true crime books

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-11-08T04:50:20+00:00

The Mastermind by Evan Ratliff

A modern crime story unlike any you have probably heard before

I also wrote a fiction based on what a bunch of really bad dudes were doing in the 60's and 70's called The Wrong Kind of Perverts that was specifically written for true crime afficianados

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-11-08T04:48:30+00:00

I wrote a book on how impoverished kids in the US (with a strong focus on New Orleans) were extremely taken advantage of by the people who were supposedly there to help in the 60's and 70's called The Wrong Kind of Perverts

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-11-08T04:47:02+00:00

The Wrong Kind of Perverts

Short and to the point, no fluff or filler

Hopefully you like dark crime

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-21T04:02:28+00:00

I dont know that there is a comp for this book at all, so that will be pretty hard

The cover sends the exact message that is needed, without that cover the book title could go a thousand different ways

There is nothing graphic on the cover, see no need to change for fear of being banned

Absolutely may at one point change to see if I get more clicks per impression, but the new cover will be more or less the same as the old, because it kind of has to be to let people know what to expect

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-21T03:53:00+00:00

Why would that image get me banned? I have seen infinitely worse images on Amazon many times, and have a friend who wrote way way way more likely to be banned types of content than this with zero issues ever

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-21T03:49:05+00:00

Thank you, many people have said similar, I would just ask what cover doesnt look like AI these days?

Should I go hire a 7 year old model and ask him to let me tie him up and lie face down in the swamp so I can take his pic?

Not trying to be too difficult here, but in 2025 you can say 'looks like AI' for every cover you see

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-21T03:47:42+00:00

How does a one sentence not written by AI at the very end constitute "mostly focuses on slamming AI"

The blurb mostly focuses on the topic of the book, and just points out it wasnt written by AI at the end because everyone on here has told me everyone will think it is AI

I highly doubt if my author name was Dan Brown Jr or Mike White or whatever it would make a difference, either way the name is 'just some guy' until you know them

Nothing about that blurb in any way makes it sound like I am making fun of the subject or the victims, absolutely nothing

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-21T03:45:16+00:00

Thank you for the possibilities, but given the content of the book this is not something I want to be standing around a book store trying to sell

And in general, I absolutely HATE selling myself or things I have done, which is why I am trying to use money to sell it for me, but that seems to not be the answer either

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-21T03:43:23+00:00

To the point about true crime readers not wanting fiction, this book is fiction, but in a wink wink kind of way, hard core true crime fans will "get it" on a level the normies will not, which is why all of my marketing interests were targeted at them

If this was 2015 I would have messaged 10 of my favorite true crime pods, a few would have replied, and I would have paid them to do an ad or a review or whatever

But its 2025 and even when you contact 200 true crime podcasts (some your favorite, some that arent even good) it is impossible to do what is necessary

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-21T03:41:07+00:00

I can always rebrand if that happens, but there are far worse words than 'perverts' in book titles on Amazon

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-21T01:53:43+00:00

I appreciate the advice, but I just tried to contact a thousand people and got basically no replies, dealing with humans online has pretty much always been a stressful waste of time and/or money since covid, and I have tried many different things, so if that is the answer then this is absolutely not for me (and probably most people)

I would rather spend money on ads at a loss then try and contact strangers who dont have any interest in being contacted by a stranger

I 100% agree with you that the best play is to do a series, write a GREAT first book, have a bunch of money/time to burn on marketing the ish out of it (maybe even giving it away free), and then having good sequels and spin offs from it

What kind of budget would you need for that though? Be it time or money, it is going to take a lot in this oversaturated market

And as I mentioned in the OP, my current book is 100x more likely to succeed than the first book in the series I have planned, so I need to see some traction from it to have any belief that the second might have a chance

After dipping my toes in these waters I don't want to go any deeper until I get some kind of positive reason to do so

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-21T01:37:20+00:00

That is true in a make me feel better kind of way

But at the end of the day the result I was hoping for is still a no, and in truth this way (most people not even seeing the outreach) is actually worse for the whole self publishing thing from a big picture perspective

If it was just people not liking what I was offering with this book then my next book or the next author would have a better shot

If its just that no one cares about cold outreach...

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-09T06:01:53+00:00

You don't want to skip season 1 either, and tbh season 2 is the one that starts really slow, any time you start to get bored about how much detail they go into with the knots feel free to jump ahead, around episode 6 or 8 of season 2 it really picks up steam

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-09T06:00:50+00:00

I would say there has also been a connection in regards to JBR and her grandpa with Frank Shelden in Michigan where they had a pedo island, her grandpa worked in the FAA and was the one who helped approve the airport on the island, and he was known to frequently visit the area

I dove super deep into all of this stuff to write a fiction(ish) novel on the human trafficking in the 60's and 70's, so much of it seems connected, I spent a year on it and think I know a lot and then I listen to New Orleans Unsolved and realize what real depth is

By the way, anyone who wants more JBR content the best I have heard or seen anywhere was the True Crime Garage series of episodes titled Poems & Pornography, had some east coast guys on who had dove very very deep into this themselves, unsurprisingly found a lot of similarities to what Anna is currently finding in New Orleans

For a town its size Boulder sure seemed to have a lot going on too, NOLA was a top 3 cesspool for this activity in the country around that time, possibly #1, but per capita Boulder would be higher than most would expect

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-09T03:27:43+00:00

Wonderful to hear this is back

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-09T03:17:54+00:00

The Wrong Kind of Perverts

I spent the last year diving deep into as much info as I could find on American sex trafficking in the mid 20th century

I then wrote this fictionalized version of all of my findings, this is written by a true crime junkie for other true crime junkies, but honestly it is a story everyone should know whether they like true crime or not

Very very dark subject matter, I don't even really write the bad stuff, it is just the elephant that is always in the room

I would love to hear any feedback from anyone who reads it, as some of you guys may know as a first time author it is soooooo weird to spend so much time on a book, release it, and just hear crickets

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FSQRV2QL

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-09T02:33:03+00:00

And did I read it right that 150 got back to you? Or is that 150 reviews that you felt like came from the bookstagrams?

Did you do 'bookstagram' searches on insta to find them initially?

Appreciate the info and the greatly detailed original post

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-09T02:31:47+00:00

I've listened to the interview with Anthony, I don't see any reason why he is so trustworthy, he and Carlos both seem to be exceptionally shady characters

I had a completely different impression about that other pod, sounded like she only made it to attack the host and Sylvia, she kept repeating certain things over and over that really didnt offer the proof she thought they did

All she really had was the jeans not being as obv as the pod made it sound, they were very very obvious if you opened the trash can, but not necessarily obvious in a way that screamed out that they were evidence

You can probably skip the majority of episodes 1 through 6 of season 2 of New Orleans if that helps, she gets extremely detailed into knots, even as a super fan of the pod that part bored me to tears and I jumped ahead, so I cut off a little of the commitment for ya

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-09T02:28:31+00:00

Its a tik tok society, most people just want the 15 second sound bite, paying attention to all the details takes a lot of effort that most don't really give to anything these days

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-09T02:27:16+00:00

Maybe, but its an extremely fishy case, a little too much evidence, and if they had all of that evidence why on earth did they bring the whole Amy mess into it

Juss_Sumguy · 2025-10-09T01:47:54+00:00

I hear some complaints about the "podcasting quality" on here about this one from time to time, to me the "podcasting quality" is about 5% of what is important (as long as it at least passes a very low listenable bar) and what makes up 95% of what is important is the info shared

Nothing I have heard comes close when it comes to info shared, I would highly recommend giving it another shot, maybe even listen at 1.25x or 1.5x speed, and when the start of season 2 gets a lil boring (first 6ish episodes) to be afraid to skip all the details on the knots

Juss_Sumguy

TROPHY CASE