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In this episode of Don’t Write That Book, AJ and Mike share the method they’ve developed over thousands of interviews to pull great stories from people. You’ll learn how to prepare to maximize your time and even learn a trick from AJ to help with organizing information in the resulting transcriptions.
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“This is absolute biggest mistake besides not asking at all that people make with interviews, is they try to do a general interview on their topic. The solution is to find a specific teaching point from your book and ask to talk to them about that.”
—AJ Harper
“I think people have the wrong idea about why one would be interviewed for a book. The function is to provide more value for your readers, whether it’s entertainment value, emotional value, where they feel more seen and heard, or new insights. That’s the purpose of it, not promotion.”
—AJ Harper
“A rookie mistake I made is interviewing people who have notoriety who I think could help promote the book. And they’ve never promoted the book. And so it’s a mistake to get someone just because they could promote the book. It’s got to be a story that compliments the book.”
—Mike Michalowicz
“Here’s a tip: When a story comes up, capture it as quickly as possible. Usually in my little note taker, I use One Note from Microsoft. Maybe it’s a funny, interesting or profound story, and I don’t know how I’ll use it, but I have at least captured it.”
—Mike Michalowicz
