How to approach possible interviewees

Without screwing it up

This week I’ve been emailing potential interviewees for my book, and so I wanted to write about what I think are the best and worst ways of going about it.

It’s the most stressful part of the process and incredibly important to get right. We can spend months scrabbling around down rabbit holes trying to find a story to fall in love with, but if we can’t get people to talk to us it’s still - after all that - dead in the water. That’s the horror of access-dependent nonfiction.

And it’s only getting harder. When I started out people felt obliged to talk to journalists. Getting a call from the BBC felt like getting a call from Buckingham Palace. But not so much anymore. People don’t feel as obliged. So it’s more important than ever to get the approach right.

Here are ways we get it wrong: