Blog posts
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As part of this newly-created website, best-selling crime writer John Dean has provided dozens of free handy hints for the aspiring writer. The latest one to be added is a way of confirming that the writer has created ‘real’ characters and not cardboard cut-outs. It can be found here at www.johndeancrimewriter.co.uk in the Handy Hints…
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August 6 2025 Newly-published sales figures showed that the sale of print books dropped by 1.6%in the first half of 2025, compared to the same period a year ago. The figures compiled from reports to Circana BookScan showed that sales from the six major print categories fell to 343.6 million in the first six months…
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Research conducted by Scientific American magazine has shown that more than 50 per cent of people, when questioned, admit to having coulrophobia, the fear of clowns. Five per cent of them described as ‘extreme’ the fear they experience. The findings, based on questionnaire replies from 987 people aged 18 to 77 worldwide, revealed that the…
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No less than eight John Dean crime novels are this morning to be found in in the top 100 best-selling Organised Crime kindle e-books on Amazon. The titles in question are led by, at number two in the chart, by the DCI Jack Harris boxset containing the first nine novels in the popular series, published…
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Crime novelist John Dean offers all sorts of advice to emerging authors in his free Handy Hints pages on this website – and his latest piece looks at the dangers of writers repeating themselves and driving readers away in the process. You can read the advice on how to avoid excessive repetition in the Handy…
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I feel that it is time to address a subject which I have avoided for far too long and yet is, by far, the most important challenge that today’s writers face. I am talking about running out of teabags. No, seriously, I am referring to AI, of course. Let me be clear right from the…
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The team at Joffe Books have completed the process of giving John Dean’s popular DCI John Blizzard series of crime novels (Kindle version) a new look. The process began when Joffe Books acquired publisher The Book Folks earlier this year and the treatment has now been given to The Meek Shall Inherit, number twelve of…
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You may recall that in early July, I published a blog offering my support to Aberdeen Arts Centre, which faces the very real threat of closure, and bemoaning the way that communities have to fight to persuade local authorities to support arts establishments. The problem for Aberdeen Arts Centre is the loss of council funding…
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July 26 2025 We have all heard people we know utter the phrase ‘I’d kill for a quiet life’. WeIl, a crime fiction author faced with a quiet life will be unlikely to get much in the way of killing done (fictionally, of course)! The latest piece written by best-selling crime writer John Dean offers…
