I WANT YOU to Become the Editor of a NY Times Bestseller and Travel the World for Free

I see this getting messy unless you have a VA helping you to weed out some suggestions. Good luck.

###

Hi Mike,

Oh, it certainly could be a huge mess, but that’s part of the value of the experiment. Will it be? Will people sabotage? If they do, will others put them in check somehow? We’ll see if the system is self-correcting and self-refining. Should be very interesting 🙂

Tim

Tim, I just saw this via your Twitter feed, and I like this idea for more than a few reasons:

* I got a lot of value from reading your book, and this is a great way for me to give something back – beyond the ridiculously low $12 I paid for the book.

* This gives me a new reason to re-read your book. There’s sure to be new and deeper learning as I read through a different filter.

* Great experiment in leveraging the energies and wisdom of your most passionate fans. In some ways, this is even better than what we talked about Anthony Robbins does so well.

David

See you in the wiki Tim. I want that ticket.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

One reader commented:

The RSS feed for this post mentions a Nintendo Wii and Guitar Hero. Yet, reading the above article, I see no mention of these items. Was the Nintendo Wii mentioned solely to drive traffic to your site?

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Hi Erik,

Not at all! This was a screw up on my part. I was brainstorming ideas and looking at other contests people had run. The post was a 1st draft and instead of hitting “save,” I accidentally hit “publish.” Totally my goof.

Any idea on how to re-push via RSS?

Do I need to rename the post title to do so? I’m a Luddite — please help if you can.

Thanks!

Tim

Genius Idea,

It is the current trend to ask for the crowd’s opinion. This is what made Threadless so successful, besides the obvious, first mover’s advantage. Dorito’s did this last year also. I applaud you on your success and innovative ideas. You must have studied with the Swedes and Norwegians. Tim, do you think you would have written your book if you had not graduated from Princeton?

Cheers

Jose Castro-Frenzel

###

Hi Jose,

Thanks for the kind words. I never planned on writing a book, so I don’t think Princeton had much to do with it, to be honest. If I hadn’t left the US for my experiments and walk-about? Then I doubt the book would have happened, but the schooling isn’t what sparked it.

Thanks again,

Tim

Hi,

i recently bought your book when i was in Florida for vacation. I am from Germany so your normally don’t stumble much about foreign books here. Ok, i musst admit i am already following your blog for quite some time, so i was already prepared to give it a chance when i see it.

I am in the middle of reading through the book and i already got some good inspirations from it. Ok, some stuff is quite us centric. For example we normally don’t have that kind of cubicles in our companies but overall it is still valuable.

One inspiration i already got from your book was the hint with couchsurfing idea.

I tried it out and it did worked very well for two occasion in Florida. That made my vacation quite a different experiences. Thanks for that. (Although i was travelling with my bicycle through Florida which in itself is in experience in the US.)

Hope i can contribute some ideas for your upcoming updated book.

Andreas

Hey Tim, I resisted your book for some time thinking that you were a bit hyperactive, and hard to duplicate. I finally gave in, bought the book and audio book. I have been blown away by the metaphysical depth to this work.

Your decision to crowd source the edit reinforces this idea. I could go on however this is probably not the place for a long dissection of your life philosophy. Suffice to say it is really inspirational stuff.

However if you were presented with this challenge (editing the 4HWW wiki for a round the world ticket) I suspect you would find an angle that gave you an oblique advantage and dominate the task. I have noticed that you are quite a competitive chap!

Reflecting on your principles though, I don’t know that it is a good use of time. Perhaps the time could be spent testing a muse or planning a mini retirement.

To finish I just wanted to say your book has given a new lease of life and I have been implementing many of the principles and I intent to join the NR very soon. Dean

Hello,

I couldn’t do a whole edit….but can I put some content ideas forward, here’s hoping I haven’t missed the boat.

* Ref websites for outside the US, I’m having real difficulty finding UK equivalents.

* Greater detailing on how to find drop shippers and whole salers – more of the nitty gritty details.

There may be a couple more, but I’ll need to re-read the book.

I have recommended this book to EVERYONE and was just so chuffed to find someone writing about the way I think and for me not to feel like a alien just because I don’t follow the working crowd!

I’m a documentary film maker so I’m toying with the idea of documenting my efforts to take your pages into the big wild world. – Expect an interview request in the next 6 months.

Thanks

Frances

Hi Tim, I think combined posts are great for the reasons you mentioned — the less email and RSS feed items the better — and I know how you like efficiency!

I LOVED 4HWW and it changed the way I work and think about work. The wiki is a great idea and I look forward to contributing — hope it doesn’t get overwhelming — you’ve got QUITE a following! I would love to address how the mom of young kids can apply some of your tips while maintaining a house, kids and time for her own sanity.

I also would love to see someone address — what do you do when your work IS your life’s passion? Does that still mean you should spend only 4 hours/week on it? By blogging I help people to heal themselves and to want to learn more about healing naturally — the more time I dedicate the more people I can reach out to — this IS my passion….. hard not to become a workaholic when doing something so meaningful to me….. still, I use your tips for efficiency to manage some of the more mundane tasks and concentrate on the posts and contact with readers for fun and fulfillment. Thanks Tim! Gratefully, Jenny

I say keep the posts combined. I’d rather read one meaningful, thought provoking post per week than seven incomplete ideas or random thoughts of someone. It doesn’t have to be per week either, just whenever there is something meaningful to post.

Tim,

After I read the section on outsourcing I thought it sounded like a novel idea but would never work for me. However since the rest of the book was “spot on” I decided to try it. Rather than ship my money overseas I opted to keep it in the US and use my niece in college with skills on computers I can’t even fathom to test the theory. Turns out it has been a great experience and timesaver for me as well as money maker for her. It seems I have all of the positives of outsourcing but none of the hassles of language and such. The only downside I can see is that my niece will eventually graduate from college and end up farming Uncle Ken’s work out to a source of her own. However being able to mold a young mind for the better ties in well with the rest of your book so I won’t fret too much over the outcome I can’t control. My addition would be a simple one; everybody has a relative with computer skills somewhere my idea is why not use them if you can. You can always go overseas if the decision turns out to be a poor one.

I added this into your wiki already but thought it might help someone now and later! Thanks again!

I’ve enjoyed the posts so far and think that cramming as much into one post as possible is the best way for you to publish. After all, it’s just batching and it saves me time.

Once again, Tim, you’ve jiggled our brains with a great concept for “sourcing” your book!

The majikwidget didn’t work from my email (Mac OSX 10.4.11 – Mail 2.1.3 (753.1/753)…the buttons just show as images, not links. But no big deal, ‘cuz I always check out other comments to your posts for the nuggets of wisdom they contain.

RE: Combining/separating posts…keep them combined for me. Again, for following-on to more in-depth content or new, related content I wouldn’t have thought of/found otherwise.

Hey Tim,

I lent somebody my copy of 4HWW. Somewhere in it you describe the following phenomenon: the more time you attribute to solving a problem, the larger its perceived complexity becomes. What’s that called, officially?

Many thanks,

Martijn

###

Hi Martijn, that’s a part of Parkinson’s Law.

Tim

IMPORTANT NOTE TO ALL:

A good question from a reader and my response:

Tim-

Perhaps you can speak a bit more about how far you want your readers to go [with the wiki edits]. I could imagine providing nicely designed charts and graphics, or writing entire paragraphs of suggested material and sharing case studies- but that seems like it might be going way beyond what you intend.

Your thoughts?

###

Hi Jed,

Good point. I encourage people to contribute as much as they feel comfortable contributing without getting compensated for it, whether that’s diagrams, graphs, rewording of paragraphs, entirely new paragraphs, case studies, new chapter suggestions, or just a typo/URL correction. In the case of a really good diagram or something like that, I would try and get the publisher to give attribution or “based on” for credit, but I wouldn’t be able to promise it.

That certainly wouldn’t prevent me from giving credit to them if I shared it on the site, however. Great question!

Tim

You asked for feedback on the reader poll… I started using Google Reader at your suggestion. Great idea! However, the reader poll didn’t make it into the RSS feed for the article. So poor user has to click an extra time to find it.

Nice book. I avoided it even though two different people told me to read it because all the marketing around it looked like a get-rich real estate scheme. But when someone said I already had a lot of the basics down, I thought, “Huh?” And so I got the book and it’s for real.

I’m an artist and used to get fired from crappy jobs so much, I’d lurch through grant apps and project ideas to see what’d catch first. So then I got my first book deal with Simon & Schuster around age 25, and hauled ass through four books before I broke down and had a Puerto Rican tantrum to get out of my contract because I was saddled with a nightmare publicist.

Addicted to over-reaching, I spent seven years writing a screenplay that I plan on producing myself and this book made me smile because there are days when I want to tip-toe to the Golden Gate Bridge and reconsider what the heck I’m doing.

But this book is a good– no, GREAT— reminder. When you’re a woman, every few years you lose a new line of girlfriends to the baby thing and then I feel like a non-earthy person. Shouldn’t I want to suckle something that’ll need and love me until it hates me during those oh-so-sweet teenage years?

So thank you. I’m impressed as I didn’t expect so much quality and truth and generosity of spirit. Hope this helps a lot of people. Life would be so much easier if everyone was patting each other on the back to do insane things instead of running each other through the gauntlet of arrogant (fearful) Simon Cowells.

This is a good reminder of this life. Yeah. You get addicted to over-reaching for the impossible because the high when you pull something off is amazing.

You’re a pretty good writer. I swore this was ghost written. How can you stay in shape, travel, AND write. Dude, you need a super model. Someone like Heidi Klum, who can pump out babies and never get stretchmarks or get fat. Superhuman.

And I’m not even jealous. I’m thinking, you go ahead. This movie thing is hard enough without adding being fabulous to my list.

So thanks for the book. I love books on creativity and ideas on doing the impossible. I keep my circle very, very tiny now. I can’t afford even the tiniest looks of doubt in my inner world. So books and paintings and history reminds me the absurdity of self doubt.

And when even that creeps in, I think, what? Am I just hear to consume and languish in comfortable recliners? So boring.

Good luck with everything. I’ve avoided the computer all day (I’ve already trained people to never telephone me), but after getting fan letters, I know how important they are. It’s necessary to tell others when you’ve touched them. A part of the collective unconscious or something.

Fan letters have kept me from being face down on the bed and drooling for too long.

(I wonder if you cover the loneliness and despondent feeling of sometimes doing or going your own way. All this wild life stuff looks great in glossy magazines, but it gets lonely sometimes. You have all this free time and everyone else is working. At least that’s what it’s like for me. But then again, I’m a girl. We’re not hard wired to ask what you do for a living–unless we’re trophy wives looking for a new gig—but we’re always asking about relationships and how you met someone. blah blah blah…there i go again.)

anyhow, gotta go. this is getting long and another conversation is starting up in the room.

thanks!

–erika lopez, san francisco

I’d love to join in, but as it is there’s a bug in the current version of Adobe Reader on the Mac that prevents me from downloading the e-Book version of the current edition, and all the bookshops in the UK are currently waiting for the new edition, which I’ve ordered from Amazon.co.uk (Yeah – I’m *determined* I’m gonna read this book sooner or later!) so the old edition is out of print – or worse yet, when I asked in Borders if they had any of the old editions, carefully spelling out your name & the title of the book, they hadn’t even got you in their database!

Yesterday I looked into your outsourcing concept. I think it’s clever. I had been trying to figure out how I could delgate more.

You say there are people available for $5 per hour. So far, I haven’t found anyone who charges less than $8, with $12 being more common. Have they all raised their fees now that you’ve given them publicity?

###

Hi Lisa,

I know that Brickwork and GetFriday have both raised rates, but you should be able to find some in parts of India at least for $4-5/hour on http://www.elance.com. If not, $8 isn’t so bad 🙂

Tim

Reminds me of something I read once ….

“Say – I’m going in a -swimming, I am. Don’t you wish you could? But of course you’d druther work – wouldn’t you? Course you would!”

Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said:

“What do you call work?”

“Why, ain’t that work?”

Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly:

“Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain’t. All I know it suits Tom Sawyer.”

“Oh, come now, you don’t mean to let on that you like it?”

The brush continued to move.

“Like it? Well, I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?”

That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth – stepped back to note the effect – added a touch here and there – criticized the effect again – Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said:

“Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.”

…..

—Mark Twain

I’d prefer separate posts, since it makes it easier to find stuff.

WordPress provides per-category RSS feeds. Maybe you could do something to categorise the posts, so that people who only want to see one type or the other can subscribe to the appropriate feed?

To avoid confusion, you could still leave the normal feed as the default. It’s probably only geeks who would want the filtered feeds anyway, and they’ll be able to understand which one to subscribe to.

Can I suggest that you include a prominent warning on this blog post and on the wiki home page which lets users know that if they make an amendment to the Wiki, their EMAIL ADDRESS will be connected to that comment and will be publicly available information to anyone who cares to look? Thank you.

###

Hi Ouch,

Yikes! I’ve just did three things:

1) Changed the password so no one’s contact information is visible.

2) Put up a notice of such on the wiki.

3) Send email to the CEO and CTO of PBWiki to try and change this.

I’ll keep you guys posted. I figured this whole wiki experiment would have some excitement 🙂

Thank you so much for the heads up!

Tim

Hi Tim,

I’m really surprised to hear about the colored pencils in this digital age. Just FYI, when working on a real estate contract recently, my attorney, the seller’s attorney, my partner, and I had great success with using Microsoft Word’s “Tracked changes” feature.

In Word 2003, after writing the first draft, you just go to the Tools menu, choose “Protect document…”, then check the box next to “editing restrictions” and select “Tracked changes” from the drop down box, then click “Yes, start enforcing protection”. (use help for other versions of Word)

You can then e-mail back and forth a Word doc (via a password-protected file or encrypted e-mail) which will track all additions, subtractions, and changes made to the document and show who made them (and without risking losing the ONE AND ONLY copy). Something to check out.

Great idea on the crowdsourcing. I enjoy how you’re always pushing the envelope.

Best,

Dan

“perceived” and “too big” of course, sorry.

Thanks Tim and Ramit both for the super-responsiveness. I don’t object to the system itself, just as long as people are aware. All good now! 🙂

Coloured pencils sound like a quaint solution, but they do have an advantage for editors in that they maintain control over the original text as reviewers make comments “in the margin”. Still, what a pain to use hard copies and old fashioned post.

Proofing and approval of documents is one of the natural fits for web-based applications. Reviewing a document in “the cloud” makes much more sense than sending multiple copies by email or snail mail.

Wiki based proofing solutions can work, but they can also have limitation as multiple reviewers start commenting and editing the same areas of text. To a certain extent they can also lead to loss of document “ownership” for the author or editor.

[Apologies for the following self-promotion…]

At ProofHQ we have created a proofing and approval system that gives document owners control over the original, whilst letting reviewers add AND DISCUSS comments “in the margin”. Introducing discussion threads around comments makes it easier for all reviewers to contribute to the debate without losing the context of the original content. All of this takes place “in the cloud” so only one copy of the document exits for all reviewers to work on.

Proof reading and editing in a collaborative fashion is a great thing to do. Subsequently in EU research projects I encourage people to use the WIKI instead of M$ Word for collaboratively working on deliverables (typically a couple thousand pages per project, don’t ask …). What has proven to be key is that people could work on the original document, with checkin and checkout and provide (forced) a comment on each edit. This way you can see what has changed in a version and read why it has been changed.

In your example you are using the Wiki only for collecting feedback on the chapters, as the users cannot edit the full text online. Therefore I would not use a Wiki for this effort but a simple discussion forum, so we have multiple threads per chapter and people (along with you / your indian lectors) could discuss proposed changes.

Alternatively (and with the permission of your publisher) you could put the whole text in a Wiki and grant access to a selected few (e.g. based on the contributions in the forums) so they can edit “in line” and save you the trouble of ammending the comments in the forums to the text. It all depends on where you want to go, but if you are keen on getting new ideas / wordings, this approach might be best. If you look for simple proof reading then we could probably just do it as it is at the moment (albeit I would still go for a discussion forum with threads).

HI Tim:

Quick question on the editing. Are you looking for comments on what you wrote or additions? My business is a service business, so it is different than yours, but I have a lot of project management techniques that i use with my contractors that might be helpful.

Are those the kinds of suggestions you are looking for?

Cheers,

Kelly

Interesting that you are outsourcing yet again and so many have agreed to redo your book for you for free which is kind of counterintuitive to your book. I think it’s a bad trade, only one person can win the contest, er technically two if we count you! 🙂

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Hi Renee,

LOL… I don’t think it’s bad, really. The readers who want to contribute will contribute, and if they provide cool and valuable additions, everyone benefits and I’ll try and recognize them. The prize is just to sweeten the pot, but I don’t view it as the main driver. Why do some prolific commenters comment? I think it can be very gratifying to see your ideas embraced by a community.

I donate at least 10% of my royalties to educational non-profits — is that a bad trade for me? Of course not. I give back and I feel good about myself for doing so. I think the online communities are very similar.

🙂

Tim

Tim, I noticed you mention you were stuck in San Diego without a Passport in another blog. If you make it into San Diego again anytime soon, would you have time to meet up with me for lunch? I’m at a turning point in life and would like to pick your brain… I’m a former Marine turned college student who’s working full time and am trying to implement the ideas found in your book and blogs. I’d ask all the questions I have in your blog, but don’t want to take from the other contributors. If not, I understand-lots of fans and inquisitive minds. Hopefully you’ll let me know. Either way, I’m going to get back to drinking my 2 glasses of red wine for the night. 🙂

Tim,

Just had the chance to watch your Today Show interview with Matt Lauer / Donny Deutsch. I admire you for including this interview on the website because this Deutsch is either deluded or purposefully hides his true understanding of how knowledge leverage works in a market economy. He ridicules you when he knows he ascended to power using a similar anti-worker bee contrarian philosophy for himself, and then wants us to think each of us can get where he got by “working harder and longer.” His remarks remind me of the opening of Marx’s Communist Manifesto: “Work will set you free; you have nothing to lose but your chains.” As Adorno remarked, we extort a kiss, then punish the object of the extortion.” Glad to see you’ve exposed the false premises of guys like Deutsch. Keep up the good work Ferriss; you’ve been an inspiration to me as I grow my own publishing business [in the website field].

Mark Bottita

Guest Lecturer, Communication

Purdue University North Central Campus

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Thanks, Mark! Let’s both keep up the good fight 🙂

Tim

Hi Tim,

I am so encouraged and enlivened by your approach to living. I tell all my friends and associates that have even a glimmer of wanting change that they should read your book. I am very certain that you and your approach to living are an essential part of transforming my life.

I was at the Olympic Spa (my Friday night self care ritual) reading the section on outsourcing and was guffawing; when I got to outsourcing my inner life I was practically in tears of joyful laughter. I have had so much joy since, just thinking of that portion of the book. My point being in this thread of the the blog that inserting AJ Jacobs was a stroke of genius that completely enlisted me to what you are attempting to achieve in writing the 4 HWW. I really started to get past how envious I was of your life, and what a devotion you had to everyone having what they wanted at that section of the book. It is with a clear intention of celebrating you and your vision that I write this comment to you. I KNOW you are deeply committed to sharing with anyone that wants true joy and authenticity in their lives how to get it. This comes from a 48 year old that doesn’t own a digital camera, hasn’t learned yet how to download a pic on the computer, and texts like an animal that must not have been blessed with digits! I would love to assist you with edits as I have lived an out of the box life and am on the precipice of taking on the exciting challenge of becoming one of the NR.

I just visited your blog for the first time in a couple of weeks and saw this section, and I wanted to check in about the deadline as I think it said it was about now. If you are not accepting edits any longer than no reason to figure out the Wiki thing (said the mid century modern!)

I will await your answer, and am so glad to get a chance to write you and possibly contribute to you and what you are offering us all.

With much appreciation,

Jamie Hammond

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Dear Jamie,

Thank you so much for your kind words and comment! The wiki is no longer being edited, since the dates have passed, but there will be more opportunities for similar projects in the future.

Thank you again and all the best 🙂

Tim

Hi Guys!

The winner is coming very soon. My trip to London and Copehagen was unplanned, so it slowed the announcement down a bit 🙂

Pura vida,

Tim

Tim,

Big fan and thanks for bringing your unique ideas to the world. We need it! Two thoughts on the revised 4HWW:

1) I’ve often thought about emailing to ask that you consider a separate book on fitness (lifting) & nutrition as it pertains to the 80/20 lifestyle. I’ve found so much benefit in the simplicity of your approach to lifting and eating. I’ve sensed that this was all true but never heard it explictly articulated like you do. The reason, now more than ever I feel it’s important for people to build up rather than break down. We need to be strong to face the crapola (real and contrived) that hits us daily and nightly. I think if you devoted a page or two to the simplicity of your effective workout and nutrition protocols, that would help a lot of people come out better than ever.

2) For the same reason as above, a section on goals and achievement. We hear so much about it but what have you found is possible. That is, do you believe the visualization so many talk about can really make dramatic changes in reality? Is it really possible to set a goal to triple (or more) your income in one year by setting a goal, visualizing and taking action? I think the consensus in society is “No way” and then they go back to their daily/weekly/monthly/life routines. I know it’s possible because I tried it and did it. I would love to hear your take on how to radically increase your income in short time. I know Dan Kennedy teaches this and I would imagine you have a take on it. How valuable would that be to people right now???

Thanks Tim, I think you’re great.

Jedd

Tim,

I’m sure if you took a poll of all the different things that people took away from your book it would be an interesting report. The line that spoke to me was on page 219 “It’s too big a world to spend most of life in a cubicle.”

Thanks for your example and work of showing us that there is a whole new world out there.

RJ