I recently published a book outlining the challenges election pollsters face and the implications of those challenges for survey researchers.

This book was improbable. I am not an author nor a pollster, yet I wrote a book on polling. It is a result of a curiosity that got away from me.

Because I am a new author, I thought it might be interesting to list unexpected things that happened along the way. I had a lot of surprises:

• How quickly I wrote the first draft. Many authors toil for years on a manuscript. The bulk of POLL-ARIZED was composed in about three weeks, working a couple of hours daily. The book covers topics central to my career, and it was a matter of getting my thoughts typed and organized. I completed the entire first draft before telling my wife I had started it.
• How long it took to turn that first draft into a final draft. After I had all my thoughts organized, I felt a need to review everything I could find on the topic. I read about 20 books on polling and dozens of academic papers, listened to many hours of podcasts, interviewed polling experts, and spent weeks researching online. I convinced a few fellow researchers to read the draft and incorporated their feedback. The result was a refinement of my initial draft and arguments and the inclusion of other material. This took almost a year!
• How long it took to get the book from a final draft until it was published. I thought I was done at this point. Instead, it took another five months to get it in shape to publish – to select a title, get it edited, commission cover art, set it up on Amazon and other outlets, etc. I used Scribe Media, which was expensive, but this process would have taken me a year or more if I had done it without them.
• That going for a long walk is the most productive writing tactic ever. Every good idea in the book came to me when I trekked in nature. Little of value came to me when sitting in front of a computer. I would go for long hikes, work out arguments in my head, and brew a strong cup of coffee. For some reason, ideas flowed from my caffeinated state of mind.
• That writing a book is not a way to make money. I suspected this going in, but it became clear early on that this would be a money-losing project. POLL-ARIZED has exceeded my sales expectations, but it cost more to publish than it will ever make back in royalties. I suspect publishing this book will pay back in our research work, as it establishes credibility for us and may lead to some projects.
• Marketing a book is as challenging as writing one. I guide large organizations on their marketing strategy, yet I found I didn’t have the first clue about how to promote this book. I would estimate that the top 10% of non-fiction books make up 90% of the sales, and the other 90% of books are fighting for the remaining 10%.
• Because the commission on a book is a few dollars per copy, it proved challenging to find marketing tactics that pay back. For instance, I thought about doing sponsored ads on LinkedIn. It turns out that the per-click charge for those ads was more than the book’s list price. The best money I spent to promote the book was sponsored Amazon searches. But even those failed to break even.
• Deciding to keep the book at a low price proved wise. So many people told me I was nuts to hold the eBook at 99 cents for so long or keep the paperback affordable. I did this because it was more important to me to get as many people to read it as possible than to generate revenue. Plus, a few college professors have been interested in adopting the book for their survey research courses. I have been studying the impact of book prices on college students for about 20 years, and I thought it was right not to contribute to the problem.
• BookBub is incredible if you are lucky enough to be selected. BookBub is a community of voracious readers. I highly recommend joining if you read a lot. Once a week, they email their community about new releases they have vetted and like. They curate a handful of titles out of thousands of submissions. I was fortunate that my book got selected. Some authors angle for a BookBub deal for years and never get chosen. The sales volume for POLL-ARIZED went up by a factor of 10 in one day after the promotion ran.
• Most conferences and some podcasts are “pay to play.” Not all of them, but many conferences and podcasts will not support you unless you agree to a sponsorship deal. When you see a research supplier speaking at an event or hear them on a podcast, they may have paid the hosts something for the privilege. This bothers me. I understand why they do this, as they need financial support. Yet, I find it disingenuous that they do not disclose this – it is on the edge of being unethical. It harms their product. If a guest has to pay to give a conference presentation or talk on a podcast, it pressures them to promote their business rather than have an honest discussion of the issues. I will never view these events or podcasts the same. (If you see me at an event or hear me on a podcast, be assured that I did not pay anything to do so.)
• That the industry associations didn’t want to give the book attention. If you have read POLL-ARIZED, you will know that it is critical (I believe appropriately and constructively) of the polling and survey research fields. The three most important associations rejected my proposals to present and discuss the book at their events. This floored me, as I cannot think of any topics more essential to this industry’s future than those I raise in the book. Even insights professionals who have read the book and disagree with my arguments have told me that I am bringing up points that merit discussion. This cold shoulder from the associations made me feel better about writing that “this is an industry that doesn’t seem poised to fix itself.”
• That clients have loved the book. The most heartwarming part of the process is that it has reconnected me with former colleagues and clients from a long research career. Everyone I have spoken to who is on the client-side of the survey research field has appreciated the book. Many clients have bought it for their entire staff. I have had client-side research directors I have never worked with tell me they loved the book.
• That some of my fellow suppliers want to kill me. The book lays our industry bare, and not everyone is happy about that. I had a competitor ask me, ” Why are you telling clients to ask us what our response rates are?” I stand behind that!
• How much I learned along the way. There is something about getting your thoughts on paper that creates a lot of learning. There is a saying that the best way to learn a subject is to teach it. I would add that trying to write a book about something can teach you what you don’t know. That was a thrill for me. But then again, I was the type of person who would attend lectures for classes I wasn’t even taking while in college. I started writing this book to educate myself, and it has been a great success in that sense.
• How tough it was for me to decide to publish it. There was not a single point in the process when I did not consider not publishing this book. I found I wanted to write it a lot more than publish it. I suffered from typical author fears that it wouldn’t be good enough, that my peers would find my arguments weak, or that it would bring unwanted attention to me rather than the issues the book presents. I don’t regret publishing it, but it would never have happened without encouragement from the few people who read it in advance.
• The respect I gained for non-fiction authors. I have always been a big reader. I now realize how much work goes into this process, with no guarantee of success. I have always told people that long-form journalism is the profession I respect the most. Add “non-fiction” writers to that now!

Almost everyone who has contacted me about the book has asked me if I will write another one. If I do, it will likely be on a different topic. If I learned anything, this process requires selecting an issue you care about passionately. Journalists are people who can write good books about almost anything. The rest of us mortals must choose a topic we are super interested in, or our books will be awful.

I’ve got a few dancing around in my head, so who knows, maybe you’ll see another book in the future.

For now, it is time to get back to concentrating on our research business!