How the Author of ‘The Bestseller Code’ Jodie Archer Writes: Part One

Literary scholar, publishing consultant, and co-author of the critically acclaimed book The Bestseller Code, Jodie Archer dropped by to chat with me about her journey, the coming revolution in publishing, and the insecurities that all writers face.

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Start getting more from your site today!Before earning her PhD from Stanford, Ms. Archer studied English at Cambridge, worked in both journalism and TV, and became an acquisitions editor for Penguin UK publishing.

While at Stanford Jodie taught nonfiction and memoir writing, and researched both contemporary fiction and bestsellers. Upon completion of her doctoral work she was recruited by Apple where she was the lead in research on books.

Her book, The Bestseller Code, is based on her doctoral research with professor Matt Jockers, an algorithm that they tested over four years and refined by text mining over 20,000 contemporary novels.

The Guardian proclaimed that their book “… may revolutionize the publishing industry,” in part because their algorithm was able to predict bestselling books 80% of the time, based on a theme, plot, character and many other big data points.

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In Part One of this file Jodie Archer and I discuss:

• How a word nerd helped program a computer to predict bestsellers with a high degree of accuracy
• Why all writers of fiction should read The Bestseller Code
• How to turn years of research into an entertaining and educational non-fiction book
• The power of deadlines for beating procrastination

The Show Notes

• Audible is Offering a Free Audiobook Download with a 30-day Trial: Grab Your Free Audiobook Here – audibletrial.com/rainmaker
• How the Author of The Bestseller Code Jodie Archer Writes: Part Two
• How Critically Acclaimed Literary Scholar Jonathan Gottschall Writes: Part One
• How Andy Weir (Bestselling Author of ‘The Martian’) Writes: Part One
• How ‘Sweetbitter’ Author Stephanie Danler Writes: Part One
• The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of the Blockbuster Novel – Jodie Archer & Matt Jockers
• ArcherJockers.com
• Jodie Archer on Good Reads
• Jodie Archer on Twitter
• Kelton Reid on Twitter

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