Tag: YA

More podcast goodness for your ears (and mind…)

We’ve had two cracking – a very different – episodes of the Bestseller Experiment recently. First up is a report from The Romantic Novelists’ Association conference in Leeds where I spoke to Rhoda Baxter, Nicola Cornick and Sheila Crighton (aka Annie O’Neil) about all sorts of love including instalust, passionate blur and the scale of hotness. And it was great to finally meet Rhoda Baxter (aka Jeevani Charika), who also proved the Lego image above! Listen to the podcast here.

IMG_3410
Rhoda (Jeevani) and me at the RNA

This week’s podcast features John McGhie, an investigative journalist who has worked for the BBC, Channel 4 News and the Observer. John and I met on Whitstable beach at the peak of the football world cup at what felt like a brief moment of optimism in an otherwise politically depressing 2018. We cheer ourselves up by talking about the historical atrocities chronicled in John’s excellent new book White Highlands! No, really, it’s a fascinating episode and we cover writing historical fiction in some detail. Listen here.

And if you want to know more, the documentary that inspired John’s book can be seen here…

And last but by no means least I was once again on the Dominic King show on BBC Radio Kent in the conversation slot. We chatted about YALC, YA fiction, The End of Magic, podcasts, soundtracks and I even wheel out my Sean Connery impression. You can listen here and for my bit skip forwards to 2 hours and 11 minutes…

40441486_10155865587951733_7165460902475464704_o

Here are links to stuff I talk about on the shows below…

“Therefore, but…” with Cass Green

We had the amazing Cass Green on the podcast this week and one of the things we touched on was the “Therefore, but…” rule for writers as explained by South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone in this vid.

We also discussed a recent blog by Mark Chadbourn on how writers should be looking for not one, but multiple streams of income to pay the rent. It’s a fascinating piece, and could well change your life!

And we were delighted to see the podcast featured on Buzzfeed as one of the podcast you NEED to start listening to in 2018. Buzzfeed! My kids were actually impressed for about 30 seconds…

And stay tuned for some big news on an exciting new project!

Mark

PS.

Oh, and my first book Robot Overlords is in the UK Kindle half-term sale. Thanks to everyone who’s bought a copy so far. If you haven’t you can grab a copy for only 99p now!

image001

We had one of those Youtube live show thingies on the podcast this week…

I’m often stopped in the street and asked, “Hey, Mark. How do those Youtube live show thingies work on the podcast? They look so much fun. How can I get involved, man?”

And I say, “Dude, it’s an exclusive for our Patreon thingy supporters. They get first dibs on all sorts of cool stuff, like the Youtube live shows where they can ask me and Mr. D questions about writing and publishing and stuff, and interact with us via the miracle medium of the Youtubes. We talked about how long your project should be, how to find other writers who will give you feedback, the kinds of deals a debut author can expect from a publishers and tips on building your mailing list, and there’s a whole long debate about swearing. It’s a fuckin’ gas, baby.”

“But can’t I just download the edited highlights a week later on the podcast?”

“Yeah, and that’s a stone groove, but nothing beats actually being there, and you get live pictures on the Youtube and sometimes people get naked.”

“Really?”

“No. Tell you what just check out the highlights of the last show here, and then sign up to our Patreon. It’ll totally wang your doodle.”

*

PS. We wrote a book. You might like it. Others do…

SHANNON MAYER

I’m at YALC this Friday afternoon…

Friday 17th July, London Film and ComicCon YALC:

I’m delighted to be confirmed for a panel at the 2015 YA Lit Con, which is part of the London Film and Comic Con.

yalc2015

Here’s the blurb…

PAGE AND SCREEN: ROBOT OVERLORDS & GEMINI FORCE ONE

Friday 17th July, 4.30-5.15pm

What are the differences between writing for the page or the screen? Find out in this session bringing together co-creator of Robot Overlords Mark Stay with the team behind Gemini Force One, MG Harris and Jamie Anderson.

Mark Stay will be talking about his experiences of writing both film script and novelisation for Robot Overlords, and sharing some behind the scenes insights; whilst MG Harris and Jamie Anderson will discuss how they collaborated on their new series, originally devised and developed by Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson before his death.

This should be great fun. The Gemini Force project is hugely exciting (especially if you’re a Gerry Anderson fan!), and YALC will be hosting panels with the best names in YA lit, including Charlie Higson, Malorie Blackman and Patrick Ness, so you’re guaranteed to have a great day!

Click here to get tickets.