Writing & publishing
Guide
How to Self-Publish a Book
How to self publish a book step by step: editing, ebook and print formats, cover and interior design, ISBNs, distribution, metadata, pricing and launch.
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Guide
How to Research a Book
To research a book, start with a list of questions for each chapter rather than a reading list, then match every claim to the kind of source that can support it: documents, data, published scholarship, interviews or your own records. Keep one note per idea with its full source and page, fact-check the finished manuscript claim by claim, and stop researching once new sources stop changing what you would write.
Last updated 8 min read
Writing & publishing
Key takeaways
- Plan research chapter by chapter as a list of questions, and separate facts you must verify from background reading.
- Different claims need different evidence: a date wants a primary record, a statistic wants its original publisher, a quotation wants the original text.
- Libraries, archives, official statistics and people often hold better material than a general web search turns up.
- Every note should carry its full source and page, and should mark clearly whether it is a quotation, a paraphrase or your own thought.
- Fact-check the finished manuscript claim by claim, and stop researching when new sources no longer change what you would write.
Start with questions, not a reading list
The usual way to research a book is to read widely around the subject and hope the useful parts stick. It feels productive, but it produces piles of notes that do not map onto chapters. A better start is your outline. For each chapter, write the questions it must answer and the claims it will make, then research those.
Suppose you are writing a history of your city's water supply. One chapter might need to answer: When was the first reservoir built, and why there? Who paid for it? What did residents drink before? Which outbreaks of disease pushed the city to act? Each question tells you what kind of source to look for, and when the question is answered, you can stop.
Split the list into two kinds. Must-verify items are the facts, figures, quotations and descriptions of real people that readers could check. Background items help you understand the subject but will not appear as claims. Must-verify items get careful sourcing; background reading gets a time limit.
Match each claim to the right kind of source
A reliable book rests on matching evidence to the claim. A newspaper feature is fine for a sense of public mood and weak for a precise statistic. A scholarly book is strong on interpretation, but you should still trace any striking figure in it back to where it first appeared. The distinction between primary and secondary sources is the key idea here: get as close to the original evidence as the claim requires.
| Claim | Strongest source | Acceptable fallback | Avoid relying on |
|---|---|---|---|
| A date or event | Records from the time: minutes, letters, official documents, newspapers of the period | A well-sourced scholarly history | Undated web pages |
| A statistic | The original report or dataset from the body that collected it | A reputable outlet that names and links that body | A figure repeated without any source |
| A quotation | The original text, speech or recording | A scholarly edition or a transcript from a reliable publisher | Quotation collections and social media posts |
| How something works | Peer-reviewed research or a recognized expert you interview | Textbooks and professional guidance | Opinion pieces |
| What an experience is like | Your own records or interviews with people who lived it | Published memoirs and oral histories | Composite stories presented as real |
Where to research a book beyond a web search
Search engines show you what is popular and recent. Book research often needs what is old, specialized or held offline. These are the places worth adding to your routine:
- Public and university libraries, including their librarians, who can point you to specialist databases and collections. Ask about interlibrary loan for books your library does not hold.
- Archives and special collections: local history centers, company and institutional archives, and national archives, many of which have searchable catalogs online.
- Scholarly databases and search tools for peer-reviewed research, which often lead you to the earlier studies a claim actually rests on.
- Official statistics and public records from government agencies, courts and regulators, usually the original source of the figures that get repeated elsewhere.
- Trade and professional publications, which record how an industry describes itself at a particular moment.
- People: practitioners, witnesses and specialists, who can explain what documents leave out.
How to research a book through interviews
Interviews give a book what documents cannot: explanation, detail and voice. They also create obligations to the people you speak to, so set the terms clearly. For a book, the essentials are:
- 1Read what the person has already published or said, so you spend the interview on what only they can tell you.
- 2Explain the book, how the interview will be used and whether they will be named, and agree what is on or off the record before you begin.
- 3Ask permission to record, and keep the recording and your notes together with the date.
- 4Ask open questions, then follow up on specifics: names, dates, places and the exact words someone used.
- 5Confirm spellings of names, job titles and organizations before you finish.
- 6Before publication, check facts and quotations with the person where practical. Checking accuracy is different from giving them approval of your text, so be clear about which you are offering.
Keep notes you can still trust two years later
A book takes long enough that you will forget where most of your notes came from. Build the system for that future self. Keep one note per idea, not one note per source, so notes can be moved between chapters. Every note carries a full citation and a page number or timestamp, recorded at the moment you take it.
Mark each note as one of three things: a direct quotation, a paraphrase, or your own thought. Simple prefixes such as Q, P and ME work well. This is what prevents accidental plagiarism when a note written months ago ends up in the manuscript in words you no longer recognize as someone else's. Tag notes by chapter, and keep a dated research log of what you searched and where, so you never repeat a dead end. The guide to how to avoid plagiarism explains why careful writers still copy wording by accident, and how clear quoting and paraphrasing prevent it.
Fact-check the manuscript before it leaves your hands
Even careful authors introduce errors while drafting: a date mistyped, a quotation smoothed into better grammar, a figure carried over from an old note. Many publishers expect the author to be responsible for factual accuracy, so plan a dedicated fact-checking pass after revision and before copyediting. Allow real time for it: a chapter dense with figures and quotations can take as long to check as it took to revise.
Work through the manuscript and list every checkable claim: names, dates, numbers, quotations, descriptions of real people and places. Trace each one back to its note and, for anything important, back to the original source. Compare quotations word for word. Where sources disagree, say so in the text or choose the better-supported version and record why. Techniques for judging a weak source, including lateral reading, are covered in how to evaluate a source.
Know when to stop, and what you may need permission for
Research expands to fill the time you give it. A useful signal that you have enough is saturation: new sources repeat what you already have, and you can explain where the main sources disagree and why. At that point, more reading is usually a way of avoiding the draft. Leave a placeholder for the last missing details and write.
Research also brings permission questions. Long extracts, poems, song lyrics, photographs, maps and charts may need permission from the rights holder, and the rules vary by country. This is general information, not legal advice, so ask your publisher or a qualified adviser about specific cases. If you are writing historical fiction, the same habits apply, with one addition: research for texture, such as clothing, prices, travel times and everyday speech, rather than trying to know everything.
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01How long should you research before writing a book?
Research the questions your outline raises, not the whole subject, and start drafting as soon as you can write the first chapters with confidence. Most authors keep researching while they draft, marking gaps with placeholders and filling them in focused sessions. If new sources stop changing what you would write, you have reached saturation and should switch your effort to writing.
02How can I research a book without university library access?
Start with your public library, which may offer interlibrary loan, database access and librarians who know specialist collections. Many archives, government statistics and older books are available online at no cost, and much recent research is published open access. Some university libraries also offer access arrangements for visiting researchers or members of the public, so it is worth asking.
03How do you organize research for a book?
Keep one note per idea with the full source and a page number, mark each note as a quotation, a paraphrase or your own thought, and tag it with the chapter it belongs to. Keep a dated research log of searches and dead ends. Organizing by idea and chapter, rather than by source, makes the notes usable when you draft.
04Do I need permission to quote sources in my book?
Short quotations used for commentary or criticism are often allowed without permission, but the rules differ by country and no single word count decides it everywhere. Long extracts, poems, song lyrics, images and charts often need permission from the rights holder. This is general information rather than legal advice, so check with your publisher or a qualified adviser.
05How do you research a historical novel?
Begin with a good general history of the period, then move to primary sources: letters, diaries, newspapers, maps and photographs from the time. Focus on what your characters would see, wear, eat, buy and say, and keep a note of where each detail came from. You do not need every fact, only the ones your scenes actually use.
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