You’ve Got to Pay Attention to Get Attention

Tim Ferriss had some of the loudest buzz in the book market of 2007, thanks to The 4-Hour Workweek—in part, observes Leo Babauta, “because many others ended up promoting his book for him” as the book became conversation fodder among a certain class of bloggers (including us). Babauta (whose The Power of Less is probably going to enjoy similar popularity when it comes out next year) recently interviewed Ferriss about how he got other people to pitch his book for him:

“I met bloggers at tech conferences by 1) asking panel moderators and event organizers who they’d recommend I meet (after a brief description of my background and projects), and 2) buying small groups of bloggers beer and then asking them questions about blogs,” Ferriss explains. “I never hard-pitched the book. I’d be interested in their work, which I was, and someone would eventually ask ‘So, what do you do? What are you working on?’ The book came up naturally and&#8212if you pick a few pages that actually would be of interest to them vs. asking them to read a 300-page book—I had offers to check the book out.”

Before you get that far, though, Ferriss advises, “focus on making yourself a credible expert vs. pushing a book. It doesn’t matter how good your book is if the messenger isn’t trusted. Don’t half-ass the book and expect good marketing to sell copies.” Towards that end, Ferriss says he isn’t interested in cranking out “a book a year to keep the hamster wheel of royalties running,” and would prefer to spend years if that’s what it takes to produce “a killer book” that could replicate the success of 4-HWW.

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.