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Tim Ferriss On How To Market A Book

  • Megan DoughertyMegan Dougherty

Today’s episode of Fireside Chats with Danny Iny, is a special treat: an interview best-selling author Tim Ferriss about his new book, the Four Hour Chef.

He and Danny explore marketing, book launches and how to get the most out of your audience.

Tim Ferriss has previously launched two internationally acclaimed books to resounding success, and he shares the techniques that he considers the most important to planning and executing a successful book launch.

Always ready with good information, Tim provides not only his methodology, but enough of a reading list that anyone should be able to mimic his fantastic success.

And it doesn’t matter what your market is, what you’re offering, or how successful you’ve been in the past – Tim has information that will help you make the absolute most out of what you’ve got, and show you how to get more attention, favorable reviews, and better relationships with industry leaders.

Click here to download the transcript.

Click here to listen to Tim’s awesome book launch ideas and advice:

4-Hour Book Launch Advice from Tim Ferriss

And here are the highlights and reading list:

Distilled Wisdom:

  • When deciding on a  title, it’s important to remember all of the different people with whom your messaging needs to resonate.
  • Think about how your book can appeal to different demographics, and target your marketing to each of those group.
  • Applying the 80/20 principle can mean giving your readers the 20% of the information that will deliver 80% of the value from it.
  • Contact the media well in advance when you’re planning your launch.
  • It’s better to be the first in a new market, then a competitor in an existing one.
  • For the most part, blogs are more impactful for book sales than more traditional channels, like television or radio.
  • Trying to find the best possible fit with reviewers will help you much more than trying to force your way in everywhere.
  • One of the most important things you can to is crystallize your thoughts into the written word; and then have an even better writer edit it.
  • With four hours: take an hour to read 12 Lessons Learned Marketing the 4 Hour Body, 1,000 true fans, and the Truth of Social Media. Then spend the next two and a half hours doing an 80/20 analysis for your customers and for your products and services looking at two things: What are the 20% of customers that fit your dream profile, what are the 20% of my products or services that would make 80% of my income if they were mashed with my 1000 true fans? Conversely, what are the 20% of my customers that cause me 80% of my headaches, and the same for your products and services? In the last half hour, actually schedule the next physical actions for starting to focus on those thousand true fans and refining your product or services.

And don’t forget that you can also download the transcript of this podcast.

Bonus:  If you buy 3 print copies of The 4-Hour Chef and email the Amazon receipt to 3books@fourhourchef.com, and you get invited to an exclusive live 2-hour Q&A with Tim after launch week.

Resources Mentioned:

Over to you – Have you ever launched a book or other product? What worked for you, and what didn’t?

4 thoughts on Tim Ferriss On How To Market A Book

Tania Belkin

Megan and Danny,

Great interview. Very well done. I guess it jives with Danny’s ABM course: plan your product launch.

I also appreciate the links that you put up and the 4 hours homework.

Thank you.

Coach Comeback

I have read a lot of stuff from Tim Ferriss but I don’t think I have ever heard him in this type of “live” environment. Danny asked some really great questions. You can tell some caught him off guard. That is what I love about unscripted interviews. You get a piece of the real person.

Never knew Tim was such a brilliant marketer! You can have a great book but if you do not plan your marketing right it could go nowhere.

I learned that with my first Amazon book. The funny thing is, I think everyone should be on Amazon. I did EVERYTHING wrong with my book and it still sells about 10 copies a month.

No it is not life altering. But put that in perspective. I am getting about $20 a month, every month consistently for about a year now for that work I did 1 time. I no longer look at it as a flop. I look at the results. It produced results that I want to increase the next time.

I just learned what a podcast was so this is perfect. I subscribed! Looking forward to the next.

Megan

Hi Trudy,

I’m so glad you found the interview useful! These are certainly two guys who don’t mess around when it comes to dropping wise gems around.

I’d love it if you continue sharing your progress!

Trudy Williams

Brilliant interview. Danny’s highly specific questions and Tim’s generous and direct responses have blitzed my head with wise gems, all from a couple of hugely talented guys in just 30 minutes.

My 4 hours is set aside today to explore the reference materials. Then I’ll be geared up to not only re-assess the process I am using for a non-fiction book I am writing but also to more clearly and efficiently focus the marketing (and other efforts) for my existing, award-winning food and nutrition books. I can see that I am will be on an exciting and very steep learning curve.

Thanks guys and Megan. Are you happy for me to share my progress?

Comments are closed.