Scott Pratt

Early Life & Education

Scott Pratt was born in South Haven, Michigan, around 1956 and moved to Tennessee at age thirteen. He served in the United States Air Force before pursuing higher education.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from East Tennessee State University (ETSU), where he won the McClellan Award for a screenplay about Blackbeard the pirate. He later earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Tennessee College of Law.

Before attending law school in his late thirties, Pratt worked in several fields, including journalism at the Johnson City Press, where he wrote investigative pieces and columns. He also worked as a chef, landscaper, and personal trainer at various points in his life.

Legal Career

Pratt practiced criminal defense law in Johnson City, Tennessee, primarily in Washington County and Sullivan County. His experiences in the courtroom — the moral ambiguity, the flawed system, the extraordinary characters — would become the raw material for the Joe Dillard series.

The main character, Joe Dillard, was based significantly on Pratt himself: a criminal defense attorney in Northeast Tennessee grappling with moral conflict, family loyalty, and the failures of the justice system. The character was originally named "Joe Bob Cooter" before Pratt settled on Joe Dillard.

How Joe Dillard Was Born

In January 2006, during a road trip to Nashville with his son Dylan, Scott Pratt read Michael Connelly's The Lincoln Lawyer. Inspired, he decided to write a legal thriller of his own. He returned home and told his wife Kristy: "This is how I'm going to save us."

The family was in crisis. Pratt had lost his law license, Kristy was fighting breast cancer, and they were facing financial collapse that would eventually lead to bankruptcy. Writing became his lifeline.

Pratt had no formal fiction training. He worked with editor Renni Browne (author of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers) for approximately one year, spending an estimated $10,000 on her editorial guidance. He wrote six to ten hours per day and rewrote the manuscript for his first novel five times. He studied James Scott Bell's Plot and Structure and its LOCK system (Lead, Objective, Conflict, Knockout) during the process.

Publishing Career

Traditional Publishing (2008–2012)

Pratt was represented by the Philip Spitzer Literary Agency, which also represented Michael Connelly. His first novel, An Innocent Client, was published by New American Library (NAL), a subsidiary of Penguin Publishing, on November 4, 2008, with an initial print run of 55,000 copies.

The debut earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly and was a Macavity Award finalist for Best Debut Mystery — losing to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Crime novelist Ken Bruen described the opening chapter as one of the most compelling he'd read in a decade.

Pratt signed a follow-up deal for two additional novels and received a $50,000 advance. However, after his editor left NAL, conflicts with the publisher led to a falling-out. His fourth novel, Reasonable Fear, was rejected by all traditional publishers.

The Self-Publishing Revolution (2012–2018)

After fighting to recover his rights from Penguin, Pratt and his son Dylan Pratt founded Phoenix Flying Inc. — named after matching phoenix tattoos they'd gotten together, symbolizing their shared recovery from crisis.

The company self-published the Joe Dillard series through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Dylan managed the business operations, including marketing, cover design, and Amazon optimization. Together, they became pioneers of indie publishing:

• April 2013 A BookBub feature drives monthly revenue to approximately $70,000, later settling to $15,000–$25,000/month.
• 2013 Pioneered the strategy of combining Kindle Countdown Deals with BookBub features, driving Blood Money to #32 overall in the Kindle Store with 3,500+ copies sold in a single day.
• 2013 Dylan Pratt became the second author in the publishing space to use Amazon's A+ Content (Advantage) program.
• 2015 Annual revenue grew to an estimated $300,000–$500,000/year. The Joe Dillard series held eleven of the top twenty spots on the Kindle legal thriller bestseller list.
• 2017 Due Process — the final novel Scott completed — is published. Career total surpasses six million copies sold.

Pratt also published the Darren Street series through Thomas & Mercer (Amazon Publishing). His Amazon author page accumulated over 100,000 followers.

Personal Life & Family

Scott married Kristy Pratt, a dance school operator who became the inspiration for Caroline Dillard, the emotional center of the Joe Dillard series. Kristy fought breast cancer for approximately eleven years, beginning in the early 2000s. The cancer eventually metastasized to her skeletal system. She passed away in 2017.

Scott dedicated every novel he wrote to Kristy with the same dedication — the words that appear at the top of this page.

Their son, Dylan Pratt (now known professionally as J.D. Pratt), was Scott's business partner in Phoenix Flying and now manages the literary estate. Their daughter, Kody Pratt (now Kody Rowe), was a University of Tennessee dance team member and now lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Scott's brother Kevin Pratt, a U.S. Army medic, was present at the Battle of Mogadishu (1993) — the real-life event depicted in Black Hawk Down.

Legacy

Scott Pratt died in November 2018 at the age of approximately sixty-two. He had been diagnosed with cancer himself, though his passing came unexpectedly. Kristy had predeceased him in 2017 — they were gone within approximately eighteen months of each other.

Attorney Casey Sears, who took over Scott's caseload after his disbarment, called Scott's story "the great American redemption story."

The Abraham Lincoln Perseverance plaque that hung in Scott's office remains in the current office. His legacy continues through the readers who discovered his work and the family that carries it forward.

The Continuation: J.D. Pratt & Phoenix Flying

Following Scott's death, his son Dylan took over management of Phoenix Flying LLC and the literary estate after an approximately four-and-a-half-year hiatus (2018–2023). He publishes under the pen name J.D. Pratt — the initials stand for Joe Dillard.

Dylan has explained the decision to use a professional ghostwriter rather than write the novels himself: "Dad's readers, his characters, and his legacy deserved the practiced hands of a professional rather than the fumbling keystrokes of a novice."

Under J.D. Pratt's stewardship, the estate has published:

• April 2023 Blood Is Black (Presley Carter series) — A novel Scott was halfway through when he died. Over 50,000 copies sold.
• June 2023 Last Resort (Joe Dillard #10) — Co-written with ghostwriter Andrew Wolfendon. #1 in legal thrillers on Amazon for approximately four months. Over 250,000 copies sold.
• June 2025 Vindicate (Joe Dillard #11) — First book with Jack Dillard (Joe's son) as protagonist.
• 2025 Redemption: Scott Pratt & the Birth of Joe Dillard — Non-fiction biography by J.D. Pratt and Dan Fleser.
• In Development A Leon Bates spinoff series featuring the fan-favorite sheriff from the Dillard books. An audio drama adaptation is also in progress.

Key Facts

Complete Bibliography

Joe Dillard Series

Darren Street Series

Other Works

Frequently Asked Questions