Member-only story
Before Tiger King, There Was The Cheetah Kingpin
Illegal oil deals. Marijuana smuggling. An international manhunt. This is the story of Robert Stone (and his pet cheetah Scooby).
I’ve interviewed a lot of people in my days as a freelance journalist and writer.
Once the article goes live, I rarely think about most of them again. It’s nothing personal, only that I need a clear head to move on to my next assignment. It’s, as they say, just business. But there are always exceptions.
Since interviewing him almost five years ago, I’ve never been able to forget about Robert Stone (or his pet cheetah). My path first crossed with Stone not long after he released his memoir, Chasing Black Gold, via The History Press.
A master of self-promotion, Stone took a copy of his book to every store that he could reasonably get to and asked to see the manager. He’d leave a book with them and ask, if they’d enjoyed it, to come back and sign some copies.
It worked in Costco’s Aberdeen warehouse, resulting in a significant order from the company. I was asked to cover his story for Costco’s member magazine and set about trying to condense his story into a few hundred words.
