What’s more fascinating than reading actual books? Well, it’s the weird and bizarre stories behind the stories themselves! At least, that’s what journalist and author Alex Johnson hopes with his latest book, When Books Go Bad – exploring some of the strangest and most infamous stories about book writing and publishing experiences through the years. In this episode, Alex shares his love of writing these kinds of ‘behind the scenes’ industry books and how he ended up with the publishing relationship that has yielded 20 books to date. He also explains how he chooses the stories to go in his books and some of the more surprising entries.

00:00 Welcome
06:11 Writing tip: Associative triggers
11:00 WIN!: Diaries of Note by Shaun Usher
13:02 Word of the week: ‘Deuteragonist’
15:12 Writer in residence: Alex Johnson
16:00 Alex explains his latest book, When Books Go Bad
16:55 Why he wrote this book
19:58 Journalistic not academic
21:51 Starting his relationship with the British Library
24:00 Compiling the material for the book
25:09 Authors and their naughty and odd tendencies
28:20 Pitching and publishing books
32:57 The editing process
36:21 Illustrations and book design
38:06 Surprising stories from the book
41:34 Publicity and social media
43:06 Upcoming projects and tips
44:39 A writing tip
46:20 Final thoughts

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Writing Podcast Episode 706: Alex Johnson explores 'When Books Go Bad'