We caught up with fantasy bestselling author and super nice dude Brandon Sanderson and in a jam-packed episode he answered our listeners’ questions and let us in on some of his inspirational top tips for productive writing…

We've reached a monumental episode – the 500th – on the Bestseller Experiment podcast! To celebrate, Mark Desvaux goes deeper than ever to uncover and countdown the most important, life-changing reasons why we write, drawn from seven and a half years and over 600 hours of interviews with bestselling authors.

Michael Connelly is one of the most successful crime authors in the world with over 60m book sales. Having just released his new Harry Bosch thriller, he shares secrets about developing characters & writing book series – in the back of a London cab!

Karen Storey's name has become synonymous with success in short story writing. With an impressive one-in-three win rate out of over 40 competitions last year, Karen exemplifies what it means to blend passion with strategy in writing. In this episode, Karen shares the secrets of her success, including the importance of great endings. In a final twist, we surprise Karen with the Bestseller Academy All-Star Award for her outstanding achievements.

Ben Aaronovitch started writing for Doctor Who and became the author of the bestselling Peter Grant series that started with Rivers Of London in 2011 and has been hugely successful, regularly hitting the Sunday Times bestsellers top ten. We were delighted to get Ben for a conversation full of fireworks.

Jacqueline O’Mahony was named Young Irish Writer of the Year by the Irish Examiner when she was fourteen. After a BA, MA and PhD she worked at Condé Nast, Vogue and Associated Newspapers as an arts editor. Her debut novel, A River in the Trees, was nominated for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and the Not the Booker Prize in 2020. Her latest book Sing, Wild Bird, Sing is set during the Irish Famine, and is a story about the indomitable will to survive—and to flourish—against nearly impossible odds. It sold over 40,000 copies in its first 5 days and has over 17,000 reviews on Amazon.

Joe burst onto the fantasy scene in 2003 with his debut The Blade Itself. His books have climbed high up the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, and he had some unusual advice for writers when we spoke to him at GollanczFest.

Joe is best known for the First Law Trilogy – The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings – and the stand-alone novels in the same world – Best Served Cold, The Heroes, and Red Country.

He has also written the Shattered Sea trilogy for young (and old) adults – Half a King, Half the World, and Half a War.

The world of the First Law collides with the industrial age in a new trilogy – The Age of Madness – which began in September 2019 with A Little Hatred, continued a year later with The Trouble With Peace and concludes in September 2021 with The Wisdom of Crowds.

In this episode, we dive into the world of Rachel Lynch.  Rachel Lynch is a renowned crime fiction author whose work has captivated over a million readers. Rachel is best known for her gripping Kelly Porter series of 12 books, set against the picturesque backdrop of the Lake District. She began writing full time in 2016 and Canelo signed her first three novels in 2018. The Rich is Rachel’s latest book and first standalone psychological thriller.

Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston tells us about his life and new bestselling memoir, A Life In Parts. Oscar-nominated, with two Golden Globes, two Tony Awards and 6 time Emmy winner, he’s best known for roles in Malcolm in the Middle, Seinfeld and most famously, Walter White. Few people know that he is also an accomplished writer having written a number of screenplays, plays, and his autobiography. We began our conversation by asking to speak to Bryan Cranston the writer…

In this interview, listen in as Mark Desvaux pitches his forthcoming book Pacivida to NY literary agent Lucinda Halpern, who has been securing book deals with all major publishers over the last 15 years. Lucinda represents a range of New York Times and internationally bestselling authors in nonfiction or fiction, and her new book “Get Signed: Find an Agent, Land a Book Deal, and Become a Published Author” which was released last week and already has that coveted Amazon bestseller flag.

Lucinda Halpern is a literary agent with over 15 years' experience securing book deals and working with all major publishers. She represents a range of New York Times and internationally bestselling authors in business, health, lifestyle, popular science, narrative nonfiction, memoir, and upmarket fiction. Lucinda worked for HarperCollins on New York Times bestsellers including Freakonomics. She later worked as a marketing consultant for Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project), before launching her career as an agent. Her new book is Get Signed: Find an Agent, Land a Book Deal, and Become a Published Author.

SHARI LAPENA is the #1 internationally bestselling author of seven suspense novels including A Stranger in the House and  The Couple Next Door, her debut which was a runaway global bestseller, with 4 million sales worldwide. It was WHSmith’s “Book of the Year” in 2016 and the #1 Adult Fiction Title in the UK for 2017. All of Shari’s novels have been New York Times, UK Sunday Times, and Globe and Mail bestsellers. In this episode, Mark Stay interviews Shari about her new page-turner “Everyone Here is Lying”.

Joe Hill is the  #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman, Heart-Shaped Box, and Strange Weather. Joe, son of Stephen King, is a powerhouse storyteller from an incredible family of writers. Much of his work has been adapted for film and television. His second novel, Horns, was made into a cult horror-comedy starring Daniel Radcliffe; his third novel, NOS4A2, was adapted for television by AMC. The six books in the Locke & Key saga formed the basis for a hit TV series on Netflix

Amy Newmark is Editor-in-Chief of Chicken Soup for the Soul, publishing over 20,000 stories in the last 15 years, launching the careers of many New York Times bestselling authors. Celebrating over half a billion book sales, the Chicken Soup anthology stands as a literary giant, rivalled only by Harry Potter.

Mark Desvaux delves into Part 1 of a fascinating conversation with Amy Newmark, the powerhouse Editor-in-Chief behind Chicken Soup for the Soul. Celebrating over half a billion book sales, the Chicken Soup anthology stands as a literary giant, rivalled only by Harry Potter. Amy unveils how it launched the careers of New York Times bestselling authors and shares how you can get your story published in this prestigious series.

Welcome to a New Year's special of the Bestseller Experiment podcast, where we dive into your inner game as a writer. In this episode, Mark Desvaux shares his personal journey and challenges listeners to make bold dream declarations for their writing goals.

L.M. Chilton worked as a journalist for The Times, The Mirror and Metro and TV shows like This Morning, The One Show and Loose Women. His debut novel Don’t Swipe Right was inspired by years of online dating (the dating part of the story, we hasten to add, not the serial killing bits…) and having worked in the media he took everything he had learned to get his book featured in the national press and on TV!

Tracy Wolff is the New York Times, and USA Today bestselling author of over sixty novels from Austin Texas, Nina Croft is an incredibly prolific author from the UK now living in Spain and they have collaborated on Star Bringer, a new adult romance novel billed as Firefly meets the Breakfast Club. Tracy and Nina take us through the process of co-writing a novel and offer great tips for anyone thinking of trying it for the first time. Also, the two Marks have a big announcement at the end of the show...

The author of 49 books and counting, Graham Hurley returns with his latest WWII thriller The Blood of Others. He takes us through his extraordinary career and discusses writing in a genre that he wasn't a fan of, writing a series without a recurring lead character and the benefits of long publisher lunches.

Fiona is an acclaimed bestselling author, whose books have sold millions of copies and been translated into more than thirty different languages worldwide. Her latest novel is The Cypress Maze, set in Tuscany and is the perfect book for these long winter nights. Fiona has a degree in Geography, has worked as an IT systems engineer, then in PR and marketing and the wine industry and as a yoga teacher... but writing is when it all made sense.

Mira V Shah is a British-African-Indian author and legal writer who lives in North London with her husband, three good dogs and one mediocre cat. She studied History at the University of Warwick before practising as a City lawyer. During the pandemic, Mira wrote her first ever novel, HER, a psychological drama, which explores themes of female friendship, flawed perception, trauma and race. Mira tells about writing the novel during lockdown, telling the story from two different perspectives, and how she’s carved out time to write.