Crime Fiction Writing Guides
Craft guides on plotting, suspense, dialogue, and character — from Phillip Strang, author of 150+ crime novels. Practical techniques from the writing desk.
Author branding for crime writers becomes exponentially more complex when you’re juggling multiple series across different subgenres and geographical settings. The challenge isn’t just maintaining consistent quality—it’s creating distinct brand positions for each series while ensuring...
Most crime writers obsess over their opening chapters but treat their back matter as an afterthought. This is backwards thinking that costs you readers, sales, and the kind of series momentum that separates hobbyists from professionals. Your back matter isn’t just filler—it’s your most powerful...
The speed at which you release books in a crime series determines whether readers bingeread your work or abandon it entirely. Modern crime fiction readers exhibit distinct behavioural patterns that directly correlate with how consistently and frequently authors deliver new instalments.
Across eighteen...
BookBub Featured Deals represent the most coveted promotional opportunity in crime fiction, yet most authors approach them with completely wrong expectations about timing, pricing, and realistic outcomes. The application process rewards strategic thinking over wishful thinking, and the results depend...
The decision between Amazon exclusivity and wide distribution isn’t just about where you sell books—it’s about fundamentally different approaches to building a crime fiction career. Amazon’s KDP Select program offers immediate benefits through Kindle Unlimited reads and promotional...
The voice that delivers your crime fiction in audio format can make or break the entire experience for listeners. Getting the narrator selection wrong means watching your carefully crafted tension dissolve into awkward pacing and misinterpreted character motivations.
Across eighteen series and more than...
The decision to bundle your crime novels into box sets isn’t about convenience—it’s about reader psychology and commercial timing. Too early, and you’re undercutting individual book sales; too late, and you’ve missed the momentum that drives series addiction. The sweet spot lies...
Building an effective advance review copy team isn’t about collecting hundreds of email addresses and hoping for the best. It’s about cultivating genuine relationships with readers who understand your subgenre and will engage meaningfully with your work before launch day.
Across eighteen...
The most counterintuitive truth about crime fiction series pricing is that your first book should actively lose you money. Every dollar you sacrifice on book one becomes leverage for the entire series, yet most crime writers approach pricing like they’re selling standalone novels rather than building...
Kindle Unlimited presents crime writers with a deceptively simple proposition: trade per-unit sales revenue for page-read payments and potential reader discovery. Yet this decision fundamentally alters how your crime fiction reaches audiences and generates income.
Across eighteen series and more than...
The final quarter of any crime novel is where most manuscripts go to die. You’ve built the tension, planted your clues, developed your characters through two-thirds of the story, and now you’re staring at the convergence point where everything must come together with surgical precision.
Across...
Character consistency across a long-running crime series becomes a logistical nightmare without proper tracking systems. You’re juggling personal histories, physical descriptions, relationships, and character growth arcs across dozens of books, and one slip destroys reader trust faster than a botched...