The Thrill Of Suspense Across The Ages

AUSTIN, Texas - Aug. 2, 2014 - PRLog -- Kathy Clark, bestselling fiction author of 32 books, joined the Romance Writers of America [RWA] deep in the heart of Texas, on July 23–26, for the 2014 RWA Conference in San Antonio.  "I had stepped away from the RWA organization after being a National Board member and went to Hollywood to write for the big screen," Kathy explained her time away from the organization and writing books.  "The biggest change was the high quality expertise surrounding the 2nd major task of an author, marketing."

"In 2012, my husband Bob and I relocated to the Austin area and we went back to writing novels.  The trip to San Antonio was a short drive and the week was a great time to get away.  We had released 8 books in two years, so it’s not like we've been goofing off."  What they didn't realize was how much they would learn about marketing their books and, more critically, their brand.

Bob noted, "Whether you're being published through a large publishing house or self-publishing your books, the effort, skills and intuition needed to market your brand and your books is nearly equal."  They came back and went to work to sharpen their message to the book market in general and to work on finding and communicating better with their readers and fans.  The result was that they now have a consistent reader facing message.  “I always knew that an advertising slogan is a short, memorable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorable) group of words used in advertising campaigns (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_campaign) to draw attention (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention) to one distinctive feature,” Bob continued.  “Our passion is suspense so our slogan had to be The Thrill Of Suspense Across The Ages.”

Kathy and Bob have three different active suspense series currently.

The Young Adult series, CUL8R [See you later for the non-texters], is all about the 15 to 18 year old reader.  It is a time travel series with the last book, RIP, taking place in 1911 at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park Colorado who were very supportive of their work. "Having RIP on the shelf with the another famous work of fiction by Stephen King, Shining, is a real rush," Bob Said.

The New Adult series, Scandals, is about the 18 to 26 year old generation.  There are two books published thus far, Due Dates and August, 2014 release of Killer Date.  "Millennials, mainly in 18 to 26 year old group, have a great deal of organic suspense built in based on our five sons.  The stories and heroes of these books will keep your heart rate up," Bob said.  "Our NA books are not YA with sex or YA with training wheels removed.  These are bonafide adult suspense stories with twenty something’s talking on the heavy lifting in the story."

Finally, and with one foot still in the romance industry so Kathy doesn't co-write this series with Bob, the Denver After Dark series is heavy on the suspense and deep into the romance, hence Romantic Suspense."  "The 2nd book, Cries In The Night" recently was a finalist in the 2014 Colorado Humanities book awards and was recognized in the Amazon 2014 Breakthrough Novel Award," Kathy said recapped.

Bob explained the activities they've undertaken to implement what they learned.  "The visual image and simple message on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, the webpage www.thethrillofsuspense.com and even the email address thethrillofsuspense@gmail.com all look and feel the same."

"Our readers can simply see what we're about and that's important. The RWA San Antonio experience helped us hone our message," Kathy said.  With the marketing activity undertaken this first week back they can check marketing off their to do list...for a couple of days." I was skeptical of the value add of the week at the conference," Bob concluded, "Kathy knew what was coming as she used to eat and breath this stuff.  Now I'm a believer and more importantly I am seeing the upside to marketing and marketing through a prism to help focus all that we do.  We’ve been fortunate enough to win awards and contests and have earned amazing reviews and ratings…maybe now new readers will have an easier time finding us.  Now it’s time to write."