JoeyPinkney.com 5 Minutes, 5 Questions With... Trae Macklin, author of Flippin' The Hustle

About "Flippin' The Hustle":

Born and raised in the Projects of Richmond, VA, Derrick Richards’ life was changed. His destiny to become a federal agent was forged at an early age when he witnessed the untimely death of his older brother and father figure Carlo at the hands of a up and coming drug dealer.

However, when Derrick took the assignment to bring down the Black Tar Boyz neither he nor the FBI could have known just how deep he would go undercover, how easily he would fit into his new persona, or how hard it would be to bring him back when the game, the mean Brooklyn streets and a new found love grabbed a hold of him!

Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the inspiration to write “Flippin’ The Hustle”?

Trae Macklin: “Flippin’ The Hustle” book was inspired by lot of trips out of town on my grind and all the wild stuff I experienced and watched go down in the streets. That goes from the sex with dimes to the shootouts with killers.


JP: What sets “Flippin’ The Hustle” apart from other books in the same genre?

TM: Good question. I try not to get caught up in what other authors are doing and make this into a competition. But I will say what makes my book fire, because that’s what readers wanna know: “Is the book fire?”

You get not only the perspective of Derrick, a Fed agent, but you get insight into his mindset as law enforcement and as a hustler. And the beauty of it is you actually see how somebody from the inside can be driven to go against his coworkers in one of the country’s biggest law enforcement agencies. (read more) 

JP: As an author, what are the keys to your success that led to “Flippin’ The Hustle” getting out to the public?

TM: A tight product and knowing somebody that knows somebody. It’s all about skills and networking. As I was writing the first draft of “Flippin’ The Hustle”, I was reading books on the craft of fiction, studying other writers and getting pointers on writing from online. So I was learning the importance of characterization, settings, plot and other elements of fiction as I was writing. (read more) 

JP: As an author, what is your writing process? How long did it take you to start and finish “Flippin’ The Hustle”?

TM: My writing process was organic. I just had visions of characters and scenes that paralleled things I had seen and been through. I started jotting these down and making the connections to the streets.

From that, I came up with a plot that consisted of a federal Agent that was getting shitted on by the FBI and was desperate to get the money he needed to save his mother. So it became an issue of how does he get this money and all of the obstacles that slow him up from reaching his goal. (read more) 

JP: What’s next for Trae Macklin?

TM: There’s a million more stories I can craft from my past about the streets, and I’m definitely gonna do some more writing in that vein. But a lot of people have been telling me how cinematic the book feels. (read more)

Click here to read the entire JoeyPinkney.com interview with Trae Macklin, author of "Flippin' The Hustle".