Born in Camden, New Jersey, John Sandman's first novel was published by House of Anansi Press in Toronto, publishers of the early work of Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje.  As a journalist, he wrote about the AIDS crisis for the Albany Times Union, New York Newsday, the Journal of the Association in AIDS Care and other publications, focusing on public health issues, including the efficacy of reporting the names of people testing positive for HIV versus anonymous reporting.

At Thomsonmedia he wrote about operations and compliance in the securities industry at Securities Industry News, which won a Jesse H. Neal award for its coverage of the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.

In 2012, he won a Society of Silurians award for a three-part story in City Limits about Internet payday loans.  At TheStreet.com, he wrote about student loans, both private and federal, plus the role of the U.S. Department of Education, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and student loan servicers.

In his review of Sandman's novel Fords Eat Chevs, Matt Cohen wrote in the magazine Saturday Night, "Fords Eat Chevs is an extraordinarily tight and fast-moving book...a book written with great coherence and wit."

He currently writes for Property & Casualty Specialist, a trade publication owned by the Financial Times of London.