We spoke to Jodie Archer and Matthew Jockers, authors of the upcoming The Bestseller Code (out 20th September). Jodie bought and edited books for Penguin UK before decamping for the doctoral program in English at Stanford University. After her PhD, she worked at Apple as their research lead on literature. Matthew is Susan J. Rosowski Associate Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he teaches and directs the Nebraska Literary Lab. His text mining research has been profiled in The New York Times, The LA Review of Books, The Sunday Times, and more. We talked to them about how they became research partners, their research process and their favourite books.

Everyone loves a good disintermediation story. So, we read, writers have suddenly started to bypass agents in order to find the latest bestseller. The truth as we all know is that such dances started to be choreographed some while back. In 2008, Harper Collins UK launched the Authonomy community site, encouraging writers to upload their manuscript and expose it to peer review. The objective was to “ beat the slush “ with the promise that editors would review manuscripts which critiqued well on the platform.

Paula Hawkins The Girl on the Train has broken through. It is and will continue to be a global publishing phenomenon this year. It’s terrific. But then lots of books are. Why this one? Is it as simple as people are looking for the next thriller with Girl in the title?