Kathy Clark & Bob Kat Author Blog

New Covers & New Blurbs to Better Match The Award Winning Writing

Bob Kat — Sun, 19 May 2013 06:13:33 +0000

As many of you know our new Time Travel Mystery Series written for the Young Adult through New Adult ages launched in December, 2012. We were fortunate to win two awards for book #1, OMG in 2013 as follows:

and

Following a successful book giveaway and after seeking feedback on the books we have decided to refresh the covers and to better explain the blurbs on the first two books. So…book #1 is about Kelly, a teenager from Texas has recently been orphaned and sent to live in Florida with her aunt Jane, a busy lawyer. Right away Kelly meets her tall, nerdy neighbor Scott, and they bond over a shared love of a video games and a mysterious gadget they find in Aunt Jane’s garage.

The gadget turns out to be a lost invention of Thomas Edison’s called the “Telephone to the Dead”. The mystery begins when Scott gets the Spirit Radio to work and a girl named Wendy comes through, pleading for help . . . from beyond the grave. Is Wendy a ghost? And if she didn’t kill herself, who did? Kelly, Scott and his best friend Austin must find a way to go back to 1966 to help her . . . without getting killed.

Well plotted and fast paced. Martha Bryce
The best time-travel novel I’ve read yet, and I hope there’s more to come. A big thumbs up! C
WOW! I’ve been thinking about that book for a week now since I finished reading it. It kept me engrossed with intelligent writing, depth of characters and a fast pace. Overall, a very satisfying novel. Jasmine

Look for the new cover –

In Book #2, the teen time travelers discover “It’s difficult to investigate a crime that hasn’t happened yet.”

Kelly, Scott, Austin and Zoey have just returned from changing a girl’s life in 1966 and are a little battered and bruised from their adventure. But when a small voice pleads for their help to save her family from a murderer, they know they must respond.

They research the story, but there is very little information to be found. All they know is that it takes place on Crystal Key, a small private island off the Florida Keys. Since it appears to be deserted, they decide to pop in, gather clues, then pop back. It was a good excuse to spend a lazy day on a beautiful beach.

But from the first step, their journey back to 1980 goes horribly wrong. The area is crawling with drug traffickers and tens of thousands of refugees fleeing Cuba. They meet the young girl and her family, but their intervention puts them in the direct path of the killer.

Can they find out who he is in time to save the girl, her family . . . and themselves? Or are they destined to be a madman’s latest victims?

“It’s an exciting mystery with plenty of surprises to keep you guessing.” Danielle Marie

“The “CUL8R” series stands out and shines as something unique that manages to mix fantasy with realistic characters and situations.” Erica Lucas

“I literally could not put this book down.” K. J. Pierce

We kept the poor girl but gave her the doorway to the past and back again as time passes by on our new cover with –

Finally, book #3 is coming along wonderfully! A one week trip to the Fort Myers Beach area and to the Circus Hall of Fame and to visit our new firend Jackie, a retired clown with Ringling Brothers, has added a lot of great facts and details to this book. It will be published in August, 2013 and we hope you like the cover…

Looking to read the books?

Find eBooks or paperback on Amazon at these links…

OMG http://www.amazon.com/CUL8R-Time-Travel-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00AF2Q30E/

BRB http://www.amazon.com/CUL8R-Time-Travel-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00C8SK9JO/

Free Books

Bob Kat — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:40:12 +0000

This weekend book #1 of my Angel Series is free on Amazon. Kissed By An Angel

http://www.amazon.com/KISSED-ANGEL-Angel-Series-ebook/dp/B007BXRJWG/

The 3 book series originally sold over 350,000 copies in paperback.

Next week Phantom Angel will be free http://www.amazon.com/PHANTOM-ANGEL-ebook/dp/B0085RZPJ6/

and the following weekend Angel of Mercy will have its free weekend http://www.amazon.com/ANGEL-OF-MERCY-ebook/dp/B0085RZPC8/

Over the past month we’ve been promoting our new time travel mystery series CUL8R. Here are the two covers for the first two book in the time travel mystery series.

http://www.amazon.com/CUL8R-Time-Travel-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00AF2Q30E/r

And book #2 is BRB [Be Right Back] and is at http://www.amazon.com/CUL8R-Time-Travel-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00C8SK9JO

Is that a young adult, adult, new adult or just a coming and going adult?

Bob Kat — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 22:02:59 +0000

When author Kathy Clark decided to write a Young Adult Series and she teamed up with her husband Bob Wernly, the determination of their pseudonym of Bob Kat was the last easy decision they had. Teen books. Young adult books. Mid-grade books. Mature young adult books. New young adult books. The options seem to increase every time a new best seller came along. Like the book or don’t like the book, the entire 50 Shades of Grey collection was poorly written about a topic few in the general population had personal knowledge of but none the less sold well.

Bob’s first question, stemming from his background as an engineer and Fortune 500 Executive background, was what’s the difference between a young adult book from a mid-grade book, teen book, children’s book and the emerging category of the new or mature adult book?

But first. Why is it important to have clear definitions?
Two reasons primarily.
• Child protection
• Customer expectation

The child protection is pretty straightforward. Parents have an obligation to set their children off in the right direction in life. So just as there are film ratings and restrictions on what age kid and go in to what movie, a similar, less orchestrated or at least more self-managed system needs to be maintained. The customer satisfaction is simply finding a way to make clear to a potential buyer of a book what the nature of the book is about. It’s clear what’s inside an erotica book or a mystery or police procedural. But the shifting sands in the twelve to twenty one ager group makes it more urgent that the authors and readers and parents land on a common understanding.

So some research has uncovered a number of characteristics and facets to the question. These attributes are to be considered when determining the target market of audience by an author:

• Age [The most singularly objective measurement in the entire discussion. Young adult by some conservative religious organization means 18 to 35 years old]
• Subject matter of the book, series and plot points within the story
• Writing and vocabulary style [Complexity, sentence structure and definitions]
• Type of conflict of the protagonist [Is it something much older than the reader or something that is just a memory of when they were young]
• Moral values and behaviors [Within the family and with their friends day to day. Do the “kids” in the story act older or younger than they think they do]

Age and subject matter are not consistent measures as they vary greatly between people depending on another set of factors such as:
• Morals [Theirs, friends, parents and assumed in society as seen on TV, films, books, magazines and even video games]
• Experiences in their life thus far either personally or through friends

Writing and vocabulary style often times gets into some pretty easy to answer questions that many “Young Adult Blog Sites” use such as:
• Level of violence
• Profanity
• Sexual activity or descriptions [Including exclusions of specific words and phrases by a publisher for example. The details or graphic nature is also a consideration here.]

But another level of this is the softer side of a story. Middle grade novels are characterized by the type of conflict encountered by the main character. The children in the primary grades are still focused inward, and the conflicts in their books reflect that. Young adults are different not unlike the complexity of child’s life as they grow older. Young adult novels often have more complicated plots than those for middle grade and the protagonists not only experience an internal change, but this change is set off by external events and the event fits into a bigger picture because it is confusing. Know your target reader and your story and stay inside these broad variable guidelines.

Bill Cosby; From funny guy to just being honest

Bob Kat — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:45:07 +0000

I was sent Bill Cosby’s tirade titled I’m 83 and Tired. My friends and I used to listen to Bill for humor in high school. He was my generation’s comedian. This list makes him my generation’s voice.

Bill Cosby “I’m 83 and Tired”

I’ve worked hard since I was 17. Except for when I was doing my National Service, I put in 50-hour weeks, and didn’t call in sick in nearly 40 years. I made a reasonable salary, but I didn’t inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, it looks as though retirement was a bad idea, and I’m tired. Very tired.

I’m tired of being told that I have to “spread the wealth” to people who don’t have my work ethic. I’m tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I’m tired of being told that Islam is a “Religion of Peace,” when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family “honor”; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren’t “believers”; Muslims burning schools for girls; Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for “adultery”; Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur’an and Shari’a law tells them to.

I’m tired of being told that out of “tolerance for other cultures” we must let Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries use our oil money to fund mosques and Madrasa Islamic schools to preach hate in Australia , New Zealand , UK, America and Canada , while no one from these countries are allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia or any other Arab country to teach love and tolerance..
I’m tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.

I’m tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses or stick a needle in their arm while they tried to fight it off?

I’m tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of all parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I’m tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

I’m really tired of people who don’t take responsibility for their lives and actions. I’m tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.

I’m also tired and fed up with seeing young men and women in their teens and early 20′s be-deck themselves in tattoos and face studs, thereby making themselves unemployable and claiming money from the Government.

Yes, I’m damn tired. But I’m also glad to be 83.. Because, mostly, I’m not going to have to see the world these people are making. I’m just sorry for my granddaughter and their children. Thank God I’m on the way out and not on the way in. There is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on! This is your chance to make a difference.

“I’m 83 and I’m tired. If you don’t agree you are part of the problem!

Wish I would have considered adding Bill to our flashback fiction to 1969 – 1970 award winning book, Life’s What Happens. http://www.amazon.com/LIFES-WHAT-HAPPENS-ebook/dp/B00A14STPS/ Finalist in the Best Indie Book Fiction in 2013.

Bill, I’ve done my part Hey, Hey Hey!

Recent Awards

Bob Kat — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 16:50:43 +0000

It doesn’t happen every day so a minute of self recognition on recent awards.

First, The Denver AFter Dark SUspense Series won The Best Indie Book for 2013 award for book #1, After Midnight.

Also from The Best Indie Book Awards for 2013, first place in the Young Adult went to the CUL8R Time Travel mystery Series.

OMG also recieved a finalist award from the Beverly Hills Book Awards for 2013:

And finally, the General Fiction story Life’s What Happens, the story of college students in 1969 and how their lives were impacted by the Vietnam military and student unrest at Kent State, was a finalist in that category at The Best Indie Book Awards for 2013.

Writing can be a solitary life so receiving an award when thousands of entries were submitted is just awesome. We took some writing breaks over the past six weeks and constructed for lack of a better term Author’s Pond. So creativity, plotting, character development and scene setting al happens in a great environment with a great co-writer, Kathy, and a fine glass of wine. By the way, wine fineness is a direct function of book sales which is correlated with book quality which is…never mind. Think this is a tax deduction? Likely not.

Come on down!

Paper to Pixels #2.0 – One More Thing Before…

Bob Kat — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:39:23 +0000

I know, Paper to Pixels is supposed to be blog about my personal journey from writing books with hammer and chisel to a arc from paper to eBooks. But you have to understand that the only journey that goes in a straight line is one that involves jumping off something really high up and without a parachute. I’m not going to do that. So before I get back into the story of how I have moved from paper to eBooks and go through how to get 11,600 free book giveaways over a weekend for Starting Over and that kind o thing, i have to address the burning question, WHAT’S YOUR RIGHT TIME TO WRITE?. Starting Over is at http://www.nightwriter93.com/Women_s_Fiction.html or can be ordered on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/STARTING-OVER-ebook/dp/B007EHUHSC/ .

This is important! At least to me and is likely to you as well. Read on and see for yourself. All the books on my website, http://www.nightwriter93.com were written at night…hence nightwriter93. Maybe the 93 will be talked about later.

When are you most creative? Morning? Afternoon? Middle of the night? Speaking for myself, it’s absolutely night time. (You probably could have guessed that from my website http://www.NightWriter93.com.) I think I’m in the minority, because most people prefer mornings. But I wonder how many people actually know when their right time is to write.

Early in my career, I was lucky enough to spend an afternoon with Janet Dailey. I loved her books, respected her business decisions and envied her career. She was one of the first Harlequin authors to set her novels in America (one in each state), create strong, age-appropriate female characters and to write under her own name instead of a pen name (which Harlequin adamantly opposed because she eventually went on to write for other publishers and carry her fans with her). But what I found interesting was that she told me she always got up early (five or six a.m.) and locked herself in her office until she had written a specific number of pages. Her husband would bring her coffee and food, but she stuck to it until she had reached her goal. Then she walked out of her office and spent the rest of her day with her horses. That sounded ideal to me since I needed the discipline and I love horses.
Except when I tried to write in the morning, I found myself staring out the window, dusting the furniture, re-alphabetizing the books on the shelves, playing on-line video games, etc. Not a creative thought entered my mind or made it to the page.

When my kids were young, I tried writing during the day while they were at school, but the phone would ring, groceries had to be bought and there were a million things to distract me. I would read through what I had written and realize it was crap. Pages of disjointed, clichéd crap, totally lacking in a heartbeat.

I’m not sure how it happened, but I tried writing at night, not sitting down to my computer until the kids were all in bed. The fingers flew, the words filled the pages, the characters blossomed and took over the story, just as they should. It was almost an out-of-body experience. The next day I would read what I had been written and be amazed. Things happened and characters had conversations that I honestly didn’t remember writing. I had clearly found my right time to write.

Since then, I don’t even try to write while the sun is up. Maybe I’m a new breed of vampire, but without the superhuman strength and thirst for blood. I’m lucky because I’m at a point in my career where I have the freedom to arrange my schedule according to my deadlines. However, I do all my editing during the day when my creative brain is asleep and my logical, analytical brain is wide awake.

I’ve talked to some of my friends about this discovery and realized that while they weren’t fellow night writers, they had found their own sweet spot during the day when their creative juices flowed best. Others continued to write to a schedule, and to be perfectly honest, when I read their books I can see the structure and the discipline rather than lose myself in the story. I don’t think they’ve found their creative time.

Of course, there are those who don’t have a choice and believe it’s better to write something at an off time than to right nothing at a right time. Those of you who are forced to work your writing in around a job or family responsibilities, you have to do what you have to do. But listen to your creative soul and find your right time. It’s better to write two pages that flow from your guts than twenty pages that are mechanical and dull. If possible, re-arrange your schedule to allow for a writing window or save yourself for your days (or nights) off to make the magic happen.

Experiment and see what works for you. Everyone’s brains cycle in patterns, so first you have to find your time. Then get to work.

One more thing…the CUL8R Teen Time Travel Mystery Series will be having a second book added to book #1, OMG, in April. Look for BRB in all the usual places….

C’ya next time…

Paper to Pixels; A Writer’s Journey

Bob Kat — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 04:53:00 +0000

I don’t have the facts at my fingertips for the literature scene in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s but today, well over 95% of indie books released will never sell more than $50,000 total in the next 100 years. This isn’t indie publishing it is direct publishing. Based on the quality of the books found on the internet today, and including some of the bestselling books like 50 shades as a [prime example, it is clear that well over half the books reaching your screen or eReader today saw no human touch between the author and your eyes. Gone are all the editors, readers, beta readers, proof readers, line editors, formatters and others. On the other hand it is probably safe to assume that the a much higher proportion of the reading public don’t know what’s right and wrong so maybe that’s another feature of direct publishing that isn’t important.

Today, blogging is an important building block for an author to either become good at or become frequently mentioned in. According to one source, there are more than 150 million blogs and most of these blogs get less than 1,000 visitors per month. In the world of publishing and for lack of a better word, the vast majority of these blogs are failures. With our young adult time travel series CUL8R, seen at http://www.cul8rseries.com , we have over a dozen blogs lined up to review and promote the series. These bloggers came to this conclusion by review and experience.

So with the first item, the writing, editing and creative portion of writing a successful book series firmly in the capable hands of my wife, Kathy Clark, I will work on the blog. Her accomplishment, past and present, can be seen on her author’s page http://www.nighwriter93.com and on the website for the time travel mystery series CUL8R at http://www.cul8rseries.com, this blog will be focusing on blogs and more specifically how to break through the market ceilings on our two book series.

My job will be to first avoid the causes of blog failures and the paralysis of analysis that comes from being one of the first black belts in the United States in the early 1980’s. If you’re thin king black belts refer to physical capabilities they do not in this blog they refer to world-class statistical talents.
There are three major reasons for the failure of blog sites.

First, too much content has two bad effects. The readers become obese because the blogger creates and then feels compelled to publish too much content. If the blogger is spending their time writing they aren’t spending their time gaining readers and the readers that decided to eat the pudding will grow fat and then die of overload.
Second, the promotion of the website is being done the wrong way.

Third, the blog loses the focus of its intended purpose.

We’ll see how well I do at staying inside these guardrails

With this blog we have book #1 of the CUL8R series, OMG, on the market and receiving amazing reviews. These can be seen on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/OMG-CUL8R-1-Bob-Kat/dp/1481127675/ with all 5 star reviews! Eventually that will stop…hopefully not.

OMG is also seen on the CUL8R website at http://www.cul8rseries.com Check it out. The first two books are

Reviews on Amazon can be seen at-

OMG, A CUL8R Time Travel Mystery

Paper to Pixels 1.5 – The 7 Rules for Time Travel

Bob Kat — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 04:33:56 +0000

This is simply a opportunity before next week’s Paper to Pixels Biweekly blog to pass along the answer to some questions we have gotten.

As several reviewers have mentioned one important element of the time travel process was the establishment of time travel rules. So here they are from OMG. http://www.cul8rseries.com

7 Time Travel Rules. Don’t leave home without them.

Kelly began to read the contract out loud. “We the undersigned do hereby agree to the following time travel rules:
1. We will do nothing during or after our time travel missions that would cause any personal gains, i.e. stock market, collectible toys and comic books.
2. We will not take anything with us not critical to the success of the mission to the past or anything from the past to the present day.
3. We also agree not to change anything of significance that would alter historical events.
4. We agree not to tell anyone that this technology exists or about any of our missions and this includes our family.
5. We will use this technology only to help other people and not for frivolous or personal means.
6. We will interact as little as possible with people from the past so as to not create any suspicion.
7. We will always travel together.

PAPER to PIXELS; A Writer’s Journey

Bob Kat — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 06:17:44 +0000

BLOG #1

This blog will be about the journey of my wife, Kathy Clark. An excellent, creative and successful writer of fiction who sold millions of books in the 1980’s and 1990’s and decided to pursue a writing career in Hollywood and take a few years off. Then she got the bug to create more fictional stories. Great stories with clever and realistic characters that must be told and told in book form. This blog will take you on the journey and keep you posted of the progress that started in 2010 and continues today full steam.

Denver and Parker, Colorado, 2010, Mystery Writers of America. Amazing group of talented authors Kathy met with every month at the ancient Denver Press Club building. The first indoctrination to the ePublishing life. Uh—oh. Where’d the books go anyway? For that matter where did the book stores go that used to the sell those things I have stacked by the room fool on two different rooms in my house? Maybe that’s a good thing! Maybe not having editors, agents, readers, beta readers, proof readers and the other gate keepers and process pipeline orifices will be a good thing. Of course it will.

And maybe Kathy will be better off if she attacked more commercial genres more like the stuff that went into scripts she was writing. After all she won dozens of screenwriting awards so she must be good at those kinds of stories. Sometimes producers even paid her to write scripts. That was cool.

And her fan base? She couldn’t go back to LA, San Diego, Houston, Denver, New York City, New Orleans, London and who knows where else to try to find them all. Did they keep up with the technology? Kathy was on the internet in 1993. Wasn’t everyone? We’ll have to see. Reestablishing her fan base who lost track off her and it also assumes they’re still alive. This will be interesting to find out.

The journey is made interesting when you compare the last book disappeared from the mall bookstores in 1995 and jumping back in to fiction in 2010 meant there are few mall bookstores left and book publishing industry today operates largely without the middlemen and gate keepers of agents, editors, buyers and book sellers. Professional authors and readers all feel that the quality of writing is very uneven. Another task.

So Kathy’s current back list can be found on her author site at http://www.nightwriter93.com. The site was so named because that is her peak creative hours most days. There is a young adult or teen time travel mystery series also started and it has its own web site just to keep the R rated stuff from the PG13 stuff better separated.

The CUL8R Teen Time Travel Mystery series can be found at http://www.cul8rseries.com As this is being written, Book #2, BRB is well underway.

Her most recent adult suspense is After Midnight

The mainstream fiction story I wanted to write and she did 75% of the work on, Life’s What Happens, was published in late 2012.

And the teen time travel mystery series, CUL8R, launched at the end of 2012 with book #1, OMG.

Samples and links for all stories on the websites. BRB for Blog #2.

Hohn R. Phythyon, Jr blog on SEO and Amazon

Bob Kat — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:43:16 +0000

You need to check his two part blog.