What I found interesting was that he tested a ton of titles for the book and the "4-Hour" thing was the winner - it's not him that chose it, it's the market.
Why not let the market write the rest of the book, too? No problem with a little bit of A-Z-Testing.
In a sense, that's what an active blogger does before going blog-to-book. True, the author is the one putting the sentences together, but the market has a lot of say in the direction future articles go, and what of the blog content goes into the book version.
Re:The 4-Hour Dentist
by michaelbuckbee on Wednesday February 02, 2011 @08:09PM
(#2173080)
This was actually a Family Guy episode. Brian wrote a million selling self help book that was 1/3 blank where you were supposed to list your hopes and dreams.
Here's my fave commentary on the Ferriss snake-oil schtick: http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/01/08/5-time-management-t...
I already responded to that post on her blog:
"To be honest lady, Tim Ferriss is the ONLY REASON I FOUND YOU."
Posted by Sasha on June 3, 2010 at 3:17 pm | permalink"
pretty much sums it up.
I've always thought people have their own special style of writing. Now that I've read your comment I realize how naive an idea that is. Would you happen to know the various categories of writing? I'm going to search google, but I am intrigued about what you know. :-D
Taken like that, it's not an attack, just some gentle ribbing. And it's not even directed at Tim per really -- it's the rest of us who eagerly buy into such over the top nonsense that's really being made fun of.
(I haven't read the book or know from Tim. But I'm very familiar with this style of writing. In my 20s I bought all sorts of these books and tapes, so this style has been around for a long time)