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The Bestseller Experiment

Join author and screenwriter Mark Stay with coach and entrepreneur Mark Desvaux, as they discover the secrets to writing a bestseller and challenge themselves and you to write, market and self-published a bestselling book in just one year. Each week, they are guided by and interview million-selling, chart-topping authors, publishers on the inside, editors, agents, social media specialists, and many more big names who play a part in the bestseller process. From the writing to marketing, plotting to publishing, learn the secrets to help you write your way to the top of the charts.
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The Bestseller Experiment
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Now displaying: Category: general
Oct 9, 2023
Julie Owen Moylan is a novelist and filmmaker. Her graduation short film ‘BabyCakes’ scooped Best Film awards at the Swansea Film Festival where Ken Russell was a judge! And Julie has written two novels, THAT GREEN EYED GIRL and 73 DOVE STREET, which was released just this summer. Julie talks about how she knows when it’s the right time to tell a story, about her pivotal careers day at school, and why her tiny, weird obsessions make all the difference.
 
Oct 2, 2023
The award-winning Gareth L. Powell returns to the podcast with Descendant Machine his new science fiction epic. He also tells about working with Peter F Hamilton, how starting a commercial thriller led him to writing his most personal book, how he wrote a book on writing almost by accident, and he gives us some insight to the future of authors and social media, but how being positive pays dividends.
Sep 25, 2023

Jesse Sutanto is the award-winning, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers and I’m Not Done With You Yet. Jesse tells how she learned about human behaviour through real estate and weddings, why she doesn’t dwell on projects that are on submission, and why she writes in 15 minute sprints she calls pure writing.

Sep 18, 2023

We are delighted to welcome back Suzie Edge for this special episode of the podcast! Suzie is a phenomenon on TikTok and after her smash hit debut book Mortal Monarchs she returns with Vital Organs, a wonderful dissection of history’s strangest body parts. Suzie takes us through her incredible career so far and reveals the role that vital organs, poo and wee and have played in getting her the ultimate accolade: an AI-generated biography on Amazon.

Sep 11, 2023

Harriet Muncaster is an award-winning author and illustrator. Her Isadora Moon books have sold over two million copies worldwide. And in 2020, Muncaster also published Bad and Glittering, the first part of her middle-grade series Victoria Stitch. And now she’s here with the latest Victoria Stitch book Dark & Sparkling. Harriet reveals how she develops her incredible characters, shares how she divides her time between writing and illustration, and how she was driven to create her own worlds. And the two Marks discuss the importance of being childlike and end up being very childish and losing their marbles...

Sep 4, 2023

Sarah Moorhead returns to the podcast with The Treatment, her extraordinary new novel that tackles issues of justice and revenge with compassion and heart. She reveals how she got back into writing after being dropped by her publisher and agent, and how being an idealist fuels her desire to keep telling great stories whatever it takes.

Aug 28, 2023

In this very special episode, international bestselling author Linwood Barclay returns to the podcast to tease us with details of his new thriller The Lie Maker. He gives us tips aplenty for writers, reveals how a correspondence with Ross Macdonald changed his career, why he loves collaborating with editors, and if he’ll ever co-write with some up-and-coming author called Stephen King… Oh, and stay tuned to the very end for a little bonus...

Aug 21, 2023
Teresa Driscoll is a former BBC TV news presenter whose psychological thrillers have sold over two million copies across the world. Her first thriller I Am Watching You hit Kindle Number 1 in the UK, USA and Australia and has sold more than a million copies in English alone. For decades, Teresa was a journalist working across newspapers, magazines and television.
Aug 14, 2023

Damian Dibben is an acclaimed British author whose novels have been translated into twenty-seven languages and published in over forty countries. His series The History Keepers was an international publishing phenomenon. Dibben originally trained as an artist and scenic designer before becoming an actor and screenwriter. The Colour Storm is his second novel to explore seismic events of the past and is a feast for the senses.

Aug 7, 2023

AJ Pearce’s debut novel Dear Mrs Bird was a Sunday Times Bestseller and she returns with the third in the Emmy Lake series, Mrs Porter Calling. AJ tells us how writing started as a hobby, how it all very nearly went wrong with a plotless romcom, and how the Emmy Lake books were inspired by a chance find on eBay.

Jul 31, 2023

Jeremy Szal is the author of the Common trilogy from Gollancz, which includes Stormblood, Blindspace, and Wolfskin and he’s the author of over fifty science-fiction short stories, translated into six languages. He has a new novella, SCREAM IN BLUE, set in the same world of The Common, and he’s also one of a number of authors who are speaking out about their mental health and how it can be affected by the rollercoaster of being published...

Jul 24, 2023

Antony Johnston is a New York Times bestselling author and the creator of Atomic Blonde, the comic book originally published as The Coldest City that was adapted into the movie starring Charlize Theron. For over twenty years he’s written books, graphic novels, video games, film, and more... And now he’s back with something a bit different: The Dog Sitter Detective is the first of a cosy crime series featuring Gwinny Tuffel, a retired actress who takes up dog-sitting to make ends meet, but discovers she also has a knack for solving murders.

Jul 17, 2023

Freya Berry’s writing career began as a journalist at Reuters. After a stint in New York reporting on the 2016 US election she left to write her acclaimed first novel, The Dictator’s Wife. With her new novel, The Birdcage Library, Freya has ended up creating a love story and a detective mystery, two things she never planned to write. Freya tells about the challenges of writing two timelines, the importance of a finding a state of half-focus, and digging deeper to make your writing truthful.

Jul 10, 2023
Heide Goody and Iain Grant have been writing together since 2011 and are best known for their Clovenhoof series, where Satan is made redundant from Hell and sent to live in Birmingham. They tell us how their collaborative process has evolved and how they took everything they’ve learned over the years to launch their new Cozy Craft Mysteries series under the pen name Millie Ravensworth
Jul 5, 2023
Paul Austin Ardoin is the USA TODAY Bestselling Author of The Fenway Stevenson Mysteries and the Woodhead & Becker Mysteries. And now Paul has a new non-fiction book: From Zero to Four Figures: Making $1000 a Month Self-Publishing Fiction, which brilliantly demystifies the process of making money as an indie author. If you've published one or more books but are struggling to get sales then this is the book for you. We discuss setting goals, financial realities, meeting reader expectations, using your book as an advertisement and much more.
 
Jul 3, 2023

Katherine Faulkner’s second thriller The Other Mothers takes us into the school playground and makes it a terrifying place with dark cliques and murderous secrets. Katherine tells us how finding structure and accountability helped her write her debut and how she discovered that the most important person in any novel is the reader.

Jun 26, 2023

Sunday Times bestselling author Katie Fforde brings us her latest novel One Enchanted Evening, which was inspired by a cookery course. Katie has sold over 4.5 million copies in the UK alone and credits the Romantic Novelists’ Association with launching her career and she received their Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023. Katie tells us how she started reading Mills & Boon books on the sly, finding time to write with a busy life, and her secret desire to write in another genre...

Jun 19, 2023

JD Kirk is the pen name multi-award-winning author, screenwriter, and writer of comics, Barry Hutchison. When he was nine, a kindly librarian wrote his name on the spine of a notebook in which he’d written a terrible short story, and put it on the shelf changing his life. Barry talks about writing over 200 books in 10 years, ignoring the naysayers, and how discovering how a condition called aphantasia may have affected his writing. Mr D reveals his secret superpower, and Mr Stay rants about comic books.

Jun 15, 2023

Tim Lott is the multi award winning author of ten novels and a memoir, The Scent of Dried Roses, and has been teaching writing for the last ten years, as a lecturer, teacher and mentor.  With his new book, Yes! No! But Wait...!: The One Thing You Need to Know To Write a Novel, Tim has produced a book on writing that is honest, practical and genuinely useful.

Jun 12, 2023

Andrea Dunlop began her career in publishing as a publicist for the likes of Doubleday before becoming an author and consultant based in Seattle. Her latest novel, Women Are The Fiercest Creatures, is the story of three women written out of a successful tech startup’s history. Andrea worked for over 15 years in publishing and talks honestly about being on both sides of the publishing experience.

Jun 9, 2023
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is what search engines like Google use to pair questions with answers. If you want to be found online, then understanding how SEO works is essential. In this deep dive, SEO expert Kelsey E Meyers offers simple and effective tips for authors to help them and their books appear at the top of search results.
Jun 5, 2023

James Naughtie’s voice as presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme will be familiar to listeners all over the world. As well as writing non-fiction, he’s the author of the Will Flemyng thrillers the latest of which, The Spy Across the Water, takes readers from Washington DC to Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland. James talks us through his unique approach to spy fiction, and the importance of a sense of place in his writing.

May 29, 2023

Scarlett Brade was born in London, but as a child she spent her summers in Toronto where she fell in love with reading. She self-published her first novel aged twenty-three, but then decided to experience life a little more before returning with her amazi

May 26, 2023
Kelly Weekes answers listener questions on discovering who your readers are in a conversation that takes in social media, comparable authors, visualising your readers, writing to market, goals, pain points, and why authors should think of themselves as CEOs of their own business.
 
Kelly has worked in the marketing departments of the biggest UK publishers, and on the marketing strategies and campaigns for the likes of Stephen King, Jodi Picoult and Philippa Gregory, as well as debut writers. She's managed big spend ad campaigns, promoted books with no budget, organised sales conferences, pitched to retailers and so much more.
May 22, 2023

Sue Watson was BBC TV producer until she wrote her first novel and was hooked. Now she’s a USA Today bestselling author and has sold over a million copies, but that success came as a second act in a writing career where she switched from romcoms to thrillers. Sue tells about that pivotal change, her latest thriller The Wedding Day, and how crime writers tell stories that take us to dark places to find difficult truths.

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