Why I Skipped Malice

And Why You'll Be Glad I Did!

Malice Domestic is an annual conference held in Bethesda, Maryland, for lovers of traditional mysteries. I’ve made it a point to attend yearly. This year, I had my airline tickets. My registration. Even my banquet table assignment.

Then Monday night—the day before my flight—my husband called from Maryland. He was sick. So were my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. And I was supposed to stay with them.

I considered going anyway. I could still fly up, get a hotel room, and keep my distance…

But no.

If I couldn’t spend time with family—and risk getting sick myself—what was the point? Worse, I could end up sharing whatever bug was going around with other Malice attendees. That didn’t sit right with me.

Then there was another issue…the one sitting on my desk.

New Skills

I had secured a BookBub promotion for my Cara Mia Delgatto Box Set (Books 1–3), running May 1–5. (https://amzn.to/4d4N1ZD) These three books were written back in 2016, and I’ve grown as a writer since then. I believe in Kaizen—that’s Japanese for constant improvement. Could I make these books even better? (They currently have a 4.7 out of 5 stars ranking.)

I believed I could.

New Tools

I also wanted to double-check the formatting. And I’d recently started using Grammarly—which I love—to catch anything that might have slipped past earlier edits. On top of that, I planned to run everything through Vellum (a formatting program) to ensure the final product looked exactly right.

The only way to do all of this well—and without pressure—was to stay home.

So I did.

And very quickly, I realized just how much work needed to be done.

I spent all day Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday revising. I tweaked layouts, adjusted formatting—and at one point, I lost an entire book inside Vellum. (Yes, really.) That meant digging through my original files and starting over.

Let’s just say…it was a learning experience.

New Insights

Here are a few things I learned along the way:

1. Run Grammarly before importing your manuscript into Vellum.

2. Format each book separately—then combine them into a box set.

3. Export your work frequently. Vellum saves automatically, but one wrong click can undo more than you expect.

4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help—tools like ChatGPT can offer quick, useful guidance.

5. Everything takes longer than you think—especially the first time.

6. Always preview your book in multiple formats. What looks good in a manuscript may look very different in EPUB or PDF. (Marshall McLuhan was right: the medium is the message.)

The result of all this?

A cleaner, sharper, more polished reading experience for you.

So from May 1–5, you’ll be able to grab the Cara Mia Delgatto Box Set (Books 1–3) for just 99 cents here on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4d4N1ZD

After all this revisiting and refining, I’m more excited about these stories than ever—and I hope you’ll love them, too. (That’s a photo of me celebrating being done with my revisions! My Leetle Seester and I went out to dinner!)

Mystery Mondays!

Our guest tonight at 7 p.m. ET at Joanna’s Readers (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1602372550058785/) will be Ileana Muñoz Renfroe. Ileana writes a variety of cozy mystery series as well as children’s books. As a special bonus, I’ll also be giving away three digital copies of Death Under the Dogwoods, (https://amzn.to/3QqwM0j), my newest collaboration with Neil Plakcy. The release date was April 23!

I hope to see you tonight! — Love, Joanna