Thank you for this straightforward guide on performing market research. Such succinct instructional materials are ideal for inexperienced writers. As I've found in my short tenure as a writer, (1) reading is no substitute for doing and (2) one can only absorb and implement a limited amount of information at a time.

As for the recommendations themselves...#2 is fairly intuitive, but brings up the question of contagion; some writers avoid reading comps for fear of it. Would contagion actually be a good thing in this case? I would guess that you are less fearful of narrative contagion than others.

#1 and (especially) #3, however, were not obvious to me. Comp reviews are a data goldmine. I hope, in the age of social media, that launch data will be easier to find--I expect that most modern authors would live-tweet (or otherwise broadcast) their launch experience. The elegant thing about this article is that it neatly translates into a to-do list.