Tag: Back To Reality

My Last Ever Episode of the Bestseller Experiment Podcast

Merry Christmas! That’s if you celebrate, if not then Happy Monday! Mondays have been ‘New Podcast Day’ for the last seven and a bit years, and today marks the release of my last ever episode of The Bestseller Experiment as co-presenter. Why am I leaving? I explain myself in full here. And rest assured that this isn’t the end of the podcast: Mr D will continue and it’s going to be amazing.

What will I be up to in the meantime? Well, stand by for an update in the New Year. Until then, here’s our special Christmas episode where I share some of my favourite moments, outtakes, and we get a visit from a very special elf…

The Very Entertaining Mike Gayle

Can’t think of a better author to wrap up 2023 on the Bestseller Experiment with than Mike Gayle. He’s celebrating 25 years of his amazing debut novel My Legendary Girlfriend and he’s got a new one out, A Song of Me and You. We chat about keeping warm in the winter (we’re middle aged writers, so this is relevant!), how to make unlikeable characters engaging, and the really important lesson he learned from being the agony uncle for the teen magazine Bliss in the 90s…

Jake Lamar Makes Words Sing

As if getting notes from an editor wasn’t stressful enough, this week’s podcast guest Jake Lamar recounts a time when he got his edit notes while recovering from a heart operation in an intensive care unit. He tells me that during recovery he found that writing was ‘Even more of a solace.’ And he’s right. Even as I’m typing this I’ve just had some notes come through on a project, and while it make me groan and think, ‘Here we go again…’ this thing we do is still better than spending a fortune commuting on a delayed train to an office that’s designed to grind me into submission. So I’ll take these notes on the chin and get on with it. It’s a privilege that I’m all too aware of.

We discuss all sorts in this week’s episode, including jazz, making your writing sing, and I recount that time I was in a minibus from London to Manchester with Joe Hill, Joe Abercrombie, Joanne Harris, Brandon Sanderson and more…

Soft Linkage with Graham Hurley

Soft Linkage sounds vaguely filthy (or that just might be my warped mind), but it’s a concept that the brilliant Graham Hurley — author of 49 books and counting — came up with when pitching his series of Second World War thrillers to his publisher. They naturally wanted a central character that the reader could follow through the war, but Graham wanted to tell the stories that fascinated him without having to shoehorn the same protagonist into every novel. And it really works. His latest novel, The Blood of Others, is well into the series but anyone could pick it up and if you love WWII thrillers you definitely should.

We also discuss the benefits of long publisher lunches, searching for the Titanic (yes, really) and writing in a genre you’re not a fan of. Full disclosure: I used to sell Graham’s books when I worked at Orion so there’s a little bit of nostalgia in here too. Enjoy!

Fight for your Rights with Fiona Valpy

A surprising number of traditionally-published authors don’t realise that their publisher only owns the rights to their novel for a set period of time. It’s usually five years, and yes there are caveats in contracts meaning that they can retain the rights for longer if the book is still “in print”, and print on demand technology can complicate this arrangement, but… there’s a good chance that one day you’ll get the rights back to your book. It happened recently with me and The End of Magic and opened the door for me to write a sequel.

Fiona Valpy discusses this and much more in this week’s episode of The Bestseller Experiment!

And in the extended version for Academy members and podcast Patrons, me and Mr D discuss reissuing books with new titles, why you should think of your books as lifetime assets, research when you can’t travel, and much more! If you want to support the podcast and keep us going click on this here link.

Healing Through Writing with Mira V Shah (and we won an award!)

I first heard of Mira Shah after reading her excellent blog on how to manage the expectations of debut authors (read it here), which ended up on The Bookseller and on pretty much every bit of writers’ social media. She’s spot on when it comes to how the industry is great when it comes to the big deals and ad campaigns, but can be lacking when it comes to the rest of us and how the launch days for our books can be a bit of a damp squib.

We also discuss how her writing came about through grieving, but if all that sounds a bit heavy for a Monday, don’t be put off. Mira is a delight and this is a really uplifting chat…

And at the end of the podcast, I tell Mr D all about my night in London’s glittering King’s Cross where I was honoured to collect our award for Best Books Podcast at the inaugural Independent Podcast Awards. It was an amazing night celebrating the terrific indie podcasts and I’ve added a whole bunch of them to my pod catcher. You can find out more about the award and the evening here.

Mark Stay gurning for the camera after collecting the award for Best Books Podcast for the Bestseller Experiment. Photo by Simon Brew.
Mark Stay with presenter Esther Manito at the Independent Podcast Awards 2023.
With Esther Manito at the Independent Podcast Awards

Michael R Miller is Epic

I did a panel with Michael R Miller at the MCM Comic Con yesterday and was once again struck by how generous he is with his advice. He’s done incredibly well since I met him at an Eastercon a few years ago, selling over 350,000 copies of his fantasy epic, but he’s always been the first to suggest new ideas and strategies for selling books and you would do well to heed his advice! It was great to get him back on the Bestseller Experiment to catch up on what he’s been up to, including getting Broken Binding editions of his books, having a D&D campaign based on his new series, and how he’s taken his experience with cystic fibrosis and used it in his fantasy world building…

And in the extended version for podcast supporters we discuss how you decided if you should write a series, trilogy or standalone, how to launch your audiobooks, and the differences between USA and UK editions of books. You can support the podcast here.

Getting Emotional with Ivy Ngeow

Ivy Ngeow is a powerhouse of creativity. A musician, a novelist and writer of cookery books, diet books, interior design, she’s done it. Her new novel is The American Boyfriend and she talks about how she studied bestsellers before writing it to better understand what makes a smash hit and it’s paid off as she now has an international hit and is signing books at places like Singapore airport!

Then in the extended edition for our Academy members and Patreon supporters, me and Mr D discuss the different routes to market for your novels, including airports, supermarkets and gift boxes and loot crates! You can support the podcast and get hundreds of hours of extra material here.

Heather Morris says Shut up and Listen…

This week we celebrate seven years of the Bestseller Experiment podcast and I can’t think of a better way to mark the occasion than with Heather Morris, bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and more who returns with a new novel, Sisters Under the Rising Sun, whichtransports the reader to the women in Japanese POW camps in WWII and is another incredibly powerful story.

Heather’s writing and her attitude to life and her work embodies everything we love about writers and it was such a privilege to speak with her.

And if that wasn’t enough, as a special little treat this episode includes the extended version of the podcast for free (normally reserved for podcast supporters and folk int he Bestseller Academy) and this week includes me giving tips for writing emotions and getting an emotional response from readers…

The Tiny, Weird Obsessions of Writers with Julie Owen Moylan

There’s a lovely bit in this week’s Bestseller Experiment podcast with novelist Julie Owen Moylan where she talks about writers wanting approval, ‘We want to get our homework marked.’ And it’s true, we set out as writers with dreams of our work getting great reviews and being loved by all… But one of the lessons you learn as soon as people start reading your stuff is that you can’t please everyone. It’s a fool’s errand and you’re much better off writing to please yourself first. And that can start by leaning into what Julie calls her ‘tiny, weird obsessions’. These are the things that you think no one will get. The thoughts, jokes and peculiarities that you think are completely unique to you. And they probably are, but that doesn’t mean others won’t understand. Because all those strange little idiosyncrasies are your voice. That’s what makes you unique and will make you writing unlike any other. Some people won’t get it, but those who do will absolutely love it. Be true to yourself. Be weird.