ride saddle broncs, Rusty Blackstone, he he's a steer wrestler, but he rides some saddle

08:06broncs.

08:07And when when Boomer Augustine's the pickup man, he he he dumped him off in the arena and tried to

08:16run over him.

08:17It turned out that that that that that Rusty's father and Boomer's father had had a long running feud.

08:28And so it sort of came to the surface. And then in in in book in in books, three, four

08:35and five, why it came to the surface.

08:40Boomer just won't let it go. And so Rusty has to kind of defend himself.

08:46You know, I love books like this where you get like the whole story, but it keeps going.

08:52I'm a I'm a I'm a series kind of girl. I like the series.

08:56I like to to kind of follow them because life is a series and this is really cool.

09:01So you've developed these characters from book one to book five.

09:06What was the biggest challenge that you faced along the way?

09:12You know, there I don't know which the biggest challenge was.

09:16It was getting the first one written. You know, I started it and I got my life got really busy.

09:22My kids got into junior high and it just took so much time.

09:26And I would just write a a scene whenever I happened to think of it.

09:32And one of the big challenges was when I got right down, when I had time to work on it,

09:38was to get the scenes in order.

09:39I didn't write them in order. I just wrote ones of that as they came to me.

09:43So I actually had to get an Excel spreadsheet and get them in order.

09:47Oh, wow. You know, that's not the first time that I've heard someone say that they just wrote down the

09:53chat.

09:53They just wrote it down and then they got the chapters in order.

09:57You know, it's interesting. You know, some people write in sequential orders.

10:01I can't because the ideas come and sometimes those ideas are not in the perfect order.

10:08When you thought about the order, when you sat down and you really thought about the order, did you change

10:13it up a few times or was it like, oh, this is the order.

10:16That's it. No.

10:20My first run through, I thought I needed to mix the present in the past and it didn't work very

10:26well.

10:26So I had to adjust that. I just had to put it in chronological order.

10:30But other than that, I didn't change it much.

10:34You know, you always make a few little adjustments.

10:37Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's important that people know that, you know, you are one that has gone before.

10:44Hey! And it's important that people who understand your success and then finishing the book, getting it out there, having

10:55the people behind you to help you to promote it.

10:58It takes a lot.

11:00How long? I know you said book one, but between book four and five, or did you have it all

11:06done?

11:06How long did it take?

11:08You know, I was really going when I got to book two, and I wrote it in about six months.

11:15They're all about the same length.

11:17They're about, they're roughly 110,000 to 120,000 words, which in my case turns out to be around 400

11:26to 420 pages.

11:29The third one, I wrote in about six months.

11:32The fourth one took me about a year, and the fifth one took me about a year.

11:36And I've been on book six about a year and a half, and I'm only probably two-thirds of the

11:42way through it.

11:43But it does take a while.

11:45It does.

11:46You know, and a lot of people, they have these misconceptions that this is going to be like the huge

11:51thing.

11:51Like I told you, since sliced bread, it's like, okay, this is going to come out in six weeks.

11:56But should a person feel guilty if it takes a little longer or maybe even shorter and then longer?

12:04Oh, I don't think you have to worry about the time.

12:06The hard part is to keep after it.

12:10You know, when I was trying to write it, when I first started trying to write it, the first book

12:21a long time ago, I didn't have a lot of time, and then I got less time.

12:25But then when the kids got grown, and actually when I had to have a hip replaced, and so I

12:35really got – when I knew that was going to happen, I was sore.

12:38I couldn't – I wasn't riding much.

12:40It was a hard time, and so I just started working on it.

12:44And then when I got my hip replaced, I had to stay in the house for about six weeks in

12:47a row.

12:47So not stay in the house, but I wasn't supposed to do much, walk around the house, I guess.

12:52And I just – I had time, and I sat down and started it.

12:57And then once I got going, it just sort of went, which is pretty neat, really.

13:03You know, if you're a writer, when things are going well, it's a great feeling.

13:08When you get stuck, not so much.

13:11Not so much.

13:12Yeah, I hear you.

13:13I hear you.

13:14Wow.

13:14And, you know, I appreciate you being here.

13:17If you could sum up your – this one, particularly this edition, which is going to be the fifth book,

13:27right?

13:27If you could sum this one up in a nutshell, what would you say?

13:34You know, it's hard because I've got several storylines going, and they've been going for a while, and they keep

13:42going.

13:42So it's hard.

13:43But this book actually opens with Boomer Augustine, who's the villain, the pickup man from previous novels.

13:52She's actually – she gets a phone call in the night and said he's been shot and he's in the

13:59hospital, and she's elated.

14:03And when she finds out he's probably going to survive, she's really let down because he's an abusive husband.

14:14He's hard on the kids, and so she spends – it isn't – I'm not going to say it's the

14:21major theme in the book, but it's a continuing theme in the book, her trying to figure out how to

14:25make herself a widow.

14:27Okay.

14:30That one is – okay, this might just be for the ladies.

14:34Well, to some extent, but in the meantime, my other characters are going to rodeos, and they're living their lives.

14:43One of them has – one of them is a way to rodeo when his wife gives birth and some

14:49stuff like that that's kind of interesting.

14:52So you got, like, different stories going on at the same time?

14:55I kind of do.

14:56They all interrelate, but they are different.

14:59They're – each character or couple of characters has a storyline kind of, and they sort of weave in and

15:09out of each other's lives.

15:11And I don't know.

15:12It's a lot of fun to write it that way.

15:14I think so, too.

15:16Yeah.

15:16I think it actually works pretty well reading it.

15:19And when I first started writing this stuff, I thought that maybe I could – it would be strictly maybe

15:26a men's book or men – the whole series may be a men's book.

15:32And it would be sort of to people who really were ranchers or rodeo people or not.

15:38But it doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

15:40I mean, if I can get people to read it, most of them like it.

15:43Not all of them, but most of them.

15:44Well, I mean, you're never going to like everything, you know.

15:47No.

15:47And not everybody that's going to read something or listen to whatever you write or, you know, because you have

15:53the audiobooks now.

15:54Not everybody's going to like it.

15:56And that's okay.

15:57And that's okay.

15:58But to recognize the effort that has gone in, the time that has gone in, that I think you deserve.

16:07I mean, not everybody will like it.

16:10And obviously, not everybody's going to like this show.

16:13But that's okay.

16:14But recognizing the talent, recognizing the time, recognizing the effort, and everything that you've done, that's evident.

16:23That's definitely the fifth.

16:26Yeah, that's evident.

16:27Well, thank you.

16:28It's been a little bit of a challenge at times.

16:32But, you know, it's pretty fulfilling to create a book.

16:37I know when I got the first one published, one of my daughters said to me, Dad, that's really neat.

16:45And so, and it is.

16:47So, yeah.

16:49Yes, definitely.

16:50Is there anything that we missed today that you would like to say?

16:54I can't think what it is.

16:55I'll think of it in a little while, probably.

16:58It's like, oh, dang on it.

16:59I should have said that.

17:03It's okay.

17:04Jim, thank you so much for being on the show.

17:06I'm going to go ahead and put that book out again and let everybody know that the fifth edition of

17:10The Pickup Men is out and ready for you guys to go ahead and check it out for yourself.

17:16We're going to put the link in the description box below so it'll be easy for you guys to find

17:19it.

17:19It's on Amazon.

17:21It's everywhere, pretty much.

17:22Am I correct?

17:23Yes.

17:24I think you can get it from any of the online booksellers.

17:27That's called support.

17:29Yes.

17:30Yes.

17:30That we need.

17:31Okay.

17:33I want to thank you guys so much for tuning in.

17:35Don't forget today to be different.

17:36And, Jim, thank you so much for being on the show.

17:38I appreciate it.

17:39Thank you so much for having me.

17:41Oh, anytime.

17:41And anytime for you guys, too.

17:43Don't forget to tune in and look at the other interviews that we have and be inspired by Jim.

17:49This is the fifth thing, man.

17:51Come on.

17:52Three is just not to stop.

17:53It's just a start.

17:55Okay?

17:56Keep going, guys.

17:57Until next time.

17:58Bye.

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