Bestseller Experiment featured in the Guardian

A great interview and feature today in The Guardian with the Two Marks…

The Bestseller Experiment: can you deliberately write a blockbuster book?

Mark Stay and Mark Desvaux are picking up clues from publishers and authors in a new podcast, while they go about trying to write the next bestseller.

Everyone may have a book in them, but what about a bestselling one? It would seem obvious that the big-name authors are going to go straight to the top of the charts, but periodically a book comes out of nowhere that captures the imagination — and the public’s money — to become a break-out hit.

But is there actually a formula for writing a bestseller? Mark Stay and Mark Desvaux think think there might be, and they’ve given themselves one year to make it happen.

Stay has some form in publishing: he works for Orion and has writing chops, having written the screenplay and resulting novel for the movie Robot Overlords, which was released last year.

His partner-in-words, Canada-based Brit Desvaux, has aspirations to write and is, in Stay’s words, “the only person I know who can describe his job as ‘dream coach’ with a straight face”. This means that he is a blend of life coach, entrepreneur and broadcaster, who says things like: “If you can dream something, if you believe it can happen, then you can make it happen.”

Together they have launched The Bestseller Experiment, which isn’t just them hunkering down for a year to write a book together – that would be boring. Instead, they are running a weekly podcast alongside their collaborative writing efforts, bringing in recognisable voices from writing and all aspects of publishing. As Stay puts it: “We’re going on an adventure. Come along with us – write your book at the same time as we do.”…

Read the full article here.