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We were thrilled to hear the news that long-time member of our community Saz Wilson recently self-published her first book Mad Dogs & Me: A Comedy Diary. To celebrate this fantastic milestone, we caught up with Saz to hear all about her journey from Premium Member to debut author.

Where did the idea for your book come from? What inspired you to write it?

In a moment of madness, I took on two giant Rhodesian Ridgeback puppies who turned my life upside down! Kiara was a menace to society and looked for trouble every second she was awake. Otis, her loyal brother, was her wingman and a serious sufferer of FOMO, so never wanted to miss out on an opportunity to join in with the shenanigans.

I would recount my daily tales of woe at school pick-up and the other mums would howl with laughter and I thought, I need to write this down! As I barely had time to take a bath, I recorded them on my phone’s voice notes instead. By lockdown I had over 300 entries and decided to turn them into a comedy diary.

Why did you choose to self-publish instead of seeking agency representation?

I used to work in film and TV and from personal experience knew that once you handed your work over to a production company, which in this case would be a publisher, you had very little control. I wanted the book to reflect my authentic voice and I knew the branding that I wanted for the cover and the website. I felt the only way to be truly happy with what I produced was to manage the whole process myself. I also thought self-publishing would be quicker than going the traditional route but with the first book, I’m not sure that’s true – there was so much to learn!

What was your favourite thing about self-publishing?

I’m not going to lie, self-publishing to the equivalent standard of traditional publishing is really, really hard. I had no idea what I was getting into when I started! I think my favourite thing about self-publishing is that if it fails, it’s down to you but if it succeeds, it is also because of you! You have the final say on the edit, the cover, everything, and as the marketer you have to be proud of what you are selling. I loved the finished copy of my book and the feedback has been incredible.

What was the hardest part of self-publishing your book?

Where do I start?! All of it was hard if I’m honest. I think the two hardest parts were that most communication is online so when you’re trying to describe creative elements in detail, it’s done through messaging which is extremely frustrating. Things that should have taken weeks, took months because of this. The other thing was the amount of third party human error. Every time the book went off for editing, proof-reading, typesetting etc. the book would come back with errors that weren’t there before. You have to triple check your manuscript until your eyes bleed!

How did you find Jericho Writers helpful?

Jericho Writers was the reason I had the confidence to self-publish. I finished my manuscript almost two years ago and joined Jericho as a Premium Member immediately. I found the courses, live webinars and team of professionals invaluable. I also felt part of a community which is so important when you’re at home trying to figure all this out by yourself.

I worked with so many amazing people on the book who I found through Jericho. Anna Caig was incredible with the marketing and Debbie Young was invaluable with the book production. I had a list of questions as long as my arm, and Debbie knew the answers to every single one of them!

What advice would you give to other authors looking to self-publish?

I would say join Jericho Writers as a Premium Member straight away. The amount of content you have access to is the biggest value for money in all the money you’ll spend, honestly. And I’m not just saying that because this is an interview with them! Check the acknowledgements at the back of my book – Jericho are the first people I thank!

I would also say really learn about the process, speak to other self-published authors and Take. Your. Time. Everything takes longer than you think and often it can be overwhelming and you need to take a break for a few days to get your head together. Having a mentor at any stage of the process is invaluable. I worked with a book coach when I was re-writing the manuscript and it helped me to meet deadlines and talk ideas through. The same when I was marketing and publishing. Courses are brilliant but can only take you so far – sometimes you need to talk to someone in the know when you’re stuck and want to chuck the towel in!  It’s not cheap but it’s an investment in yourself and you won’t regret it. However, the biggest piece of advice I would give to any new author is stay true to your vision, it’s your book at the end of the day and you are the one who is going to be selling it.

Saz Wilson is the author of her first book Mad Dogs & Me: A Comedy Diary, a hilarious and moving real-life diary about a woman who’s bitten off more than she can chew by taking on two giant mad puppies.

Saz wrote the book to make people laugh and to raise enough money to open an animal sanctuary.

You can read more about Saz on her website and you can purchase Mad Dogs & Me: A Comedy Diary now.

If you're interested in self-publishing, you can follow in Saz's footsteps and work with expert Debbie Young, check out the Simply Self-Publish course. You can find out more about the course here. We're accepting applications until 4 April, apply here.

Last week’s Feedback Friday was all about synopses, so we’ll talk synopsis in a moment … except that first, obviously, we need to deal with a squirrel.

At the weekend just gone, my kids found a dead squirrel in the garage. We think maybe it was Haselnuss, a squirrel who used to eat out of my girls’ hands a year or two back. Now, I won’t swear to the animal’s identity, but clearly any dead squirrel in the hands of 8 to 10-year-olds needs proper ceremonial burial, so we dug a grave beneath her favourite tree and did the honours.

That sounds sweet and sombre, and it was, but there was also a bit of mucking about. Getting Haselnuss to ‘wave’ her paw at people to say good-bye. Pretending that she was coming back to life and wanting to bite people. Wondering whether she was moving in her grave as we scattered the earth.

The kids liked all that so, no sooner than our maybe-Haselnuss was laid to rest, they demanded a really scary story about a squirrel.

Since we had a car journey ahead of us anyway, I obliged. The ingredients: a dead squirrel with an unusual marking – an upside down cross – jolts of static and apparent movement in the corpse – a thunderstorm – strange sounds in the loft and night – a displaced tombstone in the churchyard – a village myth.

And so on.

The hardest thing with making up these stories on the hoof is exactly the same as the challenge with writing a synopsis. You have to figure out what your story is. What’s the arc? What’s the beginning, middle and end?

With a kiddy story made up to while away a car journey, it’s easy enough providing the bits of detail. The grey film over the dead eye, the sudden flash of being in a still corpse, the rain and thunder of the darkened churchyard. But to get the story to work, there has to be some kind of coherent shape. And that’s hard.

It’s the same challenge in a synopsis, and people almost always think about the synopsis backwards.

To get the synopsis right, you need to understand two (or maybe three) things. They are:

1. Your synopsis is one of the many daughters of your elevator pitch. (Don’t know what I’m talking about? Your owl, imp and box refresher is here.) Your synopsis has to deliver on the basic promise of that pitch: to show how it works in terms of story.
2. An agent doesn’t give a dead squirrel’s tail about the minutiae of your story. They can’t. They might read 30 synopses in an evening, and that’s about as fun as eating a plateful of brickdust. All an agent wants to see is the basic shape of your story. Does that shape look right? Does it feel satisfying?
3. The maybe-third thing to know is that agents don’t care too much about the synopsis. It’s probably the last thing in your submission package that gets read. It’s also the least important. Agents vary in how much importance they attach to the synopsis but, honestly, some of them barely care.

Now, a synopsis is, supposedly, a summary of the book. So most writers think, logically enough, that they need to get accurate with their synopsis. Chapters 25-31 deal with Astral’s difficult journey to the White Kingdom. You’ve calculated that you can spare 35 words with which to deal with those chapters. You tie yourself in knots trying to come up with the most compact summary and are deeply torn as to whether or not you need to name YANOK (114, a dwarf of poisonous temperament).

But stuff that. Who cares? Those kind of worries arise because you’re thinking about the synopsis backwards: from 100,000 word book to summary.

You need to think of it the other way round. From concept to summary – and ignore the 100,000 word manuscript completely. The point here is that:

Shape is everything.

So forget about the hassles en route. Just say, “Astral makes a difficult journey to the White Kingdom, where …”

Your synopsis needs to honour and reflect your elevator pitch.

It needs to show the shape of your story. The more detail you are able to omit, the better your synopsis gets.

That’s it.

Feedback Friday

Getting Published Week #3 / Opening Page

First week, query letter. Last week, synopsis. This week, the bit that matters: opening page. I want:

Title

Genre

Your opening page. No more than 300 words or so

Attaboy. Attagirl.

And don’t forget: we’ll be selecting opening pages from Feedback Friday to discuss at our live critique event this coming week. To be considered for that, please post your material by Monday. And if you don’t want your work to be shredded live in front of a baying mob of (erm) very nicely behaved JW members, then please mark your submission as “NOT FOR LIVE REVIEW”.

***

That’s it from me. Post yours here. I’m off to reset a few tombstones in the churchyard.

Til soon.

Harry

The theme for this week’s Write with Jericho coursework is settings, and I’ll have more to say on that topic later. But first, I have eleven boxes in front of me, wrapped in jewel-coloured silks and tied with ribbon.

#1 A dark crimson box, tied with a bow in midnight blue.

In this box, I find these words:

“An elevator pitch is for you, and only you. The pitch is not the cover quote, or the book blurb, or the query letter, or any sentence from your query letter, or anything you ever say to anyone. The elevator pitch is for you and for you and for you and only ever for you.”

#2 A flattish box in Dutch-blue silk, tied with a bow of daffodil yellow.

In this box:

“The cover quote and the book blurb and the cover design and the query letter and all those things: they are the daughters of your elevator pitch. They spring from it, but they are not it.”

#3 A middling-sized box, perfectly cubic, in dark pink with a pale green ribbon.

In this box, I find these words:

“And the text.

And the text.

And the text.

The text of your novel is also a daughter of your elevator pitch, and the most important one, and the only one that truly utterly matters.”

#4 A jewellery-type box, in very dark green, tied with an antique cream ribbon.

In this box:

“If your elevator pitch is perfect, anyone encountering it (or one of its many daughters) will say, Oh golly gosh. That sounds interesting. Please tell me more.

The purpose of the pitch (or one of its many daughters) is to elicit precisely that response. If you hear that response, your pitch has worked. If not, it has not.”

#5 A box without shape or size, clothed in a rich bronze-brown silk, tied off with red.

In this box:

“Because the parent-pitch is for you and you alone, it doesn’t matter one whit whether the pitch sounds pretty or whether it resembles something that you might use for the front of a book.”

Flapping around in the same box is a white owl. Printed on its back are the words: “Orphan + wizard school.”

It is not clear what the role of this owl is, but I surmise that it is there to remind us (A) that “orphan + wizard school” is an extremely compelling elevator pitch, and (B) that this phrase does not sound pretty, nor does it resemble something that you might put on the front of a book.

The owl is silent and is missing a tail-feather.

#6 A box clothed in the colours of a parrot tulip. No ribbon.

In this box:

“Imagine yourself in a large bookshop. There is a table devoted to the leading books of your specific genre, whatever that may be. No reader is going to read three chapters of each book, compare them carefully, and choose the best. That would be an ideal way to select a book, but it is not a method that anyone chooses, ever.

Instead, readers look at two things. They look at what we might call proofs of excellence – a gushing review in the New York Times, for example, or some very large number of books sold. And readers try to get a sense of the basic elevator pitch.

They can’t see the elevator pitch itself (which – see Box #1 – is for you and for you and for you and for you.) But they will see multiple daughters of that pitch: the cover design, the title, any cover quote, the back jacket blurb, and of course any page or pages picked at random from your book.

The purpose of your elevator pitch is to produce beautiful daughters. The purpose of those beautiful daughters, collectively, is to make the sale.”

In this box, there is a single white feather and the sound of an owl calling at midnight.

#7 A box dressed in a dark, coppery gold, with a twice-knotted ribbon that has the colour of dried blood.

In this box, this text:

“No one cares about abstractions.

No one.

If you write: This is a tale of one woman’s fight for justice against oppression, no one is interested.

Think of that.

One woman. A fight for justice. And no one’s interested.

Yet if you write, A woman lives in a near-future America, where she and others are made to produce children for their Commanders, you have just described The Handmaid’s Tale and everyone on earth will want to read it.”

Also in this box: a ring, that once bore a ruby.

Also, in a dancing line around the interior of the box, there are repeated the words:

“No one cares about abstractions.”

#8 A box, made of green-black glass, and knotted with exquisitely embroidered material, upon which it is possible to discern the shape of a peacock and the leaves and branches of an exotic tree.

In this box:

A small but furious imp dashes itself against the sides of the box and screams, “But if I get specific, I will GIVE THE GAME AWAY! Under no circumstances will I ever reveal the specifics of my BIG IDEA.”

#9 This box is the most gorgeous box so far, and takes on whatever colour the eye wishes to see. It smells of winter jasmine and white tea.

In this box, there sits a short letter addressed to the imp of Box #8:

“Dear Imp

Had you not noticed? The pitch is for you and for you and for you and for you. You cannot give the game away to yourself; you already know the game.

So be specific and candid.

After all, why does a reader HAVE TO pick this particular book up? What makes THIS BOOK essential? Almost literally, essential. Like, if you hadn’t already written this book, the idea was so good that someone would have to. (The Handmaid’s Tale very much falls into this category.)”

There is nothing else in the box.

Imp #2: scarlet, and angry

An imp has come loose from one of the boxes. It is eating smouldering pellets of coal and yelling:

“Orphan + Wizard School? Bah. That’s not a fair summary of the book. What about Quidditch and Voldemort and who Harry’s parents were and Hermione and all that? A summary of the book HAS TO include those things and you can’t do that in something ridiculous like 12 words.”

Box #10 – a faded golden beige, tied with red

The sound of a bell, heard over wet fields.

That, and these words, very calm:

“An elevator pitch is not a house. It is a front door.

A pitch is not the book, or a model of the book. It is the reason why you want to pick the book up.

A house is for living in. A book is for reading.

The pitch and the door are there to encourage entrance.

That’s all.”

Box #11 – a beautiful blue-and-white ceramic box, made to fit in the palm of the hand

Inside this box, remarkably, sits a life-size version of me, wearing a red silk dressing gown and smoking a pipe.

This version of me sits in front of a warm fireplace, and says:

“Personally, I find some of the strongest pitches just knit together two or three (or sometimes four) ingredients. That’s all.

For example, Orphan + wizard school. That works.

Or indeed, Teen romance + vampire. That also works.

You can find examples aplenty. For example, from the Feedback Friday just gone, some excellent soul came up with a pitch that boiled down to Wolves + orphan + sense of belonging. You can already feel a good book beginning to stir with only that by way of description.”

What bemuses me about this is that I don’t wear a dressing gown and I never smoke. But no sooner do I put the box down, than I glimpse myself in the mirror, wearing vibrant red silk. On the table before me, an ashtray full of discarded pipe tobacco.

I have no explanation.

***

Honestly? If you want a perfect elevator pitch (and the foundation of an excellent novel), then you need to sit and contemplate those 11 boxes, the 1 owl and the 2 imps. All the wisdom you need is there.

Today I am wearing:

Gleaming leather boots, in black
Silk pantaloons in duck-egg blue
A ruffled shirt worn open to mid-chest
A tattoo, only somewhat visible, of a humming-bird in flight
A wide leather belt worn with a pistol and a scabbard shaped for an estoc-style stabbing sword
A black hat so wide of brim that passers-by are frequently startled, as though by an unexpected eclipse.
None of this is relevant, however. I’m talking about marketing.

Specifically (and this is now about number 5 or 6 in my ‘walking the talk’ series of emails), I’m talking about how I’m intending to market The House At The End Of The World.

We should start, I suppose, by clearing up the misconception that selling self-published work involves a huge amount of self-promotion on social media.

I do as it happens have accounts on both Facebook and Twitter (though not Insta and not, yeugh, TikTok.) But I haven’t posted on either place for years and have no intention of breaking that godly habit now.

No. Marketing a book is about four things:

1. A very good book

2. A very clear elevator pitch

3. A set of marketing assets (notably book cover, title and blurb) which honour that pitch, while at the same time recognising their own specific role in things

And then:

4. Getting traffic to the relevant Amazon book page.

That’s it. That’s the whole deal. Everything else is essentially footnotes.

If yelling about myself on Twitter worked, I might have a go at doing that. But it doesn’t. I have a friend who had a tweet go viral – a million plus views – while he had a pinned post beseeching people to buy a very well-reviewed ebook, then on special offer at $0.99.

A million views. A special offer. And …

He sold ‘low single digits’ extra books. Maybe he sold none at all, in fact, as the possible bump in sales was so small it could have been just noise. In short: nonsense on Twitter just doesn’t work.

So, I need to get traffic to Amazon. Social media won’t do that. What will?

Here’s what I’m planning to use:

1. Email. This is still the bedrock of every indie author’s marketing. It’s still by far the most powerful and controllable tool that exists anywhere.

2. Promo sites. There are book promo sites which tell their users (by email) about hot new offers. I’m planning to grab a bit of that loveliness.

3. Facebook ads. These aren’t the highest converting ads in the world (people go to Amazon, not Facebook, if they want to buy a book), but the ads are easy to build and the potential traffic is more or less infinite.

And that’s it.

What’s more, I’m not going to spend much time with this stuff. I mean, yes, there’s some prep needed to get ready, but my actual marketing campaign will last a week, then end. I’ll probably aim to do a Bookbub promo later in the year (across the whole series) but the actual launch campaign will last a total of seven days.

That may sound weirdly short to you, but:

1. The most powerful book-marketing system in the world is Amazon. Your job is not build an alternative to Amazon. Your job, as author-marketer, is to prompt Amazon into doing what it’s best at: marketing books, and yours in particular.

2. Amazon’s marketing bots get going when they see a title achieve sales from outside of Amazon’s system.

3. But those bots don’t love one-off sales spikes. They love steady and (ideally) growing traffic over 4-7 days.

4. If you create that kind of sales curve for Amazon, Amazon will take over and do the rest itself.

Now, it’s true that sales success on Amazon is a fairly short-lived affair, but that short-livedness is deeply embedded in its system. Short of being an EL James, your book just will have a relatively short time in the sun. That doesn’t matter. The secret of successful burst-marketing on Amazon is: Do everything you can to boost sales (in a steady way) in that first week, end up with high visibility all across Amazon’s system, then enjoy the profits as you gently float down the sales rankings.

Indeed, it’s perfectly OK if my first-week marketing loses money. I hope it won’t, but I really won’t mind at all if it does.

That sounds like a bad approach to take, but hear me out.

The traditional way of figuring out whether an ad makes money or not is this:

1. Figure out the cost of 100 people clicking on an ad;

2. Figure out the number of those people who end up buying the book (probably 5 or so);

3. Figure out the revenue you earn from those 5 or so people;

4. Compare those revenues to the cost of achieving them.

That number is quite likely going to show a loss.

But …

Some of the people who buy my latest release will fall in love with the character and the series and dive back through the six previous novels. That’s extra money for me.

And how much visibility I’m getting on Amazon has to do with my overall level of sales. So if I artificially boost those sales via Facebook, my overall visibility will improve, which will bring me a host of organic (no cost) sales that I wouldn’t otherwise have had.

And of course, the higher I manage to drive sales during that launch phase, the longer and richer the post-launch sales trajectory will be.

And my books are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, so it’s not just sales that will come my way but income from KENP page reads.

All these things will definitely earn me money. So that early burst-marketing can’t sensibly be measured simply by the amount of cash it makes during the week of launch itself. And, look, I should also be clear that if you’re a newbie, your mileage will vary. I already have a good footprint on Amazon and Amazon knows exactly who my readers are. It just takes time – and books – to build that footprint. There are no shortcuts.

And the really glorious thing about this plan of mine?

Burst marketing is intense, but it’s short. I don’t have to worry about finding evergreen ways to make money. I’ll hardly even bother (unless I happen to find a miraculously successful ad.) I’ll just blitz for a week, then let everything drop. If I secure a Bookbub promo later in the year, I’ll run the whole cycle again then. But two weeks of marketing effort in a year? That seems more than acceptable to me. Honestly, it’s harder work being trad published: you’ll spend more time interacting with your publisher than I’ll spend this year on marketing.

If you’re interested, we’ll do a somewhat deeper dive into the art of the Facebook ad in a week or two.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY | FEEDBACK FRIDAY

This week, we love our Premium Members so much, they’re going to have Feedback Friday not once but twice

Write with Jericho / Week #9 / Self-Editing

Homework link here (Premium members only.)

And tis with a sob and a sigh and a hi-de-hi that we come to the end of our Write with Jericho course. (The good news: we have fab things starting next week, and we’ll keep going with the goodness all year.)

The challenge here is simple-bimple. We want the first 250 words of your novel, beautifully self-edited, and wearing its best frock.

Specifically, please, I want:

Title

Brief genre

Your elevator pitch: either the one you did before or a polished up version of that

The first 250 words (ish) from your manuscript

Reflections or Questions. I’d love to get any feedback from this course. What worked? What didn’t? What did you get from it? We’re going to run an even bigger and more in-depth course later in the year and we’d love to learn from your experience of this one.

Share yours here as a ‘New Discussion’ and include a sensible title, eg: ‘Title of your WIP, Genre of your WIP’.

Getting Published / Week #1 / Query Letters

This week, please take a look Becca’s Query Letter Workshop (here; Premium Members only) and then post your query letter here for review.

As always, the best feedback comes from you all, so please don’t just post your query letter – be generous in offering others constructive advice. He or she who giveth is also he or she who receiveth. Becca Day (our marketing queen, but also a published author) will be offering her feedback too.

And, since I’ve disclosed what outfit I’m currently wearing, I think I should tell you that Becca is equally glam. She’s wearing a floor-length dress adorned with a mass of faux ostrich feathers in brilliant white. She looks amazing, but we have a major problem with static electricity and are working to unstick her from the ceiling right now.

Til soon.

Harry

If you've ever felt the thrill of following clues, the satisfaction of piecing together a complex puzzle, or the rush of adrenaline as you uncover a hidden truth, then you're in for a treat. Today, we're sharing some fun murder mystery story ideas to get those literary cogs turning and your creative juices flowing like a river of suspense. From classic whodunits to tales of the supernatural and mind-bending mysteries that defy time and space, where secrets are buried deep, motives lurk in the shadows, and the pursuit of justice keeps your heart racing, we’ve got it all covered.

Murder mysteries are like a puzzle waiting to be solved, a riddle itching to be unravelled, and a suspenseful rollercoaster ride that leaves you breathless. They're the literary gems that keep us up at night, eagerly flipping page after page, driven by that burning question: "Whodunit?" And now, it's your turn to become the mastermind behind the most mind-boggling and diabolical murder mystery stories that will captivate and mesmerize your readers.

Remember, these are just starting points. You can take inspiration from one or many of these ideas and work on fleshing them out with our book outline template.

What makes a good murder mystery story?

Before we dive headfirst into the treasure trove of murder mystery story ideas, let's unravel the essence of what makes these tales so utterly captivating.

A murder mystery is an intricate dance of clues and misdirection that challenges both the sleuth within us and the boundaries of our imagination. At its core, it's a narrative journey where a crime, most often a murder, becomes the focal point around which suspense, intrigue, and tension swirl. The heart of any compelling murder mystery lies in the pursuit of truth and justice, as we follow the footsteps of detectives, amateur sleuths, or even ordinary individuals thrust into extraordinary circumstances, all determined to uncover the secrets concealed within the shadows of a crime. So, as we explore a plethora of murder mystery story ideas, remember that these tales are not just about "whodunit" but also about the thrilling journey of unravelling the "why" and "how."

Where can you find ideas for murder mystery stories?

When it comes to finding inspiration for your murder mystery stories, ideas can be found absolutely anywhere. Here are just a few places where you can start looking:

• Real-Life Crimes – Real life is often stranger than fiction! Draw inspiration from true crime stories, unsolved cases, or historical mysteries.
• Local Legends and Urban Myths – Explore local folklore, urban legends, or mysterious occurrences in your area. These tales often contain elements ripe for a captivating murder mystery.
• Character Quirks – Start with a unique character and build a story around their quirks, flaws, or hidden past. Characters can be both the heart of the mystery and the source of intrigue.
• Exotic Settings - Transport your readers to intriguing and exotic locations, such as remote islands, ancient castles, or bustling cities, where secrets lurk in every corner. Often with a creepy or interesting setting comes a spark of an idea.
• Historical Periods - Dive into a specific historical era or event and craft a murder mystery within that context. Historical details can add depth and richness to your story.
• Unusual Murder Weapons - Think beyond the conventional and create mysteries with unconventional murder weapons, from poisoned desserts to deadly heirlooms.
• Relationship Dynamics - Explore complex relationships like family feuds, love triangles, or business rivalries. Emotions and motives can be the driving force behind your murder mystery.
• Unanswered Questions - Take inspiration from unanswered questions or loose ends in existing stories, history, or folklore. Fill in the gaps with your own imaginative twists.
• Bizarre Phenomena - Consider unusual phenomena like paranormal events, time travel, or bizarre occurrences that challenge logic. These elements can add a unique twist to your murder mystery.

By drawing inspiration from these diverse sources, you can craft murder mystery stories that intrigue, surprise, and captivate your readers. The possibilities are endless, and your creative journey begins by exploring the mysteries that pique your interest the most.

Murder mystery story idea prompts

If that’s not enough to get your imagination going, I’ve put together some prompts for your writing. Feel free to add your own twist or mix them up. You’re only limited by your imagination.

1. "The Poisoned Pianist"

Imagine a world-class pianist in the midst of an epic concert. The lights dim, the audience holds its breath, and just as the final note is struck, the pianist collapses, poisoned! Who had access to the pianist's water bottle, and why would anyone want to silence this musical genius forever?

2. "The Haunting of Hollow Manor"

Set in a creepy, centuries-old mansion, a group of strangers gathers for a masquerade ball. Suddenly, the lights flicker, and a blood-curdling scream echoes through the halls. But when they find the victim, there's no one else in sight. Is the mansion really haunted, or is there a sinister plot afoot?

3. "The Time-Traveling Murderer"

In a small town known for its mysterious temporal anomalies, a murder occurs that defies all logic. The victim appears to have been killed with a weapon from the future, and the clues lead the detectives on a mind-bending journey through time itself.

4. "The Deadly Art Heist"

A world-renowned art collector's prized possession is stolen right from under his nose, but the thief is found dead at the scene. The collector insists it's a murder, not a robbery gone wrong. The question is, who wanted the artwork, and why was the thief silenced?

5. "The Circus of Secrets"

Under the big top of a traveling circus, a high-flying trapeze artist plummets to their death during a daring act. But was it truly an accident, or was there a web of jealousy and betrayal lurking behind the scenes of this colourful circus world?

6. "The Phantom of Penrose Park"

Penrose Park has long been rumoured to be haunted, but when a well-known ghost hunter meets an untimely demise during an investigation, the town is thrown into chaos. Did the ghost get revenge, or was there something more sinister hiding in the shadows?

7. "The Cryptic Cruise Conspiracy"

On a luxury cruise liner in the middle of the ocean, a wealthy passenger is found dead in their locked cabin. With no way on or off the ship, the killer must be among the guests and crew. But how did they commit the murder without leaving a trace?

8. "The Vanishing Village"

An entire village disappears overnight, leaving behind empty houses and abandoned possessions. But a lone survivor claims to have seen something that night – something otherworldly. Can investigators unravel the mystery of the vanishing village and the survivor's cryptic tale?

9. "The Enigmatic Lighthouse Murder"

Perched on a desolate island, a centuries-old lighthouse stands as a beacon of hope and mystery. When a lighthouse keeper is found dead at the top of the tower with the light extinguished, it's not just his life that's gone dark. As investigators arrive, they must contend with treacherous cliffs, relentless storms, and the eerie whispers of ghostly legends surrounding the lighthouse.

10. "The Culinary Conundrum at Gourmet Gardens"

In the heart of the culinary world, at the renowned Gourmet Gardens restaurant, a famous chef is found dead in the walk-in freezer, surrounded by a tantalizing array of frozen delicacies. As sous-chefs and servers become suspects, tensions rise in the kitchen. Was it a cooking rivalry gone too far, or does the secret ingredient lie in the chef's mysterious past?

11. "The Curse of the Crimson Ruby"

A cursed gem with a blood-soaked history disappears from a museum, only to resurface at an extravagant gala. The owner of the ruby is killed, and the gem vanishes again. Rumours of the curse spread like wildfire, and detectives must unravel the dark secrets behind the gem's curse, the gala guests, and the elusive thief.

12. "The Disappearing Detective"

A renowned detective known for solving the most complex cases vanishes without a trace while working on a high-profile murder investigation. His disappearance coincides with a cryptic letter left at the crime scene. The detective's protege and a sceptical journalist must team up to follow the trail of clues their mentor left behind and uncover the truth behind his vanishing act.

13. "The Suburban Secrets Society"

In a seemingly idyllic suburban neighbourhood, a series of seemingly unrelated murders occur. As the body count rises, it becomes evident that the victims were all members of a secretive neighbourhood club with dark, closely guarded secrets. With tensions rising and neighbors turning on each other, a detective must navigate the web of lies and betrayals to unveil the truth behind the suburban secrets society.

14. "The Whispering Woods Homicide"

In a secluded woodland retreat known for its tranquillity, a famous author is found dead in a cabin, surrounded by manuscripts filled with cryptic messages. The victim had been working on a controversial book that exposed the secrets of the town's most prominent citizens. As investigators delve into the reclusive community's hidden tensions and buried secrets, they must decipher the author's enigmatic notes to uncover the truth behind the murder.

15. "The Midnight Carnival Conundrum"

A traveling carnival that appears only at the stroke of midnight in a remote town becomes the eerie backdrop for a series of bizarre deaths. Each victim is found wearing an elaborate costume from the carnival, and their deaths are staged as macabre performances. With the carnival's elusive and enigmatic owner at the centre of the mystery, a detective must navigate the twisted funhouse of clues and illusions to unmask the killer before the next midnight arrives.

16. "The Phantom Photographer"

In the age of social media and selfie culture, a renowned photographer mysteriously vanishes after a high-profile photoshoot. Her camera, however, continues to upload unsettling images to her website, each one containing cryptic clues. As detectives and online sleuths attempt to decode the pictures, they unveil a dark world of secrets hidden behind the lens.

17. "The Quantum Conundrum"

In a cutting-edge laboratory, a brilliant physicist is found dead, seemingly killed by a paradoxical phenomenon related to her groundbreaking experiments in quantum physics. Her colleagues are baffled, unable to explain the bizarre circumstances surrounding her death. As investigators delve into the complexities of quantum mechanics, they must uncover the truth hidden within the blurred lines of reality itself.

18. "The Cryptic Case of the Lost Memory"

A man wakes up in a hospital room with no memory of who he is or how he got there. He soon discovers that he's the prime suspect in a murder case. With only fragments of memories and a sense of dread, he becomes both detective and suspect, piecing together his past to unravel the mystery of the murder and clear his name.

19. "The Puzzle Box Predicament"

A renowned puzzle designer is found dead in his locked study, surrounded by his most intricate creations. The only clue is a cryptic message hidden within a seemingly unsolvable puzzle box. As detectives struggle to crack the code, they uncover a network of puzzle enthusiasts with motives that are as enigmatic as the puzzles themselves.

20. "The Museum of Mysterious Artifacts"

A curator of an eccentric museum specializing in unusual and obscure artifacts is found dead among his exhibits. Each item holds a secret, and as investigators delve into the collection, they unearth a labyrinth of ancient rituals, forgotten legends, and hidden truths that may hold the key to solving the murder.

21. "The Cipher of the Secret Society"

A secret society steeped in arcane rituals and guarded knowledge is shaken when one of its members is found dead, bearing the marks of an ancient cipher. As investigators infiltrate the society's clandestine meetings, they encounter a web of allegiances, betrayals, and hidden agendas that lead to a shocking revelation.

22. "The Midnight Mosaic Murder"

A mosaic artist is discovered dead amidst a gallery of breathtaking artworks, each piece holding a fragment of a larger mystery. As detectives piece together the shattered clues, they uncover a tale of passion, betrayal, and an artistic rivalry that turned deadly.

23. "The Forgotten Vault"

In an old, forgotten bank vault, a box of unsolved cases is discovered, each containing the remains of cold, forgotten crimes. Among them is a mystery that has baffled detectives for decades. With fresh eyes and modern techniques, a new generation of investigators must crack the code and unearth the truth behind the forgotten vault.

24. "The Labyrinth of Lies"

A notorious maze designer is found dead at the centre of his most complex creation. The maze itself holds the key to his demise, concealing a trail of secrets and betrayals. As investigators navigate the twists and turns, they must confront the truth that lies at the heart of the labyrinth.

25. "The Riddle of the Time Capsule"

When a time capsule from a school's past is opened, it reveals a series of cryptic messages hinting at a long-forgotten crime. As former classmates reunite to solve the mystery, they uncover buried secrets and confront the shadows of their shared past.

26. "The Vanishing Act"

A renowned magician, known for his jaw-dropping illusions, disappears during a high-profile performance. His body is never found, and the mystery of his vanishing act becomes an enduring legend. Years later, a series of events hint at the truth behind his disappearance, leading a determined investigator to unravel the enigma of the vanished magician.

27. "The Forgotten Island"

A remote island, long forgotten by the world, holds the key to a centuries-old mystery. When a group of adventurers arrive to uncover its secrets, they find themselves entangled in a web of hidden treasures, ancient curses, and a murder that echoes through the ages.

28. "The Infernal Inheritance"

When a wealthy eccentric passes away, leaving behind an intricate series of puzzles and riddles, his heirs must work together to claim their inheritance. However, as they delve into the enigmatic challenges, they realize that the clues may lead to a dark family secret and a murder that has remained hidden for generations.

29. "The Haunted Hotel Heist"

In a once-glamorous but now abandoned hotel rumoured to be haunted, a notorious gang of thieves plans a daring heist. However, when one of the thieves is found dead under eerie circumstances, it's unclear whether supernatural forces or human treachery are at play. A detective must untangle the web of secrets that haunts both the hotel and its criminal occupants.

30. "The Cryptic Codes"

A retired cryptographer is found dead in his secluded cabin, surrounded by coded messages that have baffled even the best codebreakers. His final words hint at a long-buried conspiracy, but the meaning remains hidden. As investigators decode the cryptic messages, they unearth a conspiracy that threatens to rewrite history.

Remember, the key to crafting a killer murder mystery is to sprinkle in red herrings, create complex characters with motives aplenty, and keep your readers guessing until the final page. Whether you choose to weave a tale of time travel, haunted houses, or cunning criminals, these murder mystery story ideas are sure to spark your creativity and leave your readers on the edge of their seats. So, get writing and let your inner detective shine!

Happy sleuthing, and may your plots be as twisted as a pretzel on a rollercoaster!

Today, I put on a pair of deerskin breeches, a red coat with tails, and a kepi, adorned with a fistful of white ostrich feathers. Thus adorned, I present:

An extremely short, but beautiful email

On Cover Design –

This is the fourth email in a loosely bundled series on Walking the Talk: an attempt to show you guys how the things I yap on about in these emails actually translates into the decisions I make as a writer.

So: cover design.

In my boxes, owl & imp email on elevator pitches, I wrote:

“The cover quote and the book blurb and the cover design and the query letter and all those things: they are the daughters of your elevator pitch. They spring from it, but they are not it.”

That’s true. The elevator pitch is the magic juice which underlies everything else. Literally every time your manuscript touches the world, the elevator pitch should inform what that touch looks like.

But the pitch doesn’t necessarily have to dominate – it just has to play its part.

Cover design is probably the single clearest illustration of this. Yes, a cover design can’t be at war with the elevator pitch … but the first job of the cover design is to get someone to explore the book.

Cover designers (understandably) always want authors to look at the full, 4 quadrillion megabyte version of their cover image, and ideally on a 96” screen. That, for sure, is the best way to admire the cover designer’s art. But in practice, the most significant role of the cover design is as a thumbnail on an Amazon selection screen.

At that stage, the thumbnail’s job is mostly: “Induce someone to click through to the book page itself.”

You can’t completely ignore the elevator pitch: if you stick a sign in your shop window saying “Brilliant new summer dresses at 75% off”, there better blooming well be some summer dresses inside the shop when people walk in.

Same thing with the cover design. There needs to be reasonable continuity between the promise made by the thumbnail and the more detailed view offered by the book details page.

But if you had to rank the order of priorities here, it’s something like this:

#1 Goal Attract readers in your genre(ie: get the click)

#2 Goal Honour your elevator pitch

Both goals matter, but the first is more important.

I write gritty crime – so my genre is something like Celtic noir / police procedural. Because my book is #7 in a series, a lot of the design decisions are already set. That said, my elevator pitch (covering both the book and the series) is something like this:

• Homicide detective
• Used to think she was dead (Cotards Syndrome)
• Murder investigation
• Secure psychiatric hospital
• 50 special forces veterans as inmates

I want a cover design to (a) fit in with the other covers, (b) attract readers in my genre, (c) be consistent with the promise that will be made on the book details page itself.

And …?

You can see the results here:

You like? You not like? Do let me know.

Oh yes, and an interesting issue came up with my designer.

Actual hard-copy printing is done using a four-colour system: CMYK, which comprises cyan, magenta, yellow and key, meaning black. What you see on screen is RGB-based, namely a mix of red, green and blue.

My designer couldn’t get the “pop” in CMYK that he could get in RGB: the colour was more muted. That said, he thought that maybe the more muted colour looked classier overall, more stylish. He thought maybe we should tone down the ebook / RGB version of the cover.

And …?

Viewed as a pure design matter, he was probably right. (He usually is.) But remember that selection screen, where all you have is a thumbnail. I didn’t want muted, I wanted the pop, so we went for the zingier version. The first job of that cover is to secure the click.

Again, you can see the book cover choices we made, and a couple we discarded on this page. Let me know what you think.

Feedback Friday

Write with Jericho Week #8 / Show Don’t Tell

If you’ve registered for the course, you’ll already have received the course material.

If you’re a Premium Member and you haven’t registered, you can find the course material here. You can register yourself, for free, to get the same material by email.

If you’re not a Premium Member, and want to be, here’s what you need to do next.

Whether or not you are a Premium Member, I’d love you to participate.

Here’s what I’m after:

Title

Genre

A passage of 250 words. Take any scene from your work, and convert it into a screenplay. No interior monologue. Nothing in the script that you couldn’t film.

Then give your own feedback on the scene. What has it gained? What has it lost? What (if anything) did you learn from the exercise?

That’s it from me. Share yours here as a ‘New Discussion’ and include a sensible title, eg: ‘Show Don’t Tell, Title of your WIP, Genre of your WIP’. Also, if you’re looking for some top tips to help you search Townhouse better, take a look at this thread.

Til soon.

Harry