The Orphan Island Interview
The new book “The Orphan Island Interview: The Hidden Secrets of Rich and Famous Interviews” by Jeff Bercovici is an interesting little book. This book looks into some of the methods that the rich and famous use to not only pick interviews, but also to gain control over their “interview subjects”.
The book provides insider tips on how to learn what your interview subjects want and how to manipulate them to get what you want in an interview. I know that most people would think that there is nothing that you can do to an interview subject besides ask questions and hope that you get the answers that you are after.
The author of this book goes a step further and discusses the ways that you can create your own “Orphan Island Interview” where you can be the only interviewer. This book presents the simple steps that you can take to start building your own interview masterpiece.
If you need to know how to interview a difficult or controversial interview subject, you can take advantage of Jeff’s methods and build a “Orphan Island Interview” to use against those that you wish to interview. These interviews can make for great stories to write about in your own articles and give you bragging rights over your competition.
To achieve the level of control over your interview subjects that you seek, you will have to be very careful about your tone and your tactics. Be careful not to upset your interview subjects as they may become defensive or angry. Asking questions, even rude questions, can help to spark a story and a “story” is what your interview subjects will crave when you are done.
When you have created the story that you are looking for, you should always continue to ask follow up questions to the interview subject until you have all the information that you want to get out of the interview subject. If your interview subject is acting differently than you would like, the best thing to do is leave the interview subject alone until they calm down and begin to talk in a more civil manner.
You may want to meet the interview subject after the interview to finish out the interview and then decide if they want to return to your studio. Many interview subjects that you interview would not wish to do an interview with someone that just asked questions, they want the attention that they crave and would much rather do the talking.
In addition to providing good information, this book provides some excellent techniques that you can apply to your own interviews. You can start creating your own stories and shape the way you interview today!