I don't think you need to study the lives of successful APers to learn to project consciously- learning yourself, yes- but I can tell you that I have been projecting for most of my life, and I didn't even know of anyone who also did this for years, and when I learned about it there was no information about the people that could induce it consciously.
I can say that years of self exploration led to a more open mind and control about it (or rather, the ability to handle the experiences themselves)- but the projecting happened first.

I find that when people do a lot of research regarding AP they find themselves to get bogged down with too many expectations, and when they don't get 'exactly' what they understand is the 'same' as others' experiences, they either get frustrated or decide that theirs wasn't 'real', and this is not a good thing. There are many similarly described experiences, but they are all personal and different. Sure, there is a lot of commonality as can be expected from visiting the same energy matrix, but the way the energy reacts has to do with the perceiver, and experiences will always be a little different.

Expectations can lead into 'beliefs' and those can ruin the experience.

Something you can do is get to the point where you feel comfortable asking your subconscious to show you what to do next, and then to release expectations, just see what happens. But don't stop learning the techniques, because they will be helpful when you least expect it.