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The 4-Hour Chef’s Not So Simple Path to Buzz

Four Hour Ferriss has done it again!

Tim Ferriss (@tferriss), the author of The 4-Hour Workweek and The 4-Hour Body, may soon prove to be the sellingest banned author alive. His latest foray into the self transformation space is called The 4-Hour Chef, and Ferriss is quick to point out that it’s more than a how-to-cook book.

The 4-Hour Chef

Whether you want to learn how to speak a new language in three months, how to shoot a three-pointer in one weekend, or how to memorize a deck of cards in less than a minute, the true “recipe” of this book is exactly that: a process for acquiring any skill. The vehicle I chose is cooking. Yes, I’ll teach you all the most flexible techniques of culinary school using 14 strategically chosen meals, all with four or fewer ingredients, and all taking 5-20 minutes to prepare (literally, The 4-Hour Chef). But I wrote this book to make you a master student of all things. (fourhourchef.com)

A master student of all things! This, after all, is Ferriss‘ passion and strength. He loves to learn (and learn totally, efficiently and thoroughly), and his books are first and foremost toolkits for lifelong learners. Ferris who advises and teaches for the Singularity University “which focuses on leveraging accelerating technologies to address global problems“, is always racing the clock. Even in interviews, he sounds like he’d rather accelerate the Q&A.

The 4-Hour Bestseller

While I expect to enjoy and reference The 4-Hour Chef as much as the first two, what I’m really waiting for is the book he should write next: The 4-Hour Bestseller. It seems inevitable given the transformative forces at work in the publishing world. Ferriss has opined often enough on the present and future of publishing, and he’s a guerrilla master of self-promotion and book sales/marketing. Could his definitive guide to successful publishing in the digital age be far behind The 4-Hour Chef?

I’m anticipating a detailed, step-by-step guide to the art and science of book publishing focusing on the following:

1. researching, niche targeting, writing and revising your book
2. leveraging social media, etc. to build book/author platform
3. editing, representing, strategic fine-tuning your manuscript
4. publishing your book in the brave new world of 21st century publishing
5. sequencing a book launch with high-impact, symphonic precision
6. promoting and selling the heck out of your book!

If he’s not already working on The 4-Hour Bestseller, I’d be surprised. And disappointed!

The 4-Hour Chef Update

121126: True to form, Four Hour Ferriss is chronicling The 4-Hour Chef book launch through his blog, offering up a transparent glimpse of his strategy to peddle the hell out of The 4-Hour Chef despite being banned by 700+ bookstores nationwide! It’s a savvy PR move, effectively enlisting us, his readers and fans, to help fuel his publicity campaign by keeping us in the loop. Think of a grassroots political campaign. Think of community organizing. Damned effective. But not remotely exploitative because Ferriss is simultaneously sharing his process with anyone and everyone interested in learning how to roll out a successful launch. In other words, he’s offering us section #5 of The 4-Hour Bestseller for free! Whether he ever actually creates the book or not, it’s an example of Ferris’ value-added approach to community building, networking and marketing. His post “Marketing/PR Summary of Week One” reveals the staggering impact of his roll-out, listing bookstores, offline/online media and partnerships that would inspire envy among the launch gurus at any traditional publisher. Kudos!

Related articles

• Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Banning (janefriedman.com)
• The 4-Hour Chef Launch Summary, Week #1 (fourhourworkweek.com)
• Tim Ferriss’s new book about learning (boingboing.net)
• The 4-Hour Chef & Learning to Learn (drinkingoatmealstout.com)
• 4 Hour Chef (theunlimitedproject.com)
• Tim Ferriss Wants You To Learn More, Faster and More Efficiently (twistimage.com)
• Tim Ferriss: Even if I sell a million Kindle copies, some people will still call it a failure (paidcontent.org)
• With Help Of YouTube, Tim Ferriss Makes Book Trailers Go Viral (tubefilter.com)
• Tim Ferriss Announces Partnership with Bittorrent for 4-Hour Chef (zeropaid.com)
• I’m Tim Ferriss, and This Is How I Work (lifehacker.com)

Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Chef

While word warriors continue to battle over the death/rebirth of publishing, I’m inclined to agree with Paul Carr that the “the golden era of books isn’t over. The golden era of books is NOW!“

In terms of both unit sales (up 4.1% from 2008) and revenue (up 5.6% from 2008), American publishers experienced a bumper year last year.

And the good news doesn’t stop there: thanks to the Kindle and the iPad, people who three years ago would never have strayed within 500 feet of a bookshop (and still wouldn’t) can now buy the latest James Patterson as easily as downloading Angry Birds. People who weren’t reading for pleasure, now are. This is good.

Even more interestingly, Amazon has extracted from amber the DNA of pamphlets and short stories (and maybe even serial novels) and given them a chance at new life in the form of Kindle Singles…

So, yes, given that the publishing industry is thriving, new formats are emerging, dead formats are coming back from the grave and top flight authors are making tens of millions of dollars a year, it’s something of a stretch to argue that the golden era of books is over. Moreover, it’s considerably less of a stretch to argue that the golden era of books is now. (TechCrunch)

And what better proof than Alison Flood’s announcement in The Guardian on Wednesday: “Amazon strikes first ‘major’ publishing deal“?

Amazon.com has made the first “major” acquisition for its New York-based publishing imprint, snapping up rights in bestselling self-help author Timothy Ferriss‘s new book The 4-Hour Chef.

Ferriss is author of the New York Times bestsellers The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Workweek… The 4-Hour Chef will, said Amazon, build upon the “4-hour” philosophy “by transforming the way we cook and eat”. It will publish the book in print, digital and audio formats next April.

Ferriss, whose previous books were published by Random House imprint Crown, said that his decision to move to Amazon Publishing “wasn’t just a question of which publisher to work with. It was a question of what future of publishing I want to embrace.

“My readers are migrating irreversibly into digital, and it made perfect sense to work with Amazon to try and redefine what is possible,” said the author in a statement. “This is a chance to really show what the future of books looks like, and to deliver a beautiful experience to my readers, who always come first…” (Guardian)

Amazon, who’s publishing imprint is headed by Larry Kirshbaum (formerly the CEO of Time Warner Book Group), stands to dominate the future of print, digital and audio publishing, and veteran book creator/peddler Tim Ferriss has now driven this message home once and for all!

Ferriss has opined on the state of the publishing industry before, often defending his choice to work within the traditional publishing industry, but he’s a savvy thinker, investor and self promoter, so I wasn’t surprised to discover that he courted Amazon rather than vice versa.

The opportunity to partner with a technology company that is embracing publishing is very different than partnering with a publisher embracing technology. (TNW Media)

Could the message be more clear? I’m looking forward to reading The 4-Hour Chef!

Related articles

• Amazon strikes first ‘major’ publishing deal (guardian.co.uk)
• Tim Ferriss’s deal with Amazon is both an outlier and a harbinger (idealog.com)
• Amazon boosts its publishing credentials by signing self-help guru Tim Ferriss (thenextweb.com)
• Amazon Publishing Signs Up Timothy Ferriss’s Next Book(online.wsj.com)
• Amazon Set to Publish Pop Author – New York Times(nytimes.com)
• Publishing News: Amazon launched the HTML5 Kindle Cloud Reader (radar.oreilly.com)
• Amazon’s publishing arm signs up Timothy Ferriss (guardian.co.uk)

Photograph of Tim Ferriss via fourhourworkweek.com

A great post from Tim Ferriss (@tferriss) which tackles three priorities for making a business profitable. “Profitability doesn’t need to be elusive. It’s a simple process… if you have the right recipe from the outset.”

Here’s my 30-second reductio:

1. “Small is not just a stepping-stone. Small is a great destination in itself.”
2. “When you build what you need, you can also assess the quality of what you make quickly and directly, instead of by proxy.”
3. “It’s not the gear that matters. It’s playing what you’ve got as well as you can.”

I’m especially keen on #1 which (ideally) enables portability, freedom and balance.

Related articles

• The 4-Hour Chef’s Not So Simple Path to Buzz (virtualdavis.com)
• I’m Tim Ferriss, And This Is How I Work (lifehacker.com.au)