Two Hours with Tim Ferriss

Okay, so it wasn’t a one-on-one dinner or anything, but I just got back from seeing Tim Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Work Week, present at the National Speaker’s Association conference in New York City.

The topic of his presentation… Hitting #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and Creating a Global Phenomenon with Social Media. The audience scribbled away as Tim rattled off social media sites like Twitter, Technorati, StumbleUpon, and Digg.

As the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Working Less and Earning More, I must admit I attended mainly to watch an author in my field in action. But Tim delved into some blogging do’s and don’ts that caught my attention. For example:

• Bloggers are inundated with books to review. You’re much better off pointing a blogger to a specific and relevant section of your book than hopelessly believing the entire manuscript will get read.
• Bloggers are not big fans of the phone. If you want to get a bloggers attention, a face-to-face meeting or personalized email is the way to go.
• Asking for favors is a big turn-off. You’ve got to get the blogger interested in your story and begging for more, not fighting you off as you beg for a link, review, or mention.

As an author and blogger I found Tim down-to-earth and willing to share at times counter-intuitive advice. He actually said LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace have done very little to drive book sales. Those are by far three of the most popular social media sites out there but when a bestselling author tells fellow authors to steer clear, you’ve got to take notice!