Book Proposals, Writing Non-Fiction, And Supercommunicators With Charles Duhigg

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Book Proposals, Writing Non-Fiction, And Supercommunicators With Charles Duhigg"

Podcast Information

• Title: The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
• Host/Author: Joanna Penn
• Description: Writing Craft and Creative Business
• Episode: Book Proposals, Writing Non-Fiction, And Supercommunicators With Charles Duhigg
• Release Date: December 16, 2024

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Introduction

In episode number 785 of The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers, host Joanna Penn engages in a profound conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Charles Duhigg. The discussion delves into Charles's approach to crafting successful book proposals, his intricate writing process for non-fiction works, and insights from his latest bestseller, Super Communicators. The episode provides valuable takeaways for both aspiring and established authors looking to refine their writing and publishing strategies.

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About Charles Duhigg

Charles Duhigg is a distinguished Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist associated with The New Yorker magazine. He gained widespread acclaim with his bestseller The Power of Habit, which spent three years on the New York Times list. His latest work, How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection, continues to solidify his reputation as a leading voice in non-fiction writing. In this episode, Charles shares his journey into book writing, motivations behind his projects, and the meticulous efforts that contribute to his success.

Notable Quote:

“The process of writing a book I found is such a total joy and overwhelmingly hard because you get to get so deep into the material...” — Charles Duhigg [21:00]

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Writing Book Proposals

Charles emphasizes the critical role of a detailed book proposal in non-fiction writing. Unlike fiction, where manuscripts are submitted directly, non-fiction relies heavily on comprehensive proposals to secure publishing deals and advances. He outlines his strategy of developing a 50 to 70-page proposal that not only outlines the book's structure but also includes sample chapters filled with anecdotes and interviews to demonstrate the writing style and depth of research.

Notable Quote:

“I'm trying to prove to myself as much as my editor, there's enough here for a book...” — Charles Duhigg [26:14]

Charles advises authors to allocate significant time—typically six to twelve months—to craft a thorough proposal. This investment not only solidifies the book’s foundation but also instills publisher confidence, often resulting in larger advance payments.

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The Writing Process

Charles shares his disciplined approach to organizing research and drafting chapters. His method involves conducting extensive interviews, often with 15 to 30 experts, to gather diverse perspectives and insights. He meticulously transcribes these interviews, takes detailed notes, and distills key ideas into index cards. This system allows him to map out each chapter's flow and ensure that only the most relevant information is included.

Notable Quote:

“I'm creating an index of all, everything I've learned... I just have to think about getting it onto these cards.” — Charles Duhigg [31:18]

Once his research is organized, Charles collaborates closely with his editor to refine the narrative structure, ensuring that each chapter is both informative and engaging. This iterative process involves revisiting and reorganizing the index cards to align with the overarching theme of the book.

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Insights into "Super Communicators"

"Super Communicators" explores the science behind effective communication and the art of building genuine connections. Charles discusses how good writing mirrors a conversational exchange, anticipating readers' questions and objections to maintain engagement. He emphasizes the importance of viewing writing as a dialogue, where the author preempts the reader's thoughts and responds within the text itself.

Notable Quote:

“Good writing... is writing that invites people who disagree with us into the conversation...” — Charles Duhigg [42:42]

Charles highlights techniques such as embedding a protagonist as a proxy for the reader and fostering an atmosphere of mutual understanding. This approach not only keeps readers engaged but also prevents miscommunication, making the content more relatable and impactful.

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Communication in the Digital Age

Addressing the prevalence of online communication among authors, Charles posits that written communication should emulate the dynamics of face-to-face conversations. He suggests that authors anticipate their audience's responses and structure their writing to reflect a conversational tone, making readers feel heard and understood.

Notable Quote:

“If you start a chapter... let me explain. That's a really good question.” — Charles Duhigg [37:14]

By adopting this conversational approach, writers can create a more immersive and engaging experience for their readers, bridging the gap between author and audience even in a digital format.

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Dealing with Fear of Cancellation

Charles tackles the contemporary anxiety among authors regarding miscommunication and the potential for being "canceled." He advises maintaining a focus on understanding rather than persuading or proving a point. By approaching conversations with curiosity and the intention to understand the other person's perspective, authors can engage in meaningful dialogues without falling into the trap of confrontation.

Notable Quote:

“Our goal... is to understand how someone else sees the world and to speak in such a way that they can understand how you see the world.” — Charles Duhigg [42:42]

He underscores that emphasizing empathy and openness fosters connections that transcend disagreements, mitigating fears of negative backlash.

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Advice on Making Money with Books

When discussing monetization, Charles underscores the importance of aligning book topics with audience interests. While personal passion is vital, writing solely for oneself without considering reader interest may limit a book's success. He encourages authors to serve their audience by selecting topics that resonate broadly while retaining depth and authenticity.

Notable Quote:

“If you want to make a living as a writer, you can't indulge just your own interests. You have to be a servant of the reader.” — Charles Duhigg [49:57]

He advises authors to balance personal expertise and curiosity with market demand, ensuring their work appeals to a substantial readership.

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Charles's Definition of Success and Goals

Charles reflects on his evolving career, emphasizing that his definition of success remains consistent: to write work that is beautiful, true, and captivating. Despite achieving significant accolades, he remains driven to explore new ideas and continue producing compelling narratives.

Notable Quote:

“My definition of success is to write things that are beautiful and true and that people are desperate to finish.” — Charles Duhigg [48:13]

This unwavering commitment to quality ensures that each new project maintains the high standards that his readers expect.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with Joanna Penn summarizing key takeaways from her discussion with Charles Duhigg. She highlights the significance of detailed book proposals, the disciplined writing process, and the essence of meaningful communication. Joanna encourages listeners to reflect on their writing practices, integrate these insights, and prioritize reader engagement to achieve both creative fulfillment and commercial success.

Notable Quote:

“I raised my eyebrows at how significant his book proposals are and how much work he does up front, but that together with how he focuses on the reader also demonstrate why his books are such a success.” — Joanna Penn [52:08]

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Key Takeaways

1. Comprehensive Book Proposals: Develop detailed and substantial book proposals to secure publisher confidence and larger advances.
2. Structured Writing Process: Organize research methodically using interviews, note-taking, and index cards to streamline chapter development.
3. Conversational Writing: Emulate the dynamics of a conversation in writing to engage and connect deeply with readers.
4. Empathy over Persuasion: Focus on understanding and empathy in communication to build meaningful connections and mitigate miscommunication fears.
5. Audience-Centric Topics: Align writing topics with audience interests to enhance marketability while maintaining depth and authenticity.
6. Consistent Definition of Success: Maintain a clear and consistent personal definition of success, driven by quality and reader engagement.

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of Joanna Penn's interview with Charles Duhigg, offering actionable insights for writers aiming to enhance their craft and navigate the complexities of publishing successfully.

Transcript

[Joanna Penn]

Welcome to the Creative Pen Podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, craft and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots [e-mail] and that's Pen with a double N. And here's the show. Hello Creatives, I'm Joanna Penn and this is episode number 785 of the podcast and it is Saturday the 14th of December 2024. As I record this in today's show, I talk to Pulitzer Prize winning writer Charles Duhigg about his book Super Communicators and he gives some really interesting insights into his book proposal and his writing process as well as how to deal with the fear of being cancelled. Plus his advice if you want to make money with your books. So that's coming up in the Interview section in Writing and publishing things. TechCrunch reports on a talk by HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray given at a media and communications conference. Murray said that audiobooks continue to outsell ebooks in terms of total revenues and are helping to offset declines from lagging ebook sales. So I think this is really fascinating and I had two thoughts on this. One is that audiobook revenue and they said revenue, not numbers sold because revenue can still be higher for a smaller volume as audiobooks can be more profitable. I also think secondarily that this is going to go the way of ebooks because I think part of that decline or he said lagging ebook sales part of that is because so many more ebooks are being borrowed as part of unlimited programs rather than sold. And the numbers are also different because pages read or minutes listened are different to number of books sold. Of course, if you measure revenue, it doesn't really matter. I certainly measure revenue instead of number of books sold. But this is an interesting thing for us to reflect on as well. So if that is true for you, then that's also true for HarperCollins. Murray was positive about the entry of Spotify into the audiobook market, while Amazon owned Audible had been able to monetize the core audiobook listener. Spotify's model taps into the potential around the occasional audiobook listener because there isn't a commitment to so many books per year you can sample. And he said, I think the entry strategy of 15 hours for free. We know a year later that entry strategy has been very successful for Spotify. And personally as an audiobook listener, this is why I've switched from Audible to Spotify. I love being able to dip in and out of audiobooks instead of choosing just one per month with a credit. He also discussed AI, saying that AI could help in areas of the business like marketing and selling. Yes, it's funny to me that publishers are just the same as us, they're far more interested in the books, but the marketing and selling is the bit where they want help with, he said. There are already dozens of initiatives across departments at HarperCollins where they're trying to realize productivity improvements from AI. He said AI could be useful for audiobooks too. It will allow the company to make audiobooks for smaller markets where it couldn't before justify the expense. Book translations will also expand, opening up more revenue opportunities further down the road. HarperCollins foresees how the technology could help turn books into film, saying you can imagine taking a manuscript, pouring it in and having a movie script or television script come out and then use OpenAI's Sora to storyboard. And yes, there's a lot of potential there, but of course there's a lot more that will need to be done to turn things into different formats. But it is interesting that HarperCollins themselves are saying there are dozens of initiatives across departments where they're trying to realise productivity improvements from AI. So I guess this kind of sags into the AI things as you might not know what SORA is. It finally got released this week as part of the overwhelming number of AI things that also got released in the same week as AI. OpenAI and Google went head to head in overwhelming everyone with possibilities. I mean seriously, it was crazy and it's still not over as I record this. OpenAI has a 12 Days of Christmas where they're just releasing something every business day for 12 days. They launch text to video creation model Sora S O R A.com it is not available here in the UK or in Europe and this annoys me as you can imagine as I can't try it, but you might be able to depending on where you are in the world. Or at least check out some of the [e-mail] I'm currently using Midjourney for images and Runway ML to turn those into video. You can see my book trailer for Blood Vintage as an example of that. So I am looking forward to playing with Sora when I can. There were lots of other things released, for example the full O1 reasoning model from OpenAI. Amazon launched their own Nova models, Google launched Gemini 2 and a new kind of quantum computing chip. Way over my head that's for sure. And on a slightly more applicable. Note They've announced you will soon be able to interact with the NoteBookLM audio host. So if you remember the custom generated podcasts you can get with NotebookLM, you'll now be able to actually ask the host questions and interact with them. I'm really looking forward to trying that. I will talk about things more as I find use cases for things, but this is what I wanted to emphasize because people keep asking me like oh, how should I use this? And the point is you don't have to use any of these tools or any tools at all. Don't start with the tool in mind. Don't say oh, here's a new tool, what can I do with it? It's more a case of Start with your situation, what is your situation and what do you need help with? So for example, one of the first things I use ChatGPT and Claude for was creating sales descriptions from my book. And I still this is one of my definite use cases. I upload the entire book and I ask it to write a sales description and it does an incredible job. I just recently did that for how to Write Non Fiction, the second edition. Remember to read the terms and conditions before uploading anything. I'm quite happy to upload my work. I think this is the perfect use case because it's so hard to write a sales description. So all my short stories, all my books, like everything in the last few years I've done this. I use ChatGPT and Claude AI and then I edit the best of both together and then I send it to my editor. But that use case, that was a problem that I have that many authors have and the LLMs do it for me and I love the result. Perfect. I also love using Perplexity AI and also ChatGPT for research, although Google just released Google Research, which I want to play with, looks fascinating. I use the tools for book discovery and comparison titles. As I mentioned, I love Midjourney for images, I love descript.com for audio editing with text. And Otter AI is still the best at speech to text transcription when it's not just an American male accent. It is amazing how many tools are designed for the American male. But yes, OSSA AI seems very good in different accents. And those are just some examples of how I use AI tools in my business. So start with your challenge or your task, then look for a tool to help you and if you tried a tool a few months ago, try it again. For example, Google's Gemini is increasingly good at things. It hasn't really been one We've talked about a lot, but it is getting very, very good. Or try the new 01 model on ChatGPT. A friend of mine who just couldn't work with the ChatGPT4O model tried with this 01 and said it was amazing. Suddenly she was able to use it in the way she wanted to. It kind of worked with her brain, so that's very cool. So just try things again. And why I think this is so important is because of the accelerationist US Administration coming into office in I guess just over a month. As this goes out in early 2025, the development of AI is only going to speed up. So consider how you might use your day job in your home life, in your creative and business processes as an author. And of course you don't have to use the tools for writing. But so much of what we do is not writing finished words that we publish and we already use a ton of different tools. Everything is speeding up and it's important to have a curious attitude as we move into 2025 as the changes get bigger. And as ever, we would like to surf the wave of change together rather than drown in it. And in fact, Monica Lionel had a related article on her author analyst substack this week entitled How Creatives Might Survive and Thrive in a Post Productivity World. I always love to read Monica's stuff and she says I'm hearing from more and more writers that AI tools are part of their process. Part of brainstorming, outlining, writing or editing, part of dictation or transcription, part of their marketing process to get their work onto more platforms, part of their process to get their work into more formats. And Monica says, I think we're entering an era of post productivity where faster and more will need to give way to a new kind of better. And this is exactly what I've said before. AI can generate endless words much faster than you or I. Word generation is meaningless. Writing fast is not a superpower because AI can do that faster than any of us and not get tired and we have to be different, not trying to compete with the machines. And Monica gives some tips around building and fostering relationships with readers. And obviously I call this doubling down on being human. She also says top of funnel content is out. AI can create all the generic listicles and whatever else has been topping buzzfeed and corporate owned blogs for the last decade. If you're a content creator, which we all are, people instead want deep content, personalized content, connective content, and innovative content. So some of these examples include world building larger story arcs, specificity around our personal experience, authenticity and she uses the word embodiment or I guess in person stuff plus futuristic novelty insights, personal reflections. All of this. And I totally agree with this and this is part of why I wanted to do the second edition of how to Write Non Fiction because I wanted to include memoir and a lot more personal stuff and I wanted to emphasize the differences between books that can be generated and books that have to be crafted from your human experience and those are the ones that will change your life and the lives of others. And there's a lot more in the article and although I don't agree with it all, I always find Monica a deep thinker around these business and creativity topics. So links in the show Notes as ever so in personal news, I am still narrating the audiobook of how to Write Non Fiction, the second edition and narration is hard work. You do have to kind of perform an audio book, but it is so worthwhile. And part of the reason to do this second edition was so I could narrate it the first edition from 2018. I paid a narrator to do that and now I can't imagine having someone else do my non fiction. At least the pre orders are up for the ebook, the audiobook and the digital bundles on my store creativepennbooks.com they will go live on the 1st of January 2025 and also available for pre order on the other stores for the 31st of January. I also just got the paperback edition from Book Vault and it has a lovely teal colour font. On this second edition I've used the same cover, just a different colour font. There's also the hardback will have a ribbon and a flyleaf cover. There's also a workbook and I will be setting up all these print editions and I might even have them for sale before New Year since of course if you order them they won't arrive until after New year since they'll need to be printed. You can see the editions and the pre [e-mail] forward slash write nonfiction 2 that's the number 2. Thecreativepen.com writenonfiction 2 Also, I mentioned over the last few weeks that I was going to do a full day workshop on this in February, but we have a couple of family things going on that mean I can't plan ahead and I might have to cancel it. When you're booking events you have to put deposits down and I don't want to disappoint people and so I'VE just decided not to do that event for now and that has pros and cons. I wanted to do an in person thing, but it's just not possible to plan like that at the moment. But it does mean I can refocus on fiction once January I guess I'll be doing a lot of launch stuff in January, but I'll also be refocusing on fiction. I'm excited about that. I have a couple of short stories I want to write, and those short stories will be exclusive to my short story anthology, which will be my next Kickstarter. And hilariously, this will be my fifth Kickstarter in a fifth subgenre, because short story anthologies are a whole different beast. Again, I find this quite funny, but as I have said many times now, I'm 50 in 2025 and so I want to do all these creative things that may or may not be commercially viable, but I'm still excited about short stories are these weird things because most of them don't go into print unless they do appear in an anthology or something. So I'm really excited about that. That if you have done a short story anthology of your own, like a collection, I guess I would love to know. Any tips, you can always email me joannathecreativepen.com because putting one together is interesting for sure. So thanks for your emails and comments and photos this week. Hello to Leah and her son Henry listening from Walton county in Florida. We enjoy listening to the show. I'm a long time teacher, he's in middle school. We listen on our drive into school. We travel 30 minutes from the rural end of our county to the beach each day. We see baby goats and dolphins most mornings. That is lovely. And hello to Leah and Henry. Thanks for listening. Tyreen says thanks for the last two episodes. They really resonated with me. I'm working on having a business mindset because I do want my books to get read. But I will be writing anyway even if no one reads my work. Love it enough to keep writing. And I love so much that Tiffany Yates Martin said, remember the power of your story. And also Sue Ann said on Tiffany's interview. That was a great and uplifting discussion at a time when my overwhelm was immobilizing me. Thank you. Yes, overwhelm can definitely get us, I must say, sort of commenting back on the AI stuff in the last week to 10 days it was like yeah, that's too much. Like stop it already. Thanks to people who sent pictures. Noreen sent photos of the cemetery where her parents are buried in Ogden, Utah with some lovely deer. Every winter the deer come down from the mountains and graze in the cemetery. A small herd of mule deer are there with mountains in the background. It looks beautiful. Monica sent a yummy picture listening while I was making chocolate cranberry cookies. We're at that time of year. Yum. Very nice. And Lindsay sent a picture from the Jim English Cemetery outside of Crockett, Texas down three very dusty country roads. I love that Crockett, Texas to a British person that just sounds super wild Westy. And Lindsay says the cemetery has some veterans of the Texas Revolution and they have Texas Star on the graves. Very cool. Okay Please leave a comment on the podcast show [e-mail] or on the YouTube channel message me on X the Creative Pen. Email me, send me pictures of where you're listening. JoannaTheCreativePenn.com I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital Self Publishing with support and this is one of the great reasons you might choose to publish through Draft 2 Digital. They have a human customer service team who can help you. And in fact, going back to that overwhelm point, if you are overwhelmed with self publishing, Draft 2 Digital is possibly the easiest solution. Sometimes you just need some help. You can publish ebooks to all the big platforms as well as library systems. You can also publish print books and they can help you through that process too. They have formatting tools as well as an easy publishing system. I use drafts of digital for my ebook distribution to Nook Library Systems and now even to Apple. I use the excellent payment splitting for my co written book the Relaxed Author with Mark Leslie Lefebvre. A great option if you're co writing. There are no charges for formatting or updating your book. They take a distributor 10% of retail price on sale. No upsells, no service packages, no fees of any kind. Set your price to whatever you want, even free. Make as many changes as you want to your book. Update the COVID Distribute it to any and every sales channel you want. It's your book, your choice and your world. They also have marketing tools and promotional opportunities available. Draft 2 Digital says your book is your priority. Our priority is you. We build tools and services that let you focus on writing while we take care of layout, publishing, distribution, print on demand paperbacks and more. Check them [e-mail] that's for the number two draft2digital.com so this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription and editing. But my time in creating the show is sponsored by my [e-mail]. thanks to the eight new patrons who've joined this week and thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. If you join the community, you get access to all my backlist videos and audio covering creativity and writing, mindset, business, marketing, AI and more, and my patron only Q and A solo shows and my office hours on video. Last week I put out an article reflecting on Seth Godin's latest book, this Is Strategy and my thoughts on putting it into action. The Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. You get access to everything, all the backlist content and Q&As. So if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon.com P-A T-R-E-O-N.com TheCreativePen Right, let's get into the interview.

[Charles Duhigg]

Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, a reporter at the New Yorker magazine and a multi award winning author whose book the Power of Habit spent three years on the New York Times list. His latest New York Times best selling book is how to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. So welcome to the show, Charles.

Thank you for having me. This is such a treat.

Oh no, I'm excited to talk to you. So first up, why did you get into writing books when journalism has clearly been such a success for you?

Well, it actually started. My wife was pregnant with our first child and we didn't have any money. And so I thought, okay, I'll go write a book. Maybe that'll give me enough money that maybe we can find a decent place to live. And what I found in the process of writing the book, my first book was the Power of Habit about the science of habit formation. And it really came out of my own problems and questions, right. I wanted to figure out how to improve my habits, how to be able to lose weight and exercise more easily. And the process of writing a book I found is such a total joy and overwhelmingly hard because you get to get so deep into the material. You get to understand what's going on, not only what experts are telling you and what stories stories you ought to tell, but also you get to think about the ideas in really profound ways. And that just kind of became an addiction for me. I've really enjoyed writing books, even though if you Asked me in the middle of them, I would tell you it's the worst thing I've ever done in my entire life.

Well, yes, all of us listening understand that. But it is interesting because, I mean, there's a lot of comparisons, I guess, to your journalism. You do interview a lot of people and you include a lot of that. But how is the process of these longer form the books different to your journalism pieces?

Yeah, so it's a little akin to writing magazine pieces because oftentimes for the magazine piece, I'll write 8 to 12,000 words. And each chapter of a book is about 75 to 9,500 words. And so it's not that far off. The difference is that when I'm writing a magazine piece, I can just write a magazine piece about whatever the topic is. Right. I can write about AI or I can write about the politics with a book. Look, you're writing the equivalent of, let's say, eight to ten magazine pieces. But there has to be something that ties them together. There has to be an overarching argument or an overarching idea that every chapter reflects in a different way. And finding that idea can take a long time. The two hardest parts, I think, of writing a book are, first of all, deciding what topic to write on. Oftentimes it takes me a year or two to really figure out a topic that I think is going to be interesting and that I think readers are going to think is interesting. And then it oftentimes takes another year or six months to figure out what the overarching argument is. It's not obvious from the reporting oftentimes what that connective tissue is, but it's my job to find it.

That's really interesting that it takes you a year or two to figure out what you want to write. And you mentioned there what you're interested in, but also what the readers want. So what is that process? Because this is something we all struggle with a lot of. You know, I write fiction as well, and many of much of my audience do. How do you find where those two things interconnect?

I think a big part of it is you just have to. You have to indulge things and then be prepared for them not to be successes. Right. So take Super Communicators. My most recent book, which is about the science of communication. It originally started with me trying to figure out, like, why some people were better listeners than others. And I thought it was a book about listening. But the thing is that, like, as I talked about it with my editor and as I did research. I realized listening is a little boring on its own. Right. Most people don't wake up saying, I really want to be a great listener. They say, I want to be a great listener, and I want other people to listen to me. And so it took a little while to figure out, okay, this is actually about communication. And then once we started figuring out it was about communication, it also got a little bit boring to me. Right. Like, it. It just seemed like there was so much research and so many, so much advice out there on, like, this is how you should hold your arms, or this is how you should repeat back what the person said. And after a little while, and particularly after talking to neuroscientists about why communication works within our brains, what I realized is it's actually not a book about communication. It's a book about connection. How do we connect with other people? And the methodology for connection is often conversation, right? That's communication, and conversation is how we connect. But the thing that is under that is how to connect with other people. Now, that question, how do I connect with anyone? That seems like a question that a lot of people would be interested in, because I can see myself caring about that when it comes to parenting. I can see myself caring about that when it comes to managing people at work. I can see that me caring about that when I. When it comes to sales or being in government or trying to evaluate political leaders. So the process, I think, of figuring out what is both interesting to me and interesting to a. A broad audience is a matter of being very listening to my own curiosity, following my own curiosity, but also being challenging and skeptical that just because I think it's interesting, I need to prove to myself that and my editor that many, many other people will think it's interesting as well.

So you mentioned there about proving to your editor and also finding a connection with a market that might buy the book. And I'm interested because obviously you're several books in, you're very success.

[Joanna Penn]

Do you still do a book proposal.

[Charles Duhigg]

When you have an idea?

[Joanna Penn]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Charles Duhigg]

So tell us about that, because it feels like that's something we need to know about.

Yeah. For nonfiction is a little bit different for fiction. In nonfiction, you put together a book proposal, and you sell the book proposal, and they give you an advance based on the book proposal, and then you use that advance to essentially go write the book. And. Absolutely. I mean, in theory, I could hand my editor a two or three page book proposal and say, let's sell this. But the thing is, I have to do the work at some point, right? You have to come up with a grand outline at some point and know sort of the. A map for the directions you want to move in. And so what I do is I put together a 50 to 70 page proposal. And I started this with Power of Habit before I was a known writer, but I've used it ever since. And that proposal is first of all written in the voice of the book. So it's actually as if you're reading little samples of chapters from the book. So there's little anecdotes in there. There's. There's interviews. And what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to prove to myself as much as my editor, there's enough here for a book. Like, if I spend another two or three years reporting on this, I'm going to come back with something amazing. And so writing that proposal and polishing that proposal, making that proposal again, 50 to 70 pages is pretty long. Making that into something that is really compelling, that allows me to kind of stress test whether this, whether there is a book there. Because if I can't write a great proposal, I'm not going to be able to write a great book. The other thing is that for the publisher, it gives them a lot of confidence. So when writers come to me in nonfiction and they say, how much time should I spend on my proposal? I always say, well, look, for your own sake, you should spend a lot of time on it. But equally for the publisher's sake, they're going to be comfortable paying you a larger advance if they have a fully fleshed out proposal. And since you have to do that work at some point, why not do it? But when it's going to make you a bigger advance? And so my advice to folks is always, it oftentimes takes me six to 12 months to write a proposal, but by the time I write that proposal, I know what that book is going to be about. I've figured out that overarching question, that overarching idea, that overarching theme. I figured out what each. How each chapter fits into to it. And from there it's just labor.

[Joanna Penn]

Yeah, labor.

[Charles Duhigg]

But yes, the research then, because obviously you mentioned there that you're going to go on and spend more time on it. But you also said there's snippets from interviews in that proposal. So how many, how much of those interviews are you doing up front and how much it kind of come later? Where's the research based?

I guess I guess so both, because oftentimes what happens is you write the proposal, and then once you start writing the chapter, you realize, like, oh, there's like, 20 other people I need to talk to. But I would say for a proposal, I usually talk to at least 15 to 20, sometimes as many as 30 people. And again, what I'm doing is I'm calling people up and I'm basically saying, these are experts, right? These are folks who are. They've written a paper on communication that I think is interesting. I'm calling them up and I'm saying, I read your paper and. And I thought it was really interesting. I'm not smart enough to really understand it, but I'm just wondering, like, what do you think is the most important takeaway from your research? When you're having beers with friends and they ask you what you do for a living, how do you explain to them why what you do is important? And what I'm trying to do there is. I'm trying to get these folks to think on my behalf, right? To explain to me what's interesting or important within this field that ought to be shared with other people. And the reason why I asked the question that way, almost like I'm too dumb to understand, like, why you're, you're, you're smart. So tell me why you're smart. Is that what happens is that oftentimes people will do two things. First of all, they'll explain to you the significance of their research rather than just the research itself, which is really important because that helps you create this mental map of, of why this research matters. And secondly, they'll oftentimes tell you about anecdotes or little, like, funny things that happen in their lab or things that they didn't end up publishing that end up being really, really great aspects of telling the story. So I interview a lot of people, I would say, for the average book. So if I talk to 20, let's say I talked to 20 or 25 people for the proposal, I'll easily talk to another 150 when I'm reporting the book. But my goal is the same every single time. My goal is to get this person to essentially say something they haven't said before to explain to me not only what they've done, but why what they've done is important and what was interesting about the process of doing it.

And just on a very sort of author technical question, how are you organizing that amount of research? Are you recording, like, AI transcription? Are you keeping, like, little cards, like Ryan Holiday? Like, what is your process of organizing that research in order to go on and write that book.

So I'll tell you what I do for each chapter. And this is also I do for magazine stories. So I'll create a folder, I'll come up with a call list. I'll write, I'll identify 30 or 40 people that I want to talk to and I'll prioritize them and I'll start with number one, and I'll reach out to them and I'll do an interview with them. I'll ask if I can talk to them on the phone and I'll usually I'll oftentimes record that call. Call. But the recording is really just a backup. What's important is for at least me is to take notes as I'm speaking to the person. Because first of all, it's much more efficient than reading through a transcript just to have notes that I take during the interview. But second of all, it's the process of taking notes that helps me see what's important about each conversation. Right? So I'm oftentimes in these notes, I'm transcribing kind of what they're telling me as they're telling it to me and typing quickly. But I'm also leaving little notes for myself, like in all caps, saying like this is an idea or this. We can connect this to that. Then once I've done all my interviews and I have a sense of what the chapter is about, I take all of my interviews and all my other research, right? Because there's a lot of studies involved. I take a bunch of index cards and I go through all the interviews and all the studies and I write on the index cards usually just like one or two set one or two words, maybe half a sentence of each idea or quote I might want to include in the chapter. Chapter. And that will produce. Each chapter produces something like 200 or 300 index cards. And the idea here isn't necessarily that the index cards are exhaustive. The idea is that I can. I'm creating an index of all, everything I've learned. And I don't have to think right now about how I organize it. I just have to think about getting it onto these cards. And in the corner I'll put where each thing came from. So it's easy to look up later if I want to look it up, then I'll take all those cards and. And I'll make little piles and I'll try to arrange them like as the sequence that they will appear in the chapter. So if this idea comes first and these two Quotes are related to this idea. Then this. Then this next idea should come second. And this anecdote happens now. And I'll create little piles of cards. Now, I mentioned I have 150, 200 index cards, sometimes 300, I would say on when I'm organizing them, they all get put in the organization. Only probably 50 or 60 of those cards are going to end up in the story or in the chapter. But the process of organizing is really, really important. Our job as writers is not just to learn and convey information. Our job is to organize the information in a way that it's memorable and entertaining. Once I have those cards together and I've organized my cards, what I do is I write just a long letter to my editor. And it's almost kind of like, rambling. I'm not thinking about, like, choosing the poet, poetic language. I'm not thinking about, like, making sure that I'm getting to every idea in exactly the right order or setting everything up. What I'm doing, though, is I'm basically trying to describe. And it usually starts like, this is the way this chapter will work. And then I just start sort of. And I say, like, oh, there's this story I'm going to tell from here. And then this guy told me this one idea that's kind of interesting. And I'm using the organization that's occurred to me in organizing the cards to organize this letter. And I send that letter to my editor. And that letter oftentimes will be, you know, 4,000 words long. Right. And a chapter is at most 9,500 words long. So I'm literally writing essentially the equivalent of half a chapter in a letter to my editor. But I'm not worrying about anything. I'm not worrying about anything except trying to figure out what the ideas are and how the ideas connect to each other and in what order. And then my editor will oftentimes write back and say, like, this is interesting. This is interesting. This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard in my entire life. You know, this part's. This part's boring. This part. I kind of see where you're getting at, but it doesn't seem like you're actually, like, I don't buy it yet. You gotta. You gotta. And so I take all of that, and that's really, really useful to get someone else's feedback. And what I'll do at that point is I'll take my cards and I'll start organizing my cards. And sometimes I have to get extra cards. I have to do More research, as my editor has pointed out. And, but, but based on this experience of talking through the chapter, of, of. Of getting feedback on the chapter, now I usually have a pretty good sense of how the chapter is going to work. And I have these, you know, let's say a hundred cards. So about half the cards I've kind of discarded because I've realized, oh, that idea doesn't fit in here, that that anecdote doesn't work. And I have about half the cards left. And I. And at that point I start writing the chapter. And sometimes I'll actually go back to my cards as I'm writing the chapter, but the cards actually at that point are kind of embedded in my head. And so I start writing. And there's oftentimes just as much thinking and work that happens once I start the writing part. Because I have to figure out, like, how do I make this story entertaining, how do I make this idea crisper, how do I make this something that's easy to remember? But at that point, I know where the chapter begins and ends, and I know where it's going to get to in the middle. And if I do have a moment of crisis, I have these cards that I can turn to, you know, what happens after this thing, I can't really remember. Oh, that's right. My card says I go to this thing next. And that's how I write. I write a chapter, write out a magazine article.

That is fascinating. I know everyone's like, oh, that is so juicy.

It's enormously inefficient, but it works.

[Joanna Penn]

It works for you. Yeah, I love that.

[Charles Duhigg]

I think that's really interesting. So let's get into the book Super Communicators, which I read on a beach in Corfu this summ and really enjoyed it. And it's really about the importance of finding a connection and obviously the communication with others. But I was really thinking as I was reading, I was like, okay, there's a lot of ideas around doing it in person, but for me and my audience as authors, we primarily communicate online through emails, social media, maybe podcast interviews like this. But so much of our communication is written communication. So I wonder how. What thoughts you had on doing that?

Well, I think good written prose is a conversation. One of the core ideas in Super Communicators is that a conversation is a back and forth, right? It's. It's you expressing what kind of discussion you want to have, whether it's emotional or social or practical, and me responding to that and matching you. And then Inviting you to match me. And when we don't have someone we're talking to face to face. Right? And I think actually we do this digitally all the time. Like we do it through text and we do it through email and we do it through, through DMs. But, but let's imagine a situation where I'm writing something and the audience I'm writing it for is not going to get back to me right away. In those situations, the best writing is me in conversation with that audience. Where I'm standing in for the audience. I'm anticipating their objections, I'm anticipating where they get bored. I'm anticipating their questions, I'm anticipating where they say, well, you know, you think you know it all, but like, here's this other thing. I'm trying to anticipate all of that because I want this to feel like a conversation. And oftentimes you start a chapter and you say, here's it, here's an idea, here's an argument I'm making. Now you might be saying to yourself, but why? Why is that true? Because there's all these other examples that prove that it's not true. Well, let me explain. That's a really good question. So oftentimes I'm dialoguing with the audience in the text itself. And you can do that in a non clumsy way. You know, this raised the question in the protagonist's mind such and such. And because the protagonist is a proxy for the reader. Right. Every chapter that I write usually has someone in there who is a proxy for the reader. And as I'm in conversation with that character, or as I'm in conversation with that person, that protagonist, they are asking the questions that I suspect suspect the reader is asking. They are saying the things that I suspect the reader is saying. Sometimes that protagonist is myself, sometimes I come in as the author and I say, this didn't make any sense to me. I, I was skeptical because I know my audience is skeptical. And so I think it's still a conversation. It's just a conversation where we're relying on our intuition about what the other side would say. And then we're going out and we're testing it. Right? We're asking people to read it, we're asking them to react to it, it. And we're making edits based on those reactions. That's what an editor does.

Yeah, I guess I'm thinking more of when we put stuff out on our email list or social media. And it's interesting because we can anticipate a lot of what people are going to think or say. But from the book, there's a great quote. Miscommunication occurs when people are having different kinds of conversations. And at the moment, as we record this, towards the end of 2024, obviously in the US and in the UK, we've had elections and our society quite fractured, and miscommunication seems to happen a lot. And many authors are scared of saying the wrong thing, of getting canceled, of trying to communicate but failing. So what are your tips for dealing with this as someone who does speak to much bigger audiences?

Well, I think this fear can be a little overblown, right? I mean, obviously, look, if you go up on a stage and you're talking about Gaza and Israel and you're taking one side very strongly, you should anticipate that people will react, right? That they'll. That people who disagree with you will let you know they disagree with you. But in my experience, most of the times when we have conversations, first of all, we're often not talking about Gaza and Israel, right? We're talking about what it's like to be a parent or what it's like to be a writer. Equally, if we are talking about these tough topics, I think the best conversations are ones where someone says, you know what? I am not certain, certain that I am right about this. I am not certain. I'm not certain that I know enough to say this definitively. But let me tell you something that I'm feeling, and let me tell you about something that I'm experiencing. And then I want to create space for you to share with me what you're experiencing and what you're feeling. If you go into a conversation, even a charged conversation about politics, about religion, about race, if you go into it with this attitude of sex, saying, I'm not going to make grand, sweeping statements about what's right or wrong. I'm going to tell you what I've experienced and, and what I'm feeling, and I'm going to invite you to do the same. And my goal here is to understand you, is to understand how you see the world and to speak in such a way that you can understand how I see the world. I think in those conversations, those are not the conversations that end up getting us canceled. Those are the conversations where everyone walks away saying, oh, that's a tough topic, but I feel better about it. And so I don't think it's something people have to be scared about being. You know, if you're issuing polemics, if your goal is not to, to understand the other side and not to listen, but simply to force them to listen to you, then, yeah, they might react negatively. But if we're really good communicators, if we're really good writers, that's not our goal. Our goal is not to be a polemicist. Even George Orwell, Will was not a polemicist that ignored the concerns and feelings of the people he disagreed with. Right. Good writing, great writing is writing that invites people who disagree with us into the conversation. And when we feel like we're in that conversation and we feel like we're being listened to, we don't get angry. We feel connected.

Yeah. And it is that. That going deeper and reading those chapters in the book was really interesting. Another quote, asking deep questions is easier than most people realize and more rewarding than we expect. And you mentioned things like emotional things. And this means we have to be vulnerable with other people. So how can we, I guess, be more vulnerable, be more emotional, particularly if we are worried about judgment in conversations?

Well, I guess. I mean, give me an example of being worried about judgment in conversations, because I think actually most people are not worried about. About being about judgment.

[Joanna Penn]

Okay.

[Charles Duhigg]

Well, I'm obviously British, and I was at a conference in America the week after the US Election, and I very much felt that I could not mention the situation because of the fear of offending a person either way, not being too much in favor of whichever president. And so this sort of censorship of what are deeply meaningful things for people. People. When you're worried about people's judgment or affecting business or whatever.

Well, what I would argue is that in that situation, certainly if you're someone who says, I hate Donald Trump, and you go up to an American and who's voted for Trump, and you say, by the way, I hate Donald Trump, you guys are idiots for electing him, that probably would not be. But that's not a conversation, right? That's not you trying to. To understand this person and trying to help them understand you. You. So I think something that would not be particularly scary or, Or. Or inappropriate would be to say, hey, you guys just had an election. I'm just wondering, you don't need to tell me who you voted for, but how are you feeling about the election? Like, how are you feeling about what happened? Are you worried for the future? Are you happy about what's happened? What do you make of this? Nobody's going to mind being asked that question, Right? Because what you're not saying is you're not saying, here's my opinion. You have to Listen to my opinion. I don't care about your opinion. What you're saying is I'm actually really curious in your opinion. You're an American and I'm coming from overseas and I want to, I want to know how as an American you sort of see this. You know, there's this experiment that I do when I'm on a stage talking to an audience where I ask everyone to turn to the person next to them and ask and answer one question, which is, when is the last time you cried in front of another person? And when I introduce this idea, people hate it. They think it's going to be terrible, super awkward, awkward. And then we have the conversation and people love it. They say it's one of the best conversations they've had in the last week. And this has been studied extensively by a guy named Nicholas Epley at the University of Chicago, that people think this conversation, asking this question is going to be awkward. They think they're not going to enjoy the discussion. They think they're not going to feel close to the person afterwards. And once they actually do it because they're forced to by someone on a stage, it's exactly the opposite. It's not awkward at all. They actually are fascinated to hear what the other person has to say. They feel close to them. They feel close to each other. The thing that stops us, that triggers self censorship is an inability to forecast how well asking questions can go. Now again, back to my polemics point. If you go in and you say, I'm going to tell you why, as an American, you just chose the worst leader on earth, then that's probably not going to go over well. But that's not a conversation, that's a polemic. But if you go in and you say, look, I want to understand your nation, I want to understand how you see your country, and if you don't mind, I'd love to tell you how I see your country. That back and forth, that's a discussion and that's not going to result in anyone getting angry at each other. It's going to result in something that feels good and connected. Connected.

So really what you're saying is it's.

[Joanna Penn]

About, it's just curiosity at heart.

[Charles Duhigg]

It's curiosity about another person and how they're feeling. And that brings the connection that then can lead to other things.

It is curiosity, but it's also having the right goals when you open your mouth, your mouth. Right. Having the right goals when you go into a conversation. The goal of a conversation is not to convince the other person that you're right and they're wrong wrong. Or that you're smart and they're dumb. Or that. That they should like you or they should admire you. The goal of a conversation is to understand how someone else sees the world and to speak in such a way that they can understand how you see the world. Understanding is the goal of a conversation. And when we're focused on that goal, rather than trying to own the libs or trying to prove that we're right and they're ignorant, when we're focused on understanding, mutual understanding, it almost always goes well, right? Like, just look at our nature, both of our nation's histories. Our proudest moments are when not when the entire nation agreed with each other. Our proudest moments are when we disagreed with each other, but we felt connected to each other and we felt unified enough to embrace those disagreements and find a way forward.

So you mentioned goals there and I'm fascinated with goals. Again, we're recording this at the end of 24. A lot people will be putting goals together for next year. You've won a Pulitzer, which is frankly amazing. And many people would say you've hit all the goals that non fiction authors, journalists would want to reach. So I wondered, like, how has your definition of success changed over the years? And do you still have goals?

Oh, of course. I. Absolutely, yeah. I mean, my definition of success hasn't really changed very much. I mean, my goal and my definition of success is to write things that are beautiful and true and that people are desperate to finish. Right. And just because you've written one book that managed to hit that mark, that doesn't mean that you don't want to write more books that hit that mark. And it doesn't mean that you don't find new ideas that you think are just as compelling and just as important. So actually, my definition of success, I've been. Been extraordinarily lucky and enormously thankful for that luck. Right? Because it's allowed me to afford a life where I can, instead of being a daily newspaper reporter, I can go and I can devote myself to writing things that are longer and harder and frankly, riskier, because some of them might not work. Audiences might just say, like, I'm not interested. But that's a means to an end. The definition of success has always been the same. To write something that captures something true about the world, that's interesting, and to write it in a way that you as the reader, you just can't put it down. You just can't wait to Finish. You can't wait to inhale more of it. I feel that way about books all the time and it's just such a wonderful feeling. And that's my goal, is to write things that other people feel that way about what I've written.

Interesting. Well then I'm going to come back to what you said at the beginning. So I asked you why did you get into writing books? And you said to try and make some money. So just for people listening, because again, it's very hard to look at someone's career and say, well, I should just do exactly that and I will make some money. What is your advice to authors who do want to make money with their books?

Yeah, the number one thing I would say is you have to choose topics that have the audience in mind. Right. I've come up with 20 or 30 book ideas that I thought were just fascinating and I just did not. And the reason I didn't write them is because I did not think enough other people would think it was fascinating. If you want to make a living as a writer, you can't indulge just your own interests. You have to be a servant of the reader. And that doesn't mean that we're beholden to the reader. That doesn't mean that we dumb our things down because we think the reader wants it dumbed down or that we don't investigate avenues that we think might challenge the reader. Reader. But at some level we have to be writing for the reader as opposed to writing for ourselves. And there's the bookstores are filled with these beautiful, beautiful novels and beautiful non fiction books that are so, so intricate and so well reported and so well written. And they're on topics that I just don't care about. I don't, I'm not that interested in the Bataan Death march, but I am interested, interested in for instance, cancer because I've. Because I've worried about cancer. I've had lost family members to cancer. And so I skip over a book about the Bataan death march, even though it's a beautiful book. And I pick up the Emperor of All Maladies, a book about the history of cancer, because it's something that speaks to me. And so I think authors who think about the reader are authors who end up finding readers.

[Joanna Penn]

Perfect.

[Charles Duhigg]

So where can people find you and your books? Online.

Absolutely. So I. They're sold anywhere you buy books. They're on Amazon.com or audible. If you like audiobooks, they're in your local book store and sell supporting and celebrating independent bookstores is always important and if they want to find me, I'm@charles duhigg.com or on all the social media stuff. There's I'm only the only Charles Duhigg on earth. D u h I g G and so I'm relatively easy to find.

[Joanna Penn]

Brilliant.

[Charles Duhigg]

Well, thanks so much for your time Charles. That was fantastic.

Thank you.

[Joanna Penn]

So I hope you found the discussion with Charles interesting. I certainly raised my eyebrows at how significant his book proposals are and how much work he does up front, but that together with how he focuses on the reader also demonstrate why his books are such a success. So I certainly found that useful. Useful as ever. I love to hear your thoughts about the interview or about anything I talk about in the introduction. Please leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel, or email me joannathecreativepenn.com Send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard. Next week I'm doing a solo episode as it's Christmas week. It's come up fast and I'm also working on my end of year roundup and my goals for 2025, so lots to do as we wind. I hope you can find some time to look back and look forward around your writing and creative things. In the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist episodes and show [e-mail] podcast and you can get your free author blueprint at the Creative Pen.

[Charles Duhigg]

If you'd like to connect, you can.

[Joanna Penn]

Find me on Facebook and X at the Creative Pen or on Instagram and Facebook. Fpenauthor Happy writing and I'll see you next time.