Here are some of the top tactics used by Tim Ferris in promoting his books. Keep some of these ideas in mind and how they might related to your Guide as it comes together.

We'll be applying many of these later on.

Tim Ferriss was rejected by 26 publishers for his first book, the 4-Hour Work Week.

1. Marketing Around Your Product

There are literally thousands of books published every year. Some are great. Some not-so-much. In such a crowded pool, how does one stick out?

The answer? Tim marketed around the product as opposed to the product itself. Most people market the product. When they are pitching media or talking to bloggers or whatever it might be, they brag about the product. How fast it is. How awesome it is. How revolutionary it is. Problem though is nobody cares about your product more than you and it is quite easy to come off as a product pusher. Nobody likes a sketchy product pusher, right?

Instead of promoting the content itself, Tim promoted a larger idea: Lifestyle Design. Lifestyle design is a combination of entrepreneurship, marketing, productivity, and much more. It is interesting, captivating, and helpful.

This automatically makes him more inspiring to potential customers.

2. Creating Content & Community

Tim started building his content through a blog focused on interesting, compelling, and thought-worthy content. He has a unique style of writing (longer, fact-filled posts) and his blog got popular very quickly due to quality.

One of the most important elements to this is that Tim built his community around everyone's passion for lifestyle design. People became part of it. They commented. They shared. They took ownership of the idea.

Tim gave them the opportunity to run with it and in turn, they wanted to learn more, and looked to Tim as the leader.

3. Becoming Your Best Marketer

Each time Tim releases a product, he gets into the trenches, made his own new and traditional media contacts, and becomes his own best marketer.

Marketing always starts with you. The leader. The entrepreneur. The face.

People want to hear from you. People want to talk to you. Media wants to connect with you. Are you borrowing relationships or are you creating them on your own?

4. Focus On Quality

Quality matters in everything you do and people will take note.

The 4-Hour Workweek was tirelessly researched, refined, and written. Most of Tim's blog posts are like little miniature pieces of art. Is any of it perfect? No way! But trying to creating the best possible piece of art of you can? That sounds like something to strive for.

5. New Media Matters More

Which do you think created more benefit for Tim - spending time forming relationships with new media sources, or traditional media?

Without missing a beat we can tell you it's new media. This is exactly what Tim did when he burst on the scene. He formed genuine relationships with new media sources. People interested in the same things he was. A one-on-one relationship. Not an impersonal press release or a hard selling pitch. It was all about making friends. And people help their friends.

Bonus: 6. Soft Sell & Be Human

It's important to not forcefully promote your content and just ask people to buy whatever it is your selling.

Rather, focus on the longterm soft sell. There's a huge difference in asking your community to support your efforts if they can and cramming a shameless plug wherever you can at the expense of the reader.