Bring these two elements together in the publication by Amazon of Mr. Ferriss’ new book, “The 4-Hour Chef,” and the result is a lot of noise, hype and anger, as well as some hints about the future of book publishing. Here are a few preliminary conclusions:
1. Anything can be a bookstore. The official publication date is Tuesday, but don’t look for the book in Barnes & Noble or in many of the country’s independent stores. They don’t want to carry anything that will help the mighty Amazon extend its dominance. Instead, you could have seen the book Monday — even before it was officially on sale — in four Panera Bread outlets in Manhattan. Panera is doing a marketing deal with Mr. Ferriss. The book is also being promoted through the file-sharing site BitTorrent, which is typically used to pirate books rather than publicize them.
2. When a book is published, the real work begins. In the old days, it certainly helped to be a good pitchman, but even if you were a rotten public speaker there were channels for promotion that did not involve your presence. Your publisher made a deal with Barnes & Noble and then there were stacks of your latest in the front of its stores. If the independent stores were a fan, they would get an early copy and talk it up to customers. With those outlets denied to Mr. Ferriss, he is enthusiastically holding contests and offering deals. Buy 25 physical books and get a bunch of bonuses, including a Kindle Fire. Interested in buying 4,000 copies? He’ll come speak at your conference. The author who does not hustle his book in similar ways will soon find himself on the virtual remainder shelf.
3. If traditional publishing and traditional bookselling are going to survive, they are going to have to state their case in a way they never had to before. Mr. Ferriss writes on his blog that his book “is a sniper shot directed at the heart of every member of the publishing oligarchy (not all publishers, mind you) who cares more about their parking spot at their country club than their end user: the reader.” This is nonsense, of course — Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, is rich enough to buy every country club in the land — but it is nevertheless effective positioning of the author as an insurgent man of the people. In a similar vein, Mr. Ferriss and his publicists make the claim that he is being “boycotted” and “banned.” If he is challenged on this, it is free publicity. If he is not, many will buy his argument.
4. Everything is negotiable, starting with price. Amazon is lowering the Kindle price of “The 4-Hour Chef” for the first week by 50 percent, to $5, and trimmed the hardcover price to $16 for preorders. (List price is $35.) A traditional publisher could not afford to do these things, especially after giving Mr. Ferriss a seven-figure advance. But then Amazon, to the chagrin of its competitors, has never needed to make money.
5. Everything will be a best seller, even if you have to give it away. Mr. Ferriss wants “The 4-Hour Chef” to be the first nonfiction book to sell a million copies on Kindle. My guess is that he and Amazon are willing to keep lowering the price until they get there. It is easy to see a set-up where only the most successful writers make much money. Everyone else will be giving their work away for free to establish an audience.
6. The first victim here is going to be the English language. The BitTorrent post announcing their deal with Mr. Ferriss would earn a flunking grade from a high school English teacher for lines like, “We’ll be distributing the writer’s process: the photos, drafts, videos and recipes that shaped Tim’s journey.” And then there’s the reference to “Julia Childs.” Mr. Ferriss himself seems to be getting so overwrought about selling his book that he is writing sentences like, “It’s the Red Coats versus the colonies, and I must take attack using different means.” Can’t figure out which side he’s on? Me neither.