Yup, he worked hard to play the system - i.e. providing incentives direct to customers to order the book during a specific period of time in order to maximize order volumes over a specific time period, etc... Good work on his end re: figuring out how the game works, and making it work to his advantage.

i.e.: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/12/09/the-land-rus... , etc..

Tim Ferriss is all about gaming the system. Whether the system is business, the workplace, the human body, or the publishing industry. He finds and analyzes the weaknesses in a given system and then exploits them to his advantage.

Hacking, in other words.

I suppose the snake oil salesman of yesteryear were hackers as well then...

Assuming you've read the Four Hour Body, what did you think?

I did verify this claim: http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2011-01-02/hardcov...

Love him or hate him, his hustling and marketing skills bring results (for him atleast)

Is there anything Tim Ferriss cannot do? Sometimes I catch myself thinking that Tim Ferriss is the next Chuck Norris.

Joking aside, he is a really good marketer. Congratulations on hitting the #1 on the NYT bestseller list yet another time.

From http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/mf_qa_ferriss/all/1,

"The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman, a title he reverse-engineered from data he collected from the clickstream and Twitterverse."

Does anyone know how the above works?

I remember him saying what he did for his previous book and I can imagine that for this one he did something similar. Basically, he came up with 10 or so possible titles (before having finished the book) and then used AdWords to check to which title customers respond.

Is this a household name, or is it ok to ask for a cliffsnotes edition of who he is?

Tim Ferriss wrote the Four Hour Workweek, and just released the Four Hour Body this month.