I think Jessie Keane is the first guest on the podcast with Romany heritage and she’s definitely the first to tell us that her success as a writer was foretold by her Gran! That sense of destiny is what a lot of us writers lack. We’re all too eager to tell stories of chosen ones who are fated to save the world or achieve greatness, but we don’t apply it to ourselves. Jessie had plenty of opportunity to give up and walk away (ten romance novels, all rejected!), but with that prophecy ringing in her ears she kept going and each of her thrillers have been Sunday Times bestsellers and she’s sold six and half million copies. So be the hero of your own life and fulfil your destiny!
At the other end of the scale, me and Mr D reveal our most humiliating moments. These were just the ones I could recall in the moment. I could fill a whole show with the others if I applied myself. Instead, I’m going to pull a sword from a stone and be a chosen one for the day…
For me, the most intriguing part of this week’s Bestseller Experiment interview with JS (Jon) Monroe is when he talks about the development of his novel Dead Spy Running into a movie written by Stephen Gaghan (Traffic, Syriana) and directed by McG… But if you’re thinking, ‘Hang on, I’ve not seen that movie,’ then you’re not alone. After spending five years and ten million dollars on developing the film, Warner Bros decided they weren’t going to make it. Such is the insanity of Hollywood, this is not an uncommon story. Jon takes it all with good humour and is generous with advice for writers when it comes to the rest of his extraordinary career.
By the way, check out the difference in running time between this regular episode and the extended episode that we record for our Patrons and Academates. There’s an extra 42 minutes of me and Mr D discussing unique book launches, composite characters, self belief and rejection, ending consultants, the benefits of a Marmite novel, and why you should want to have your books burned and banned and much more! You can get all this and hundreds of hours of extra material when you support the podcast as a Chart Topper Supporter on Patreon here, or join the Bestseller Academy.
I’ve followed Delilah S Dawson on social media for some time and always been impressed by her passion for the craft and her generosity with advice, so when I saw her Tweet that she was looking for podcasts to guest on I messaged her immediately. And I was not disappointed. She’s a great guest and talks about her new thriller The Violence, writing for big intellectual properties like Star Wars, and the writing habits that have helped her become so prolific and successful…
Every now and then on the podcast we do special episodes for the writers who’ve come out of the Bestseller Academy and done amazing things. Watching Kate Baker take her novel Maid of Steel to publication has been a real joy and it was great to chat with her for this special episode of the podcast…
I had a great time chatting to Elizabeth Noble on this week’s podcast and she talks about writing novels with huge casts and big families and lots of moving parts etc. And before that, me and Mr D talk about the recent ALCS report that showed that UK’s authors earn only an average of £7,000 a year from their writing, and a bit in Private Eye that noted that so many of our big brand male authors (and their characters) are all getting quite long in the tooth… so where are the new big brands coming from?
Join me “in conversation” with the very splendid F.M.A. Dixon, author of the delightful The Last House on Everywhere Street next Saturday 30th July at the Little Green Book Shop in Herne Bay.
Now, the more canny of you out there might be thinking; ‘Hang on, didn’t these two do an event at the Faversham Literary Festival at the beginning of the year?’ We did indeed, but a lot can happen in six months, and we’re going to compare our experiences of being published in 2022 and we won’t be holding back.
We’ve promised to tell the truth about festivals, book launches, Covid, school events, imposter syndrome, horror movies, driving agents potty, hassling publishers, escalating paper costs, avoiding reading reviews, and all while trying to write our next books.
Come for the unvarnished truth, stay for the free wine and cake (all included in the ticket price!).
Tickets are £5 and redeemable if you buy one of our books, so we can’t say fairer than that (and did we mention the free wine and cake?”)
Click here to get your tickets, and we do recommend that you book ahead. The Little Green Book Shop is a wonderful venue, but the clue is in the name. It’s little, and twenty people is a crowd.
I’m going to be chatting with the wonderful FMA Dixon at the Little Green Bookshop as part of the Herne Bay Festival! Here are the details…
Join Herne Bay authors Malcolm Dixon and Mark Stay as they discuss writing fantastical stories set in the real world, writing for children and young adults, and what inspires them to write.
Mark Stay has 25 years of publishing under his belt and has written for TV and film. He is also co-presenter of the Bestseller Experiment podcast, which has inspired writers all over the world to finish and publish their books. His latest novel, The Ghost of Ivy Barn, is the third in The Witches of Woodville series.
Malcolm Dixon is the winner of the 2019 Acheven Prize for Young Adult Fiction. He will be discussing his prizewinning debut YA novel, The Little House on Everywhere Street.
This evening will include a Q&A and a book signing. Expect wine, snacks and plenty of bookish chat!
Tickets are £5, which is redeemable if you buy one of our books on the night!
New to Terry Pratchett? Which book should you read first? I’ve been reading Terry’s books for over 30 years and will give you a quick guided tour of the best places to start with Terry and the Discworld. I also acknowledge the influence of Terry’s writing on my own work and my new book The Crow Folk.
Transcript:
Hello, folks Mark Stay here In the description of my new book, The Crow Folk, the publisher has written “For fans of Lev Grossman and Terry Pratchett,” and a bit further down there’s lovely quote from the author Ian Sainsbury, who says “Pratchett fans will love this book,” which is a comparison that both thrills and terrifies me. I’ve been reading Terry’s books since I was 14, 15 years old, which is over 30 years. It’s safe to say that no writer has come close to capturing my imagination in the way that he did. I’ve not got everything he’s written, but I’m fairly close. And like any fan of Terry’s work, my first reaction when someone says, “This this is just like Terry Pratchett!” is, “Yeah, yeah, right.” So what I want to talk about today is the debt that I owe to to Terry Pratchett, and how I’ve come to terms with that comparison. But I’m also aware there are people out there who won’t have read any Terry Pratchett, and they will look at all the backlist and… It’s a bit bewildering and thinking, Well, where do I start? It’s probably one the most common questions from any new reader. So let’s have a look at some entry points for new readers to the Discworld and Terry Pratchett. The Discworld, as its name suggests, is a flat disc of a world on the back of four elephants on the back of a giant flying turtle floating through space. And it’s a wonderful precinct for every kind of story. Terry’s stories combine magic with wry humour, and a humanity that I think you don’t see a lot in fantasy. At least, you didn’t until Terry came along. And as the series have evolved, various story threads have evolved, various kind of distinct series within series and fans have their favourites, and it started with The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, pretty much you know, the first book and a sequel. These two really do tie in, and it covers the story of a cowardly Wizard called Rincewind. These are fun. It’s not Discworld at its best. It’s still something of a parody, at this point, of regular fantasy, and it’s interesting… you compare them to the later books how far the books have evolved over time, so… These are great. I wouldn’t say start with these. Some of the most beloved books are the stories of The Watch. The City Watch. There’s a city,Ankh Morpork, and there’s a city watch led by Captain Vimes. They all started with this book Guards, Guards, which is written in tribute to… in any other fantasy story, the poor guards who run into the room and are slaughtered by the hero straight away. These are terrific fun, really, really good fun. There is a TV show coming which doesn’t… it shares some of the DNA of the books, but frankly… It’s one of those things… Good Omens aside — we’ll come to that in a minute — I’m not sure you can adapt Terry’s books for TV and film, because the things I love about Terry’s books the most is the writing itself, the prose and the characters. The stories are good fun, but I don’t think they lend themselves to TV adaptation in the way that other books do. This is just magic. This is a great one to start with. The other ones are the books that feature Death. I mean Death features in every single one of Terry’s books. He’s the one recurring character that crops up all the way through. This was actually the first book I ever read in the Terry Pratchett canon: Mort, which I absolutely adore. Death takes on a young apprentice, and it’s just brilliant, very moving in places as well. Death was such a hit in this one, it’s probably the first time he really came to the forefront in any of the stories, he started getting his own novels, and this again, is a huge favourite. Reaper Man, where death essentially takes a holiday. Definitely worth recommending, but start with Mort if that’s your kind of thing. There are all kinds of stand-alones as well, within the series. Books like Soul Music, which is about rock and roll, Moving Pictures, which is about movies. Pyramids, which is set in a kind of Discworld version of Egypt. They’re all good fun. Probably don’t start with those. They’re kind of atypical. They’re the ones that you discover once you love the series. Of course, the one stand alone, probably even if you’ve never read Terry, you probably do know, is Good Omens, which he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman, back in 1990 Signed! Which, again… Just one of my absolute favourites. It’s about the apocalypse, on the face of it, it feels like a parody of The Omen and that kind of genre. But again, there’s so much more to it. So much more fun to it. But the books I love the most, and this is where I do owe Terry a debt, are the witches series which feature three witches… it evolves over time, in a kingdom called Lancre, which is this kind of, it’s, like, cliffs tumbling across farms, and it’s it’s a wonderful, magical place. Ostensibly, it starts with this one, Equal Rights, but in the same way that The Colour of Magic and Light Fantastic aren’t quite fully evolved Discworld. Granny Weatherwax, the lead witch, she first appears in this. But it’s not quite the Granny Weatherwax that that we come to love. It’s a lovely book. It’s a really, really lovely book, but it’s not quite… It’s not where I’d recommend you start. For that, I’ll send you the Wyrd Sisters, which is essentially Macbeth, but from the witches’ point of view. And then you get our trio of witches: Granny Weatherwax, the hilarious Nanny Ogg, and Magrat, who is kind of their their drippy apprentice. This is huge fun and my favourites of all of Terry’s books, probably are the Witches ones. And there have been a number of them, where they go off on various adventures. I’ve got a soft spot for this one, because I remember reading this in hospital when I had kidney stones, so this was a bit of a lifesaver. And there are all sorts here, which are just wonderful, magical stuff. He then did something very clever. He introduced a new witch, in a book called The Wee Free Men, called Tiffany Aching, who has gone on to have her own series. They started, as you see, slightly smaller hardcovers. They started as children’s books and then folded into the mainstream of the Discworld canon essentially, and it’s rather fitting that Terry’s last book featured Tiffany Aching: The Shepherd’s Crown. I know a lot of people who can’t bring themselves to read this book I completely understand why, and it’s… it is a difficult read I did get very choked up… I’m getting choked up. just thinking about it. It is a tough read, but it is wonderful. One of his best books, actually… I’ve learned so much from reading Terry’s work: the importance of character over plot, that use of language and vernacular language. But most of all, the importance of being yourself as a writer. The comparisons, “This is like Terry Pratchett,” it’s only ever meant as a guide. So am I trying to write like Terry? Bloody hell, no, no, I could never do that. But has he inspired me? More than he could possibly know. And he continues to do so. And if you’re new to him, hopefully he will inspire you, too
Mark Stay Writes 