Page One - The Writer's Podcast

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This week on Adventures in Publishing-land, we’re heading to San Francisco to look at Bindery Books. This startup is turning "bookfluencers" into acquiring editors, letting communities choose their own bestsellers. Is this the "Taylor’s Version" of publishing, or a risky bet on "tastemakers"? Plus, we discuss top literary agencies sounding the alarm on "formulaic" and "flattened" AI-generated queries, and also return to the topic of genre snobbery, and why fantasy is making everyone think again about it.

00:00 Intro
01:17 Facile & Formulaic - Agents Ban AI Queries
12:21 The Tastemaker Model - BookTok Becomes The Editor
21.39 Myth-understandings - Fighting Genre Snobbery
34:35 - Off Script: Stranger Than Fiction
39:53 Final Chapter - A Wonderful New Take on Superheroes

Links:
Literary agents urge writers to avoid AI as they see ‘change in nature of submissions’
Bindery Books Influencer-led Publishing Model
Myth, monsters and making sense of a disenchanted world: why everyone is reading fantasy

Adventures in Publishing-land is brought to you by STET Podcasts - the one stop shop for all your writing podcast needs, featuring Page One - The Writer's Podcast, The Conversation with Nadine Matheson and more!

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Welcome to the first in a short series of cross-over episodes with our new podcast, Narrative Damage - a podcast where some of your favourite authors gather together to rolll dice, craft worlds and tell stories together through the medium of tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs)!

For our first guest, we are delighted to chat with the brilliant Sydney Amanuel. Sydney is an actor and designer from New York. While she is usually spotted in films and TV, she also appears on multiple TTRPG podcasts on The Glass Cannon Network where she plays various characters full of improv comedy, fantasy and fun.

Sydney tells us about how she sort of stumbled into the world of live TTRPGs and tells us about the avenues that these games give for storytelling. We talk about the many similarities between the writing process and roleplaying games, including how she crafts characters, worlds and more.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to Narrative Damage on YouTube and on its own podcast feed as we have many more brilliant guests and our own live play games with authors coming very soon!

Links:
Listen to Sydney on the Glass Cannon Network
Follow Sydney on Instagram
Visit Sydney's website

Follow Narrative Damage on YouTube or its own podcast feed to get more interviews with TTRPG writers, creators and more, plus actual plays with some of your favourite authors: https://linktr.ee/narrativedamagerpg

Support us on Patreon and get great benefits!: https://www.patreon.com/ukpageone

Page One - The Writer's Podcast is brought to you by Write Gear, creators of Page One - the Writer's Notebook. Learn more and order yours now: https://www.writegear.co.uk/page-one

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Page One - The Writer's Podcast is part of STET Podcasts - the one stop shop for all your writing and publishing podcast needs! Follow STET Podcasts on Instagram and Bluesky
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Watch this episode as a full video interview on YouTube

TM Logan is the bestselling author of thrillers that have sold over three million copies in the UK and been translated into 22 languages worldwide. A former national newspaper journalist, Tim is also the author of The Holiday — a Richard & Judy Book Club pick adapted for TV — as well as The Catch, The Dream Home, The Mother, The Curfew, Trust Me, Lies and 29 Seconds. His latest novel, The Weekend, is out on 26 February.

We had a great chat with Tim, hearing about his time as a journalist, and why he wanted to move into fiction writing. He tells us how a series of events allowed him to try his hand as a full-time author, and we talk about the pressure of success and the expectation that can bring, as well as hearing about TV adaptations of his work.

Links:
Buy The Weekend and Tim's other books now
Follow Tim on Instagram
Visit Tim's website

Support us on Patreon and get great benefits!: https://www.patreon.com/ukpageone

Page One - The Writer's Podcast is brought to you by Write Gear, creators of Page One - the Writer's Notebook. Learn more and order yours now: https://www.writegear.co.uk/page-one

Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Instagram
Follow us on Bluesky
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Page One - The Writer's Podcast is part of STET Podcasts - the one stop shop for all your writing and publishing podcast needs! Follow STET Podcasts on Instagram and Bluesky
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Watch as a full video on YouTube

This week, we’re unpacking the controversy surrounding Emerald Fennell’s "Wuthering Heights" adaptation. From historically inaccurate corsets to Margot Robbie’s "raunchy" take on Cathy, we debate how far a retelling can stray before it loses the source material entirely.

Plus, we look at how one writer used AI to publish 200 novels in a single year, allegedly earning six figures. But is she a writer? And after a century of dominance, are paperbacks shuffling toward extinction?

00:00 Intro
01:25 200 'Books' A Year - The AI Romance Gold Rush?
12:48 Pulp Fiction No More - The Death of Paperbacks?
23.35 Raunchy Brontë - Straying Too Far From the Source?
37:38 - Off Script: Stranger Than Fiction
43:15 Final Chapter - Best RomComs

Links:
Can AI Chatbots Write Romance? NY Times Article
The Death of the Mass Market Paperback?
How Different Is Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” Compared to Emily Brontë’s Book?

Adventures in Publishing-land is brought to you by STET Podcasts - the one stop shop for all your writing podcast needs, featuring Page One - The Writer's Podcast, The Conversation with Nadine Matheson and more!

Follow us on Bluesky
Follow us on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Watch as a full video interview on YouTube

Rebecca Hannigan has an MA in Creative Writing Crime Fiction from UEA, graduating in 2023. She won the UEA/Little Brown Crime Prize for her dissertation. She has also been shortlisted for Virago/The Pool’s Best New Crime Writer. Her first novel, Darkrooms, is out now.

We had a great chat with Rebecca, hearing about her experience of getting a masters in crime writing and how that helped her with her debut, Darkrooms. We also discuss the anxiety that can build up as a debut writer in the lead up to launch, and get into a big discussion about what makes twists work (or fail), as well as talking about writing unsympathetic characters.

Links:
Buy Darkrooms now!
Visit Rebecca's website
Follow Rebecca on Instagram

Support us on Patreon and get great benefits!: https://www.patreon.com/ukpageone

Page One - The Writer's Podcast is brought to you by Write Gear, creators of Page One - the Writer's Notebook. Learn more and order yours now: https://www.writegear.co.uk/page-one

Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Instagram
Follow us on Bluesky
Follow us on Threads

Page One - The Writer's Podcast is part of STET Podcasts - the one stop shop for all your writing and publishing podcast needs! Follow STET Podcasts on Instagram and Bluesky
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.