How to Carry Out Research for your Nonfiction Book
I know you may have been through a few courses, and you may have been handed different frameworks for doing research for a nonfiction book. But the framework I am about to give you is the one I use myself, and the one I teach the people I coach. It has produced books I am proud of, and it can do the same for you.
First of all, learn to obey what I call the law of profoundness.
This law states that a good book must be able to sustain some level of intellectual depth and insight from the first page to the last. It’s a shame that most writers make up for what they lack in depth by writing at length. They stretch one idea across three hundred pages and hope nobody notices that the well ran dry in chapter two.
Don’t get me wrong, I write lengthy books too. I have written books that are over 70,000 words. The difference is that every one of those words was earned. Length is only a virtue when depth is holding it up.
To write a book that’s profound, you need to do research. There is no shortcut around this, and no talent that replaces it. The rest of this article gives you strategies and tactics for doing it well, in five steps: gather, sift, organize, verify, and know when to stop.
Steps to Doing Research for a Nonfiction Book
Step 1: Congregate Ideas
Before you write a book, put together every possible piece of information and idea you can lay your hands on regarding your topic. Think of yourself as a farmer gathering the harvest before the market opens. You can always throw away what you don’t need, but you can never use what you didn’t gather.
For one of my books, I read over 100 books on the topic, along with dozens of articles I can’t even count. By the time I sat down to write the first chapter, I wasn’t guessing anymore. I was drawing from a deep well.
When I shared this on my timeline on Facebook several years ago, I got a lot of reactions. Many of them were positive, but a good number were negative. A few people argued that if you are truly knowledgeable on a subject, you don’t need that amount of research before writing a book. Some even said the reason I had to go through so many books was probably that I was a perfectionist who couldn’t accept that I already had enough data to work with.
We are all entitled to our own opinions. But I believe that a book should be well written, or it shouldn’t be written at all. So, I make sure I get all the information I need, and I advise you to do the same. You may not have to read as many books as I did (in Step 5, I’ll show you how to know when you’ve read enough), but make sure you aren’t serving your readers half-baked ideas just because you were too lazy to research your book properly. Your readers are trusting you with their time and, in some cases, their money, their health and their decisions. That trust deserves better than guesswork.
Here are some of the ways you can congregate ideas.
- Read books and take notes. One of the easiest and best ways to research your nonfiction book is to read other books on the subject and take notes while you read. Highlight, underline, scribble in the margins, and write down the ideas that make you stop and think. One major mistake a good number of people make when they want to write a nonfiction book is to read a few blog posts online and call it research. Blog posts give you fragments. Books give you the entire gist of the topic, from the foundations to the finer details.
As Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy once said, “Books are made out of books.” It is widely reported that Dale Carnegie read hundreds of biographies of successful people while preparing How to Win Friends and Influence People. Do you still wonder why, decades later, it’s still a bestseller
2. Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia, written and edited by volunteers around the world. Think of it as a quick map of the subject. When you are entering a subject you know little about, spend your first hour there, so you learn the vocabulary, the major names, and the big debates. Then scroll to the bottom of the article and study the references. Those links often lead you to the original studies, books and reports, and that’s where the real treasure is. Use Wikipedia as a starting point and never as a source you quote.
3. Answer The Public. This search tool shows you the real questions people type into search engines like Google, YouTube and Bing. For example, let’s say you’re a self-publisher looking to write a nonfiction book. It makes sense to start your keyword research around the term “nonfiction books.” You will see questions such as how long a nonfiction book should be, how to outline one, or how to find a publisher for one.
This gives you a sense of the questions other writers and readers have, and the challenges they face with the subject. When your research is guided by real questions, your book ends up answering what people actually want answered, instead of what you assumed they wanted. You can take the most common questions you find and turn them into chapter titles.
4. Google. Google is a great research tool, but most people use only the surface of it. Go deeper. Use quotation marks to search for exact phrases, and add “pdf” to your search to get reports and studies. Use Google Scholar when you want professional articles and journal publications, and click “Cited by” under a landmark paper (an influential study that many later researchers built on) to see everything that was written after it.
A simple habit will serve you well: when you find a useful article, don’t stop there. Ask yourself where the writer got the information, and go find that source. (And Google isn’t the only option. DuckDuckGo and Bing will sometimes show you pages Google buries.)
5. Quora. Quora is a question-and-answer website, and it’s very good for researching a book, because you get to see how real people phrase their questions, what confuses them, and where experts disagree. Dr. Jordan Peterson is a well-known example of its power. In 2012, he answered a Quora question about the most valuable things everyone should know, with a list of rules for life. The response drew a huge reaction, and it grew into his bestselling book, 12 Rules for Life.
The lesson for you is simple: the ideas you test in public today could become the chapters of your book tomorrow. Search your topic on Quora, read the questions with the most followers, and note the objections people raise in the answers. Your book should answer them.
6. Blogs. Blogs are valuable because people share ideas, experiments and personal stories there that never make it into print, and sometimes they show you angles no published book has touched. Many are written by practitioners such as doctors, coaches, engineers and entrepreneurs who are doing the work every day.
Look for the blogger’s credentials before you trust anything, because anyone can start a blog. When a post impresses you, read the comment section, too. The pushback often points to the weak spots in the argument, which can tell you where your book needs to be stronger.
7. Use the public library. Most people in many countries don’t make much use of libraries, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find valuable information there. Sometimes you will find out-of-print books that you won’t see in any online store, sitting quietly on a shelf. Make friends with a librarian. Librarians know where to find what you are looking for, and they can point you to archives, databases and collections you would never have thought to search. Ask about interlibrary loans, too. If your library doesn’t have the book, they can often borrow it from another library for you.
8. Newspapers, magazines, newsletters and journals. Newspapers and industry magazines show you what is happening now. If you’re researching a business book, for example, read publications like Forbes to see the trends and case studies shaping the industry. Newsletters, which experts write in their areas of specialty, are packed with insights that haven’t made it into books yet, so subscribe to a few in your niche.
Journals are scholarly publications written by researchers and professors for an academic or technical audience. There are journals in medicine, engineering, psychology and lots more, and they are where many of the statistics and findings you will later quote first appear. Don’t be intimidated by the jargon. Read the abstract and the conclusion first, and go deeper only if the study matters to your argument.
9. Interviews with experts. Interviews give you what books can’t: real-life experience, fresh stories and the unwritten lessons experts have picked up over years of practice. Let’s say you are writing a book in the health niche. You could interview a few doctors. If your sub-niche is the health of little children, you can go further and interview doctors and nurses who specialize in pediatrics. Interviewing experts might not come easily, as most of them are busy. But if you’re persistent and professional in your approach, you will eventually find some who will give you an audience.
Keep your request short, tell them exactly what you need and how long it will take, and make it easy for them to say yes. When you get a scheduled interview, prepare thoroughly so you don’t blow it. Research the person, and write out your questions in advance. Ask for stories, not just opinions, with questions like “Tell me about a time when…” and “What do most people get wrong about this?” Ask permission to record, and ask permission before you quote them in your book. Go to YouTube and watch how others have interviewed experts, and follow the format. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
10. Surveys. A survey is a list of questions designed to extract specific data from a particular group of people. You can run one by phone, by mail, over the internet, or at street corners and malls. Free tools like Google Forms make it easy to run one online. Imagine writing a book on workplace productivity and being able to say that you surveyed 500 employees and found that most of them lose hours every week to the same avoidable problem.
That one line gives your book credibility and originality, because nobody else has that data. Keep your questions short and neutral, and be honest about your sample size. Even a small survey can reveal patterns, as long as you don’t pretend it proves more than it does.
11. ChatGPT and other AI tools. AI tools can summarize complex topics, suggest angles you haven’t considered, and help you organize your notes in minutes. Use them to get started, to brainstorm questions, and to explain difficult concepts in plain language. But treat AI as a research assistant, never as the final authority. These tools can state wrong facts with total confidence, and they have been known to invent studies, statistics and quotes that sound completely real. Every claim an AI gives you must be checked against a credible source before it goes anywhere near your book (more on this in Step 4).
Step 2: Sift Through the Congregated Ideas
Remember we said earlier that before you write a book, you have to put together every possible piece of information and idea you can lay your hands on regarding the subject. Once that’s done, you can move to the next step, which is sifting through the congregated ideas. If gathering is the harvest, this is the separation of the grain from the chaff. In this step, you begin to select your information based on its direct relevance to the ideas and topic you’re writing about.
Here are the filters I use.
- Specific topic. For example, let’s say you want to write a book on health, and you have read lots of books in the health niche. In this step, you begin to select the few books that talk specifically about the area of health you intend to write about. Let’s say the area you’re focusing on is kidney health. Pick out all the books and materials that are more tailored to that specific topic.
You may be thinking, why don’t I just do this from the very beginning and go straight to books that talk about kidneys? The problem with this approach is that you may not have a holistic view of the subject, and you may miss out on some vital points. For instance, a writer on kidney health who has also studied diabetes, hypertension and nutrition will understand how they connect to the kidneys in ways a narrow reader never would. You are supposed to be an expert on the topic you write on, so a holistic understanding of the topic is vital.
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2. Date of publication. Not all books are evergreen in terms of their content. For example, a book like the one you’re reading now is evergreen because it deals with fundamental concepts of nonfiction book writing. Even thirty years from now, you will still need this type of knowledge to write a nonfiction book. But let’s say I had written on Amazon Kindle publishing. That might not be evergreen, because thirty years from now, Amazon Kindle publishing might be out of date and replaced with a better platform.
The same goes for medical guidelines, technology, marketing and law, where what was true ten years ago may be wrong today. After you have gone through lots of information, sift through it based on its date of publication. Some of the information may be outdated, and you need current data to work with.
3. Credibility of the author or source. Suppose I gave you two books on mental health. One was written by a well-known psychiatrist, while the other was written by someone who isn’t a psychiatrist but is an enthusiast of mental health. Which of the two would you assume to be more useful? It’s the book written by the psychiatrist, because of his credibility and the source of his knowledge.
A person who has spent years treating patients and publishing in the field carries a weight that an enthusiast can’t match. So, during this step of the research process, sort out the materials you have gone through based on credibility and source, and work with the ones that are more credible and come from well-known sources.
4. Number of references. Let’s say you have read 10 books on a particular topic, and you discover that in seven out of the ten, there was a particular book that all the authors referred to. It’s wise to check out that book, because if it weren’t important, those authors wouldn’t keep mentioning it. When many writers independently point to the same source, you have found one of the pillars of the subject. Reading it will deepen your understanding, and it will also protect you from the embarrassment of writing about a topic without knowing its most important work.
5. How easy it is to comprehend. Go through all the books and materials you have read and select the ones that were easier to comprehend and understand. You can re-read these books to gain more understanding. You could also use them as a framework for writing your own book. You don’t want your book to be too academic, because people don’t enjoy academic books. A good test is to ask yourself whether you could explain an idea to a friend over a meal without them getting lost. Write your books in a conversational tone, as if you were speaking face to face, in an informal way, with the reader.
6. Stories, quotes, statistics and research findings. Separate the books and resources that have stories, as you could use these stories in your own book. In my future articles on storytelling, we will talk more about how to find and use stories. You should also separate the books that have lots of research findings and statistics about the topic you’re writing on, as you will find this data useful when writing your own book. A well-placed statistic can make a reader sit up, and a strong finding can settle an argument before it starts. In the same way, set aside the books and resources that contain a lot of relevant quotes, which you can also use in your own book.
Step 3: Organize Your Notes
Gathering and sifting mean little if you can’t find what you collected when you’re writing chapter seven at midnight. I have seen writers lose weeks of work to messy notes, so build a system before you build a pile.
- Keep a source log. For every book, article, interview or website, record the title, author, date, page numbers and link in one place. A simple spreadsheet works. Add a column where you rate the source’s credibility, using the filters from Step 2.
- Capture quotes exactly, and ideas in your own words. When you copy a quote, copy it word for word, with the page number, and put it in quotation marks. When you’re recording an idea, write it in your own words. This protects you from accidentally plagiarizing someone later, because you’ll always know which words are theirs and which are yours.
- Tag everything by chapter. As you take each note, label it with the chapter or theme where it might belong, such as “Chapter 3: habits” or “story: the hospital”. When it’s time to write, you’ll open one tag and find your material ready.
- Keep a “stories, stats and quotes” file. This is the collection from Step 2, kept in one place for easy access. When you sit down to write a chapter, you’ll have your best material at your fingertips.
- Use the tool you’ll actually open. It can be a notebook, a Word document, index cards, a spreadsheet, or an app like Notion, or Evernote. The best system is the one you’ll actually use every day.
Step 4: Verify Before You Publish
A book that is profound but wrong is a disaster. Once your book is out, every error in it belongs to you, and your readers will blame you, not the source you got it from. Before any fact goes into your manuscript, put it through these checks.
- Trace it to its origin. Statistics tend to get repeated until nobody remembers where they came from. Follow the claim back to the original study, report or interview, and read what it actually says.
- Find two independent credible sources. If a claim appears in only one place, treat it with suspicion. If you can’t confirm it, either leave it out or tell the reader plainly that it’s unverified.
- Check the date and the context. A number that was true in 2005 may be wrong today, and a quote may mean something very different once you read what came before and after it.
- Be careful with famous quotes. Many quotes online are attributed to the wrong person. Verify them in a book, a transcript or the person’s own writing before you use them.
- Double-check anything from AI. Verify every statistic, quote, study and name an AI tool gives you, and confirm that the source exists. If you can’t find the source, don’t use the claim.
- Let an expert read it. For specialized subjects such as health, law and finance, ask a qualified professional to review the relevant chapters before publication.
Step 5: Know When to Stop
Research can become a hiding place. Some writers read for years because it feels safer than writing. Others stop too soon and publish shallow books. So here is how to tell when you have enough.
- You keep meeting the same ideas. When new books start repeating what you’ve already read, and the same sources keep appearing in their references, you’ve reached the point of diminishing returns.
- You can explain the topic to a beginner. You should be able to teach the subject simply and answer a skeptic’s strongest objections without checking your notes.
- Your outline is well supported. Every major point in your outline should have at least one solid piece of evidence, one story and one practical example behind it.
- Set a research window. Decide in advance how long you’ll research, whether that’s six weeks or three months, and then begin writing. You can still do targeted research for individual chapters as you go.
This is also my answer to the people who criticized me on Facebook. The number of books isn’t the point. Depth is. For one book, 100 was what I needed to reach it. For yours, a dozen or two solid books plus supporting articles, studies and interviews might get you there. Let the signs above decide, not a number.
Write a Book That Lasts
Follow the steps above, and you will be able to research and write a book that’s mind-blowing. Please refuse to be shallow. Write a book so profound that people will be happy to read it multiple times. Write a book so profound that your readers will marvel at the depth of your thinking and creativity.
People write for various reasons. Some write for impact and posterity, some for the vanity of it, and some for profit. Me? I write for all of the above reasons, and even beyond. That’s why I follow the law of profoundness. If you write for profit alone, you don’t have to bother yourself. Put ideas together within one week and make your money. There’s nothing wrong with that. But your book won’t have enough depth, and it probably won’t live long.
Dale Carnegie wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People close to ninety years ago, and to this day, no other book on personal relationships has buried it. That’s the kind of book you should write.
PS: Do you have ideas worth sharing and experiences worth documenting? Turning them into a complete nonfiction book takes more than inspiration. It takes clarity, structure, and consistency.
The 4-Week Nonfiction Book Writing Sprint helps you stop procrastinating and start making real progress on your manuscript, with a clear direction and a structured process to keep you moving.
You don’t need another year to think about your book. Give yourself four weeks.
