Saturday, December 18, 2010

How Timothy Ferriss Hit the Amazon Bestseller List

By Jason Boog on Galley Cat,  December 17, 2010
As of this writing, The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman is ranked #2 on Amazon’s Kindle bestseller list. We caught up with author Timothy Ferriss to find out how he built his audience. He first urged writers to avoid a four common mistakes.

1. “Not understanding what type of headlines “travel” via social media. Study sites like http://www.digg.com/ and http://www.reddit.com/ to see what works.”

2. “Thinking of “social media” as text only. My latest book “movie” trailer, which is only 50 seconds long, took The 4-Hour Body from #150 on Amazon to around #30, where it has remained until dropping to the top ten. I believe this video was the primary driver behind making the book the #1 “wished-for” book on Amazon.”

3. “Overcommunicating. There’s no need to share every detail of your life. On my Twitter stream (www.twitter.com/tferriss), I aim for 80% useful links vs. 20% insight into personal life and schedule. There is no need to share minutiae unless it displays an endearing or grounding aspect of your personality.”

4. “Not measuring. How many books did promotion X sell? I know, as an example, which offers in my “land rush” competition converted browsers to buyers most effectively, as I used SlideShare. How many people watched the slideshow and then bought? It was the 3-book and 30-book packages. I could then focus on these for a follow-up promotion, which sold more than 4,000 books on Amazon in less than 20 hours. Measure the ROI of your campaigns or fail — that’s the choice.”
Full piece at Galley Cat.

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