<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Earlier this week we published the first part of an interview with author and investor Tim Ferriss, who will be speaking at The Next Web Conference Europe 2013, which takes place on 25 and 26 April.\r\n\r\nHere's the concluding part of the interview, in which Ferriss discusses why he took the controversial approach of publishing his latest book with Amazon Publishing, his startup investment strategy and what the future holds for him.\r\n\r\nTNW: Your latest book, The 4-Hour Chef is published by Amazon Publishing, an unconventional approach. Why did you\u00A0take that route and how\u2019s it been going?\r\n\r\nTim:\u00A0&amp;quot;It\u2019s the first major book acquired by Amazon Publishing and they actually announced the existence\u00A0of Amazon Publishing with the acquisition of the book. It\u2019s been a very exciting rollercoaster\u00A0of a ride to put it very mildly, which has had some incredible pros; meaning I\u2019ve been on the homepage of Amazon, I can look at metrics that I\u2019ve never had access to before \u2013\u00A0I can look at the top 20 traffic referring URLs to my book product page. That\u2019s cool\u00A0data. Super cool.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;I can identify all sorts of fascinating aspects of my customers so that I can better serve them\u00A0and better reach them. Simultaneously, Barnes &amp;amp;amp; Noble has\u00A0boycotted the book nationwide in the US, as have many independent bookstores.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;It\u2019s been a tumultuous experiment, but one that I would do again. The reason I chose to go\u00A0with Amazon was because I developed a relationship with them over time because of the\u00A0volume of sales I was pushing through Amazon for the first two books. When the opportunity\u00A0came about to work with them, I decided to take it because it\u2019s exciting to be able\u00A0to be the first to do just about anything, and I was willing to take some risk in doing that.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;Random House, Simon &amp;amp;amp; Schuster, these traditional publishers sell to the head category\u00A0buyers at a Barnes &amp;amp;amp; Noble or Books-A-Million. They do not know their end users, they have\u00A0no data about their end users, nor do they have any way to communicate with their end users.\u00A0Amazon, in many ways I would say, knows me better than I know myself just based on my\u00A0Amazon Prime purchasing behavior as well as what I refer people to through my blog, which\u00A0they can track of course.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;That\u2019s fascinating to me. I\u2019m not anti-bookstore, I\u2019m pro-reader. There\u2019s a big difference. My\u00A0readers, if you look at the percentage of digital sales in my three books, The 4-Hour Work\u00A0Week began at about 6% digital and it launched more or less simultaneously with, I\u00A0would say, a user-friendly version of the Kindle.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;Right now, the lifetime sales to date are 20% digital for The 4-Hour Work Week, 30% for The 4-Hour Body and almost 50% for The Four Hour Chef, which is very\u00A0unusual for a cookbook.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;So if you were to look at, let\u2019s say, cookbooks as a category where I sold 37,000 or so Kindle\u00A0copies in the first week, my closest cookbook competitor in print sold probably in the hundreds\u00A0or less than 2,000 certainly. I feel very comfortable saying that.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;I think if you were to look at my audience as, not exclusively but very much heavily weighted\u00A0towards, early adopters, I think that\u2019s the future. I think that\u2019s a glimpse into what will be for\u00A0most books, not too far from now.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nTNW: Aside from your books, you\u2019re heavily involved in the tech scene as an investor in\u00A0startups. What do you look for when you invest?\r\n\r\nTim: &amp;quot;There are a few criteria that I have and my model is quite simple. Whether\u00A0it\u2019s Shopify, Uber, Evernote, TaskRabbit, I look number one for a product that I can be a power\u00A0user for, something that I would pay for even if it\u2019s free in the case of Evernote for instance.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;I look for a service or a product ideally that already has a certain degree of traction. I make\u00A0exceptions for that with entrepreneurs that I\u2019ve worked with before or founders who have\u00A0already displayed success.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;In the case of Uber, for instance, I was already an advisor to StumbleUpon and knew Garrett\u00A0Camp very well and Travis Kalanick who came in as a CEO, I had already invested with in two or\u00A0three companies. So I was very confident in investing in that team even though it was starting\u00A0from scratch.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;One social proof point is recommendations from my\u00A0readers. So I actually connected with both Evernote and Shopify by spotting patterns in my\u00A0reader feedback on Twitter and Facebook.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;Then lastly, ideally it would be a product that I would feel comfortable pitching to the New\u00A0York Times as part of a trend piece because that means that it has both the simplicity and the\u00A0timeliness to scale to a mainstream audience. That\u2019s pretty much it.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nTNW: Are you still looking to invest in more companies or are you just happy with your portfolio as it\u00A0is?\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;I\u2019m going to become a bit more selective by necessity, given time constraints. But I still spend\u00A030 to 40 percent of my time on startups. I will continue to do that for a very long time so I\u2019m\u00A0not into any rush. I don\u2019t feel like there is a gold rush that I have to cash in on in the next 12\u00A0months and, in fact, I think there\u2019s probably going to be a nuclear winter of sorts in the not too\u00A0distant future and that doesn\u2019t bother me because I will still be into the all the startups when\u00A0all of the fairweather investors go away.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;If you look at, let\u2019s say, the dotcom depression of 2002 as one, that\u2019s when Facebook and\u00A0LinkedIn were founded. I think that\u2019s when the real entrepreneurs who are driven show their\u00A0true colors and that\u2019s also when investors show their true colors and can also invest at very\u00A0reasonable prices.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nTNW: Finally, what\u2019s next for you? Is there another '4-hour' book on the way?\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;I haven\u2019t decided what\u2019s next just yet besides taking three to four weeks off after this last\u00A0book push. I\u2019ll probably focus on some type of physical skill like surfing along with a language\u00A0of some type. I\u2019m thinking about Southeast Asia specifically but to take some time to create\u00A0negative space so that there\u2019s room for the big ideas.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;I think for 2013, I was reading a book by the two\u00A0of the people that led the Clinton campaign in 1992 and the presidential campaign which was\u00A0successful of course; Buck Up, Suck Up . . . and Come Back When You Foul Up.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;One of their concepts, which was borrowed from Newt Gingrich with\u00A0whom they have nothing politically in common necessarily, but the concept was focusing on\u00A0antelope instead of field mice. What that means is or the analogy of the story that was used is,\u00A0as a lion you can keep yourself fed everyday all day by eating field mice. You just have to spend\u00A0all day eating field mice, 300, 400, 500 field mice or you can reserve your energy and focus on\u00A0one antelope.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;I think it\u2019s extremely easy in the digital world, certainly involved with start ups or running a\u00A0startup, to become very reactive where you\u2019re reacting to field mice all day long. So I\u2019m going\u00A0to take a break to determine what the antelope will be for 2013.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;I\u2019d like to experiment with the visual medium more. I\u2019ve had a lot of fun working on video\u00A0trailers for the books which have been some of the most successful ever created. I\u2019ve done\u00A0some experiments for television but teaching through the visual medium is something I think I\u2019ll\u00A0focus a lot on in 2013.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nTim Ferriss will be speaking at The Next Web Conference Europe 2013. Tickets are available now.\r\n\r\nDisclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our\u00A0Terms of Service."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/02/23/tim-ferriss-publishing-amazon-startup-investment/>