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As I have said many times, writing a book is a great way to grow or even create a business.

Perfect example: I have read excerpts from this book and heard about it everywhere — it has great buzz.  The book is “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferriss.

In a recent entry on his blog, Tim explains how he, as “a first-time author — with no offline advertising or PR — hit (#1 on the NY Times and #1 on the Wall Street Journal business bestseller lists) …”

It’s a long, detailed read, but Tim provides many important points.  Here is my favorite:

Tim asked a dozen best-selling authors about their marketing and P.R. campaigns. One of his questions was: “What were the 1-3 biggest wastes of time and money?”

This led Tim to create a “not-to-do” list. Number one was no book touring or bookstore signings whatsoever. Not a one. All of the best-selling authors warned against this author rite of passage. Tim instead focused on the most efficient word-of-mouth networks in the world at the time–blogs. As Tim says, “the path to seeding the ideas of 4HWW was then straight-forward:

* Go where bloggers go
* Be there with a message and a story that will appeal to their interests, not yours
* Build and maintain those relationships through your own blog too”

To order the book, go here:  http://zfpr.com/br_books.htm

To see the full blog entry, go to http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/08/06/how-does-a-bestseller-happen-a-case-study-in-hitting-1-on-the-new-york-times/#more-110