"How to Win TV Quizzes"

Over on Daniel’s Blog “The Quiz Addict” I saw an interview with CJ de Mooi, late of Eggheads. CJ has just published his book – “How to Win TV Quiz Shows”. I’ll be honest, I was interested to see what he has to say on the subject, so I bought it. I did think twice before starting to write this – after all you could say that it is in direct competition with my own “Be A Quiz Winner!”

Be A Quiz Winner!

But what the hell. Mine is a little more general – it does give advice about TV, but that’s only just one of the areas covered.

So what about CJ’s book? I’ll be completely objective, and say that I enjoyed it. CJ writes well. There are several amusing anecdotes in the book, and he is absolutely honest and unapologetic about his TV persona and his desire to do whatever it takes ( within the rules) to win any TV quiz show he took part in. In fact he would probably tell you that while it’s very nice of me to plug his book, it’s relatively stupid of me considering that I have a book of my own on the market which covers at least some of the same ground, judging by what he says about the attitude you should take towards the competition. Well, there we are, I was never planning to retire on the proceeds of the kindle books anyway.

All the advice in the book is first hand, and all of it is valuable. Would it necessarily help you to win TV quizzes? Maybe yes. Let me explain that. Let’s say that you’re someone who has never applied to be on a quiz show before. If you read and follow the advice in the book then I’ve no doubt that you’d greatly improve your chances of making it through the application and audition processes onto the show itself. So working on the principle that you’ve got to be on a show to actually win anything, to that extent it could definitely help you to win. Once you’re actually on the show, there are tips here to help you maximise your performance. If nothing else I’m sure that, like me, you’ll enjoy the sections about assessing your opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, and about being the strong one who preys on the weak. As Harry S. Truman may or may not have said, “If you want a friend – get a dog.” What it won't do is increase your chances of winning by making you a better general knowledge quizzer, and to be fair CJ is quite open about this. He acknowledges that in order to improve your general knowledge, you have to work at it. So if you're one of those people who tend to say - "Hmm - it's not really my subject" whenever you're asked a question on History, Geography, Literature, Science, entertainment, Sport ( I could go on )"- well don't think for one minute that this, or any other book is going to be a panacea for what ails you. No book is. If you don't know anything, you ain't going to win a great deal.

I don’t think the book is available in print yet, but it’s available on your kindle right now, and it’s not a huge amount of money (although Be A Quiz Winner is a whole pound cheaper at the moment!). A good read for anyone who is either thinking about applying to be on a show, or who is generally interested in them anyway.

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Being English I’m not very good at being pushy. Still, just for once, I’ll make an exception. I don’t go on and on about my kindle books in the blog for the very good reason that I don’t want to start putting people off the blog. Still, I hope that I can be forgiven just this once reminding readers of the titles I have available out there at the moment. Currently : -

Be A Quiz Winner!
The Quiz Show Quiz Book
The Mythology Quiz Book
The Cryptic Quiz Book
The Pub Quiz Master Quiz Book
The Pub Quiz Master Quiz Book 2
The Pub Quiz Master Quiz Book 3
The Pub Quiz Player’s Quiz Book
The Connections Quiz Book
The Great TV Pub Quiz Book
The Ultimate Summer Olympic Quiz Book
The Ultimate English Literature Quiz Book

There are links to most of these on Amazon in my links section, but you can also find all of them on my Amazon Author Page – just click on the link below

Dave Clark Amazon Author Page