{"id":573,"date":"2017-12-22T16:08:41","date_gmt":"2017-12-22T16:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.writingroutines.com\/?p=573"},"modified":"2018-01-05T19:08:21","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T19:08:21","slug":"i-research-3-new-york-times-bestselling-authors-spare-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.writingroutines.com\/i-research-3-new-york-times-bestselling-authors-spare-time\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Did Research For 3 New York Times Bestselling Authors (In My Spare Time)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m going to talk about research. No, research is not very fun, and it\u2019s never glamorous, but it matters.\u00a0A lot<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If you want to be able to make compelling case for something \u2014 whether it\u2019s in a book, on a blog, or in a multi-million dollar VC pitch \u2014\u00a0you need stories that frame your arguments, rich anecdotes to compliment tangible examples, and impressive data so you can empirically crush counter arguments.<\/p>\n

But good research doesn\u2019t just magically appear.\u00a0Stories, anecdotes and data\u00a0have to be found before you can use them.<\/p>\n

You have to hunt them down like a shark, chasing the scent of blood across the vast ocean of information. The bad news is that this is an unenviable task\u2026but the good news is that it\u2019s not impossible.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not even that hard\u2026once you learn what you\u2019re doing\u2014and I\u2019m going to teach you those skills.<\/p>\n

By the time I was 21, my research had been used by #1 New York Times<\/em> Bestselling authors like Robert Greene<\/a> and Tim Ferriss<\/a>. Was I a slave to study? Did I have to become a library hermit to accomplish this? No, I did it all in my spare time\u2014on the side, with just a few hours of work a week.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how I did it\u2026<\/p>\n

Step 1: Prepare long before gameday<\/h3>\n

In\u00a0The Black Swan<\/em><\/a>, Nassim Taleb proposes a test.<\/p>\n

Someone walks into your house and sees your many books on your many bookshelves. Have you really read all these? they ask. This person does not understand knowledge. A good library is comprised in large part by books\u00a0you haven\u2019t read<\/em>, making it something you can turn to when you\u00a0don\u2019t<\/em>\u00a0know something. He calls it: the Anti-Library.<\/p>\n

I remember once in college, the pride I felt about being able to write\u00a0an entire research paper<\/a>\u00a0with stuff from my own anti-library. We all have books and papers that we haven\u2019t read yet. Instead of feeling guilty, you should see them as an opportunity: know they\u2019re available to you if you ever need them.<\/p>\n

When I met Robert Greene and he asked me to become his research assistant, the only thing that changed was that I started getting paid.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d already\u00a0marked and organized hundreds of books<\/a>\u00a0with interesting leads and material and many other relevant books I had yet to get to. I had a Delicious account with countless links to articles and pages that might \u201csomeday\u201d be of use. I\u2019d been practicing on my own by researching examples of some of the famous laws in his books\u00a0after<\/em>\u00a0they\u2019d been published\u2014in case I ever got called up to the big leagues.<\/p>\n

This is the mark you must aim for as a researcher, to not only have enough material\u2014and to know where the rest of what you haven\u2019t read will be located\u2014on hand to do your work. You must build a library\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0an anti-library now\u2026before you have an emergency presentation or a shot at a popular guest post.<\/p>\n

Google is great, don\u2019t get me wrong, but you\u2019re screwed if you haven\u2019t prepared beforehand.<\/p>\n

Step 2: Learn to search (Google) like a pro<\/h3>\n

How do you find a needle in haystack? Get rid of the extra hay.<\/p>\n

What seems like an overwhelming mass of information is often mostly noise. Eliminate it. Take a tip I learned from Tim Ferriss. When he was researching for the secrets behind health and diet, he used a few specific hacks to drastically reduce the search area he needed to cover.<\/p>\n

For example, if he was looking for a high level athlete, he\u2019d go on Wikipedia and find the world\u2019s first and second-best athletes in that sport from a\u00a0decade ago<\/em>. Why? It meant there would be plenty of available material and unlike athletes currently on top of the world, these would be willing and available to talk.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d search Google with phrases like \u201c[My closest city] [sport] [\u2018Olympian\u2019 or \u2018world champion\u2019 or \u2018world record\u2019]\u201d A search for \u201cSan Francisco bobsled Olympian\u201d might get him a recently retired team doctor\u2014the perfect lead to start with.<\/p>\n

In other words, don\u2019t look for just any needle in your haystack of choice. Look for the\u00a0right<\/em>\u00a0needle.<\/p>\n

Me, I like to look for phrases, in order to find unlikely subjects.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say you were looking to talk about a great fighter pilot\u2014not some legendary WWII figure but someone current, relevant to today. You\u2019re not in the military, how are you supposed to find this guy? I like to think about it from the perspective of the writers who came before me, how would they have described the person I\u2019m trying to find? What superlatives would they use? Probably stuff like \u201cThe Last Ace,\u201d \u201cLiving Aces,\u201d or \u201cAmerica\u2019s greatest living airman.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019re looking for words that will appear in a profile or even in the headline of an article about the person you are looking to find, so that you can troll LexisNexis, Google News Archive, and even Google itself to find that person.<\/p>\n

The phrase \u201cThe Last Ace,\u201d as it turns out, happens to be the title of a fantastic article in\u00a0The Atlantic<\/em>\u00a0by Mark Bowden and now you\u2019ve got your fighter pilot (and one of the main subjects of Robert Greene\u2019s most recent book<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Step 3: Go down the rabbit hole (embrace serendipity)<\/h3>\n

A couple years ago, I was contributing to a project and needed to make an analogy to mountain climbing\u2014about a climber\u2019s feel for the mountain.<\/p>\n

Well, I don\u2019t know anything about rock climbing. But I did remember seeing a commercial once with the founder of Patagonia talking about how he loved it. I found my example but decided to take a chance with something more: buried in the founder\u2019s Wikipedia page was a mention of his friend, a named Fred Beckey. Who is he? I had no idea, but I started reading about him and it turns out he was awesome. And he led me to another climber, who ended up supplying me with the perfect quote.<\/p>\n

You have to embrace the accidental.<\/p>\n

In researching my own book<\/a>, which was sold to Penguin for\u00a0a major, six-figure advance<\/a>, I read nearly everything I could find about the history and ecology of media. But that\u2019s not where I found my best material.<\/p>\n

In a book about media (and my own personal experiences) I somehow made my strongest citations from\u00a0Ender\u2019s Game<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0The Long Goodbye<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Raymond Chandler,\u00a0All the King\u2019s Men<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Robert Penn Warren,\u00a0Status Anxiety<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Alain de Botton, and a handful of other books.<\/p>\n

Directly, these books had nothing to do with what I was writing about, but because my mind was primed to\u00a0see connections, I found them in the most unusual places.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t tell you how many leads I\u2019ve tracked down from random Wikipedia citations. Explore what you\u2019re curious about and know, and let it lead you to what you don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

One of my rules as a reader is to read one book mentioned in or cited in every book that I read. It not only solves the problem of \u2018what to read next\u2019 but it sends you on a journey down the rabbit hole.<\/p>\n

Step 4: When in doubt, turn to the classics<\/h3>\n

Remember, there is nothing new under the sun. And if we\u2019re all just saying the same things with new words, what quote is going to have more authority: one from Tacitus or some flavor-of-the-month blogger?<\/p>\n

For me, when I research, the blank icon of an out of print book on Amazon is a clue not just that I have found something unlikely to have been overused by others, but something I can mold to my purposes (plus they only cost like $.01!).<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a character in Murakami\u2019s\u00a0Norwegian Wood<\/em><\/a>\u00a0who wouldn\u2019t read books unless the author had been dead for 30 years. That\u2019s a little ridiculous, but it\u2019s a start.<\/p>\n

The Classics are \u201cclassic\u201d for a reason. They\u2019ve survived the test of time. Consider it the survivorship bias put to your advantage. Von Clausewitz once said that military historians love to cite Greek and Roman history because, as the oldest and most obscure, it is the easiest to manipulate. I don\u2019t see that as an admonishment, I see it as a helpful suggestion from a master of persuasion.<\/p>\n

Step 5: Keep a commonplace book<\/h3>\n

While researching\u00a0an article I wrote for Tim Ferriss\u2019s blog<\/a>, I discovered (and subsequently borrowed) a tool used by the famous essayist and experimenter Montaigne.<\/p>\n

Montaigne kept what he called a \u201ccommon place book\u201d\u2014a book of quotes, sentences, metaphors and\u00a0 miscellany that he could use at a moment\u2019s notice. I keep a more modern\u2014but still analog\u2014version of this book. I write everything down on 4\u00d76 note cards, which I file in boxes. (You could do this digitally, I suppose, but the physical arrangement\u2014being able to lay them out on a desk \u2014 is critical to my work)<\/p>\n

This means marking everything you think is interesting, transcribing it and organizing it. As a researcher, you\u2019re as rich as your database. Not only in being able to pull something out at a moment\u2019s notice, but that that something gives you a starting point with which to make powerful connections. As cards about the same theme begin to accumulate, you\u2019ll know you\u2019re onto a big or important idea.<\/p>\n

For me, I have two book ideas percolating, each about 200 index cards full. Will something come of them? I don\u2019t know, it depends on how many more connections I make, how many random coincidences align to bring those connections to light.<\/p>\n

All I know is that my last book (close to 1,000 cards) came together this way.<\/p>\n

Why research?<\/h3>\n

Maybe you\u2019re not a writer or a blogger. But, we\u2019ve all found ourselves in a position where we need to convince people to do things they are not inclined to do.<\/p>\n

When force is not an option, what do we do? We use the next best thing: persuasion. And when it comes to persuasion stories are important.<\/p>\n

Anecdotes are persuasive.<\/p>\n

Data dominates.<\/p>\n

These things do not appear from thin air, or fall in our lap. We must search for them like a professional.<\/p>\n

But as I\u2019ve shown, this doesn\u2019t need to consume your life. It can be done efficiently and expertly by focusing our efforts on the right levers. With preparation, we lengthen our runway. By eliminating noise, we drastically reduce the size of the search. With serendipity, we set ourselves up to be lucky and by relying on the classics, we give our arguments more weight. And by organizing and collecting this information properly, it is there wherever (and whenever) we need it.<\/p>\n

Even if our research isn\u2019t used today\u2014or even tomorrow\u2014it can still have immense value for us throughout our lives. I\u2019ll leave you with Seneca\u2019s persuasive case for noting, repeating and memorizing material\u2026<\/p>\n

My advice is really this: what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application \u2014 not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech \u2014 and learn them so well that words become works.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ready to create a writing routine of your\u00a0own?<\/h3>\n

Sign up now and receive our free guide \u201c12 Essential Writing Routines To Help You To Craft Your Own<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Learn from the routines of superstar authors\u00a0Stephen King, Gertrude Stein, John Grisham, Ernest Hemingway, Neil Gaiman, and many more.<\/em><\/p>\n

Get the free guide\u00a0here!<\/span><\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m going to talk about research. No, research is not very fun, and it\u2019s never glamorous, but it matters.\u00a0A lot. If you want to be able to make compelling case for something \u2014 whether it\u2019s in a book, on a blog, or in a multi-million dollar VC pitch \u2014\u00a0you need stories that frame your arguments, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow I Did Research For 3 New York Times Bestselling Authors (In My Spare Time)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The research process is not very fun, and it\u2019s never glamorous, but if you want to be a writer, it matters. 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