HOW TO GET YOUR NAME INTO THE GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS

OUR EXPERT:RECORD HOLDER AND GETTINGINTO GUINNESS AUTHOR

LOOK FOR RECENT RECORDS. The annual edition of Guinness appears every September, and new feats are marked with red stars. These have not been repeatedly broken and are lowhanging fruit.

CREATE AN ENTIRELY NEW RECORD.

You'll have to have it preapproved via the Guinness World Record Web site. You don't need a special skill, just a new twist—for decades there have been "throwing" records for all kinds of objects, such as bricks, but someone just got in for being the first to throw a washing machine. Scan the book and you will conclude that no idea is too crazy.

ORGANIZE A GROUP RECORD. The Guinness folks call this "mass participation." From pub crawls to musical chairs to people dressed in gorilla suits or wearing Groucho Marx glasses, they love group records. This is especially easy on college campuses.

DO IT FOR CHARITY. Then get media coverage. The media loves records for charity, and Guinness loves media coverage.

MAKE SOMETHING REALLY BIG. Last year someone got in for the world's largest pencil. The year before, fondue. Dartmouth students at Winter Carnival made the biggest snowman in 1987 (a record that no longer stands).

FOLLOW THE GUINNESS INSTRUCTIONS, red tape and paperwork requirements to the letter. Guinness is a stickler for rules and details and many would- be record-setters successful in their attempts are denied due to technicalities. The only thing worse than failing in a record attempt is succeeding and still not getting one. Bear in mind that the book is more of a greatest hits collection: Only about 8 percent of all approved records are included in the book.

Olmsted, a resident of Hartland,Vermont, holds Guinness records forgreatest distance traveled betweentwo rounds of golf played in thesame day (7,496 miles) and for thelongest casino poker-playing mara-thon (more than 72 hours). He isthe author of Getting Into Guin- ness: One Man's Longest, Fast- est, Highest Journey Inside the Worlds Most Famous Record Book (Harper Collins, 2008). Hisadvanced degree concentration wascreative writing.