Visit my website at www.rowmark.co.uk for details of all my crime novels

Trying to pin down the typical reader of my marine mystery crime novels is a bit like trying to catch the wind. But marketing (as I should know having worked in it for years) is about defining your key markets and then offering them something that they can identify with, something that they need or rather want (even if they don't need it). Easily said but not so easily achieved. Firstly, my crime novels will appeal to lovers of crime fiction.  So far so good but crime fiction is such a broad genre that what one person will love in a crime novel another will hate. Crime fiction ranges from the cozy to the hard-boiled, from contemporary to historical, from private eye to police procedural and all sorts in between. And where do my novels slot into this? Well they are certainly not hard-boiled and gruesome - I can't read that sort of book myself let alone write it.  OK, so there are gory bits in them, dead bodies and autopsies, but then they are crime no...

I’m giving a talk tomorrow at Bracknell Library in Berkshire, Hampshire, and I am looking forward to it. It is always good to connect with people, and at these types of events to discuss books (not only mine but other writers) and to discover what people like and why they like them. It also helps to provide me with ideas for possible future books, plays and screenplays. And it reminds me who my audience are i.e. who I am writing for and why I write. So what has this got to do with how writers see themselves? Bear with me. In my previous career, before becoming a full time writer, I ran my own marketing and training consultancy. I used to advise businesses and the public sector on their marketing strategies and devise marketing and PR campaigns for them as well giving seminars, presentations and talks at conferences on a variety of topics from understanding motivation and personalities, to marketing, selling, communicating and leadership. I have always enjoyed public speaking and enter...