About the Podcast
Worst Bestsellers is a podcast where Kait, Renata, and a guest talk about popular books of questionable quality. It’s kind of like How Did This Get Made? or Mystery Science Theater 3000, but for books.
We want to be clear about something: we’re not snobs, honestly. If somebody only ever reads James Patterson books, or vampire books, or magazines: more power to them, we say. We’re reading these books because we’re curious about what’s popular, and also, reading these books gives us a better idea of what’s popular and how to give good readers advisory. We make jokes about the books we read, but our intent is never to make fun of readers.
Our theme music is “Big Gay Water Fight” by Plushgoolash. We are using it under its Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike license. Thanks, Plushgoolash!
Our podcast RSS feed and player use the WordPress plugin PowerPress. We record using Zencastr and edit using Audacity.
Our logo was created by Kitty of Bitches Get Riches. Thanks, Kitty!
We post new episodes every other Monday.
You can email us at worstbestsellers[@]gmail[.]com.
WBS In the Press:
- ‘The Worst Bestsellers’ podcast doesn’t want you to feel bad for liking ‘bad’ books (Boston Globe)
- 10 Podcasts that will make you feel like you’re in a book club (Boston Globe)
- The 27 Best Book Podcasts (Town & Country Magazine)
- The Worst Bestsellers Podcast Takes On Authors Like Stephen King, James Patterson and Jodi Picoult (Forbes.com)
- The 12 Days of Podmas – The Worst Bestsellers (Set The Tape)
- Every Book Has Its Reader (Improper Bostonian)
- 12 Podcasts for Librarians (Library Journal)
- Hearing Voices: Librarian-Produced Podcasts (American Libraries)
- 31 Podcasts for Every Type of Book Lover (Buzzfeed)
- 6 Podcasts You Should Already Be Listening To (The Tempest)
- The Week’s Best Podcasts (The Guardian)
- Podcast addict? Subscribe to these podcasts by Illinois researchers, alumni (UIUC)
- Q&A With Renata (Kirkus Reviews)
Note to authors and publicists: If you are a publicist who wants us to review your client’s book, please think twice. If you are an author whose publicist is pitching your book to Worst Bestsellers, you might want to get a new publicist. (YES, this really happens.) If you are an aspiring author who wants us to review your manuscript–we’re flattered that you think our input would be valuable, but we just don’t have the time or the expertise for that. If you’re serious about getting a non-worst book published, we recommend you pay an actual editor for manuscript review. Good luck, and we hope none of your books ever end up subjects of our podcast!
* Worst Bestsellers is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
(But no pressure, we’re also happy if you get these items from your local library or independent bookstore.)
Renata and Kait, doing a little light reading. Photo credit: Sarah Bay Photography
Kait and Renata, pretending to podcast in the outdoors. Photo credit: Sarah Bay Photography
About the Podcasters
KAIT is an aspiring children’s author with a boring day job. She lives in the Boston area where she spends a lot of time having brunch and talking about horror movies, comic books, and kidlit. Her favorite books include The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older, Iron Hearted Violet by Kelly Barnhill, Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link, Daughters Unto Devils by Amy Lukavics, and basically anything by David Levithan.
RENATA is a teen services librarian at a public library and a content editor for No Flying No Tights. She lives in the Boston area with Duarte, her adorable tyrant of a cat. She is a frequent competitor (and occasional winner) in Moth StorySlams. Her favorite books include Dramarama by E. Lockhart, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay, Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor, The Partly-Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell, White Cat by Holly Black, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, and pretty much any X-Men comic.
BECCA (editor emeritus) works in student services in one of Boston’s 10,000 colleges/universities by day and edits podcasts by night. Okay, just one podcast. But sometimes it takes several nights. When she’s not editing one podcast, she enjoys Dungeons & Dragons, crafting, baking things above her skill level, the McElroys’ oeuvre of nonsense, and naming every animal on her farm in Stardew Valley after characters from The Adventure Zone. Her favorite books include The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer, Saga by Brian K. Vaghan and Fiona Staples, I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson, and Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.
DUARTE is a full-time cat. He is very opinionated and likes having a media outlet to share his yowling.
KAIT AND RENATA have been friends for 15 20+ (!) years, after meeting on an internet message board for fans of the musical Rent. They are pretty much the worst.
Renata, Duarte, and Kait
Kait, Becca, and Renata
The Rock and Snikt. (Not pictured: Paper.) Photo credit: Sarah Bay Photography
