Tampa real estate exec's new project: writing a thriller

Dave Sobelman wrote a book. That’s a pretty big deal, right?

It’s a thriller titled The Triple Player, set in the real estate world. He wrote it with fellow author Arthur Frederick.

Here’s why that’s big: Sobelman is not a professional writer. Nor does he intend — at least for now — to write another book. He says he’s too busy running Generation Income Properties, the real estate company he’s CEO of, to think about starting the process all over again.

A lot of writers have a day jobs, though. Kafka worked at an insurance company and Vonnegut sold cars for a time.

But Sobelman says he doesn’t have much interest in writing again because, get this, “I don’t consider myself a real writer,” he tells Coffee Talk. 

“That wouldn’t be fair to real writers,” he quips. 

But Sobelman sells himself short: The Triple Player is his actually his second book. His first was a nonfiction book, “Triple Net Lease Investing.”

That book, now its second edition, has sold 9,000 copies. For those unfamiliar with the book publishing world, 9,000 copies isn’t too shabby unless your last name happens to be Patterson or King or Higgins Clark.

Sobelman, while also running Generation Income, a publicly-traded real estate company with $3.5 million in revenue in 2020, spent some two years with Frederick on the book. They fleshed out characters and stories, balancing elements of triple-net leasing to make sure it was accurate and the crimes were feasible while sure the story entertaining.  

What they came up with was is a story about Dennis, a barista at a Cuban coffee shop. A customer walks in one day and, according to the blurb on Amazon.com where they published The Triple Player, draws Dennis “into a world of triple-net leased real estate, and then a darker world of money laundering.”

Dennis “must decide whether to follow the big money — or give it up to pursue the passion he has kept secret from everyone.”

Sobelman used his knowledge as a specialist in triple-net leasing — where a tenant pays the taxes, maintenance and insurance on a property rather than the owner — and his experience with some less-than savory people he’s met in his years in real estate to develop the plot.

He and Frederick took turns working on the copy, sitting down together once a month and then on Zoom to go over the story and polish the book. What they came up with was a 478-page thriller that early readers have given five out of five stars to on Amazon.

And there's more: Sobelman has a book party planned for May 26.