The Bestseller Experiment

We welcome back Shannon Mayer for the third and final part of our epic interview with her and we finally tackle something that can put the fear of death into many authors… Marketing.

Rhoda Baxter returns to the podcast with an amazing book that covers everything authors need to know about all the scary stuff: contracts, intellectual property, rights, and income. In this Deep Dive, she answers listeners questions on advances, choosing agents, negotiating terms, audio rights, and the steps that you can take before you're even published.

We welcome bestselling author Rowan Coleman back to the podcast, but this time she's wearing a Brontë bonnet. Writing as Bella Ellis she is two books into the Brontë Mysteries, which imagines the famous sisters as mystery-solving sleuths. Rowan takes us through her process of research and strategies for writing around history and real people.

Is there such a thing as a positive rejection? This week we chat with award-winning author, Liz Fenwick about the importance of persistency on the journey to being published, why your book's location matters, the world of literary consultancies and how to silence your inner critic.

Sally Gardner is an award-winning novelist who has sold more than 2.5 million books worldwide. The Snow Song is her third adult novel is about a woman who loses her voice as the snow falls. With themes of isolation it feels more relevant than ever. Sally is huge fun and takes us through her incredible career and has some amazing advice for writers at all levels, including why she writes in colour.

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.