S5 Ep24: Doug Johnstone

S5 Ep24: Doug Johnstone

From The Failing Writers Podcast by The Failing Writers Podcast

December 22, 2025 · 54 min · Season 5 · Episode 24

About this episode

Doug Johnstone discusses the importance of writing authentically and engaging readers while maintaining commercial viability.

How do you give your readers everything they're looking for? And your agent? You have to feed the beast don't you? (Is calling agents 'The Beast' too offensive?) It's your job as a writer to offer up precisely what your readership is looking for. Anything else and you risk losing your commercial edge. And we can't have that can we? Oh we can? Oh... OK. We met up with the wonderful Doug Johnstone, to hear how he refuses to be pigeoned-holed, writes what he likes, and just so happens to say what he like too - and yes, by that, I mean he swears quite a lot. Some great advice in this chat about the importance of loving what you write and worrying about it later. Plus lots of other entertaining advice too. Get it into your ear'oles now! And a big THANKS to Scrivener for sponsoring this season of the podcast! THANK YOU SCRIVENER! If you haven't tried Scrivener, you can sample their lovely wares for free for 30 days. OR you could just blummin well take our advice and buy a copy! and using our special code you can get 20% off! I know. Mental. You're welcome. Just go to https://www.literatureandlatte.com/ and use the code failing. Right. That's the Christmas presents sorted. Have a great…

People in this episode

Host: The Failing Writers Podcast

Guest: Doug Johnstone

Topics covered

  • writing advice
  • reader engagement
  • authenticity in writing
  • commercial writing
  • self-expression

Keywords

  • writing
  • readers
  • agents
  • authenticity
  • commercial edge
  • Doug Johnstone
  • Scrivener

Sponsors

Scrivener

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Acast

Books & works: The Failing Writers Podcast

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