
Amazon Set to Publish Tim Ferriss  - jamesbritt
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/technology/amazon-set-to-publish-tim-ferriss.html?_r=1
======
pnathan
I've spent hours trawling Amazon for cheap e-books, and I've come to the
conclusion that self-publishing is not a model that produces high-quality
books.

Editors provide significant value to me as a reader. Whatever strategy Amazon
is using, I certainly hope it includes a competent editing arm.

~~~
duggan
I wonder if it's simply that it will require volume and curation like a lot of
other free/cheap content?

Book reviews are coming back, eh!

~~~
jseliger
Agreed: I suspect that in the future virtually all writers will also write
blogs (or the successor of blogs), along with miscellaneous other material
designed to show that "Hey! I can at least write coherent sentences based on
reasonable ideas."

------
matdwyer
"Some independent bookstores have already said they do not intend to carry any
books from the retailer, not wanting to give a dollar to a company they feel
is putting them out of business."

Oh no! How will Tim Ferriss recover from the 2% of books he'll lose from the
mom & pop stores? His market is 99% 18-35 probably haven't stepped foot in an
independent bookstore in ages.

Good news for him, I enjoy reading his stuff, even though some of it goes too
far in my opinion.

~~~
trickjarrett
Tim is pure infotainment. Some of his stuff is crazy and over the top, and it
is mainly there as great fodder for talk shows.

~~~
narrator
Four hour body had some pretty ridiculous stuff in it, but the diet and
bodybuilding advice was pretty solid.

~~~
nitrogen
Could you point to a blog post or something that separates the ridiculous
stuff from the solid advice, for those who perhaps lack the resources to tell
the difference themselves?

~~~
matdwyer
I assume you haven't read the book?

It makes some pretty crazy claims that "COULD" happen, but aren't likely. Like
loosing 100lbs in like 3 months (it "could" happen, but it isn't typical) or
gaining like 50lbs of muscle in 3 months, etc. The book outlines how he did it
- what it doesn't go into too much is the fact that he had that muscle, then
lost it, then gained it back. So the argument is that his muscle was just
rebuilding itself and that is easier.

The point is not to take everything literally - if you follow his slow-carb
diets & exercise even slightly you SHOULD loose weight - you probably wont
lose 100 lbs, but you could. Most people healthily lose 1-2 lbs per week and
with this you could certainly do that. I'm 6"5 & 300 and I lost about 20 lbs
in the first two weeks doing it, although that is fairly consistent on any
real extreme change I do for eating healthy.

You'd understand when you read it that it isn't a step by step to get from
point a to point b, but rather information to help motivate/guide you from
your own point a to your own point b... in a sensationalized manner.

(don't get me wrong, I liked both books)

~~~
nitrogen
Actually I own the book (and 4HWW), have read several chapters, and found much
of it useful but some claims rather incredible. I was merely hoping for a more
thoroughly researched rebuttal than my own gut instinct.

------
JonLim
I know this article is supposed to be centered around Tim Ferriss but the meat
of it, to me, was about how Amazon was walking right into the turf of book
publishers and setting up shop.

Hey book publishers, you shouldn't be concerned at all, because you've seen
this coming for years. They made and popularized the Kindle, and you could
have made a huge and radical shift toward digital copies of books and
including them in your contract negotiations.

Oh, but I guess you could have never seen this coming. Learning from the music
and movie industry must not have been an option.

Come on guys!

~~~
gwern
You are completely wrong. The publishers saw this coming a long time ago
([http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/04/26/100426fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/04/26/100426fa_fact_auletta))
and attacked first (<http://blog.laptopmag.com/ebook-price-war>). This is just
Amazon slowly following through on its threat of personally entering
publishing, which so spooked the publishers years ago.

------
grey
Ok, It's been a while since I read 4HWW, but how is there so much praise for
this guy? That book was like a how-to on being an amoral, freeloading
douchebag.

------
btucker
"the wildly popular self-help guru for young men."

This strikes me as a rather bizarre characterization and somewhat sexist. I
haven't read his second book, but the first one was in no way geared to men
only & I'm pretty sure the second wasn't either. Odd.

~~~
matdwyer
He certainly carries himself in that young man thrill seeker type way, which
probably appeals on a mass scale more to men. The 2nd book did focus on males
(weight lifting, giving women orgasms, etc) a bit but wasn't exclusively for
men. To me, he comes across as a guy you'd want to sit down and have a beer
with.

~~~
sidman
I have read his second book and actually applied his techniques for eating and
it works very well and also isn't to difficult to achieve.

I like his books in general cause he tries to maximize efficiency with minimum
input mixed with a significant amount of discipline. I think this is why it
also appeals to many people. Who doesn't want to get maximum output whilst
putting in little effort !

~~~
matdwyer
I tried as well, but god I hate beans. If I could just do slow-carb by egg
whites and chicken I'd be set... you actually feel good, eat more (so you
aren't hungry) and have lots of energy. Neat stuff. No one will get the crazy
gains/losses he claims, but it does work.

Business wise I love that philosophy and try to utilize it all the time.

~~~
sidman
Ah thats the opposite :) I love beans and thats why its easy for me to apply.
I like green beans, kidney beans, lentils so its the perfect diet. I really
like exercise but i kept wondering why i would get defined all around the body
but the stomach took so much effort (hundreds of situps just didnt do it)
until i realised from reading his book that my whole diet was screwed. And yeh
eating right just makes you feel so much better.

I read four hour work week as well. Some of the stuff in that book is quite
difficult to apply as is because of work constraints but i think for IT people
, we are in the best position to apply it cause for example, working from home
isnt such a far stretch for guys supporting a unix environment, or doing some
dev work, where else for people doing sales or face to face work its much
harder.

I tried applying some of his techniques to lessen my "in office" work time and
i managed to get 4 days a week (with just a tad less salary then if i was in
the office 5 days) and 1 of those 4 days a week working from home. That was
the best i could do, i couldnt get 4 days work from home or anything like that
and even so it wasnt easy to apply them, the build up to ask for that kind of
schedule from your boss takes time and planning. You have to somewhat let him
know thats what you want and then prove that you can really work individually
and are on hand to address issues anytime thats needed so gaining that trust
takes some time...

But reading his book did kinda of highlight the idea that hey it is possible
and if you dont ask you will not get so i tried and it worked (not 4 hrs but
close enough :))

------
quinndupont
I'm always surprised how Tim Ferriss sells so many books. He's such an
aggressive self-promoter it's shameful.

------
adrianwaj
Before Tim Ferris, the only other Ferris I'd ever come across was the
fictional Ferris Bueller. If he'd been Tim Smith, would've that affected his
success?

He comes across as some kind of Ferris Bueller character too!

