Hi everyone, I'm in the very early days of writing, it's all about the research at the moment. I'm writing a self-improvement book about progressing in one's career and I wonder, should I read the other books published on the same topic or should I avoid it? I don't want to risk losing my own voice by reading what others say about it, but at the same time, should I not know what is out there already? I don't mean reading studies and scientific research, I'll be doing that, I mean reading actual books by other authors. Thank you!
I would familiarize myself with the literature that already exists, partly to make sure you're not just repeating things that are already well covered, or at least not in the same ways. There's room for many books that overlap as long as they present info differently. But also I'd want to make sure that my own knowledge is up to par, not rudimentary compared to some of the other authors. Though I suppose there are different levels of self-help books. Example, I tried to create a course for beginner artists just to get them up to speed so they're ready for the more intermediate-advanced stuff you tend to find elsewhere. But I made sure to make that clear, so nobody came in expecting to learn advanced figure drawing skills or anything. I was trying to fill a gap that existed online at the time (that has since been filled to overflowing). And I made sure to look at many books, online articles etc, to broaden my understanding and make sure I didn't have any blind spots I was unaware of. I wanted to be thoroughly familiar with my subject matter. It's a case of nobody learning as much as the teacher, you need to be well prepared to answer any question.
Great ideas, thank you, Xoic! As you can tell, I'm new to this . So expect a few more beginner's questions from me! But this is a great start, thank you so much! I suppose avoiding other books was just a way to protect myself from finding that there is no point in writing this book because it has all been said before. But as you said, as long as the book is presented differently, there is room for many books. And yes, I must make sure my own knowledge is up to par! I'm excited and scared at the same time! What an emotional rollercoaster, and I haven't even properly started yet!
Oh, absolutely! Yeah, there is a time to go into isolation to protect fledgling ideas that must be nurtured in safety, and a time to take them out and show them the big bad world—see if they're strong enough to survive it (if you've done your job raising them).
You should definitely read everything you can find about the subject when wading into the nonfiction and/or academic field. As @Xoic said, you want to see what has been published already to get a general sense of the conversation.
Thank you all! I'll go deep into research now. I wonder, is there a thread somewhere here that talks about how different people do non-fiction research? I tried searching through the various sections and threads and haven't found anything yet.
Oh yeah. I am writing memoirs with adventure, comic events and danger involved if there is any so I like to read other similar stories.
