The 4-Hour Workweek

The 4-Hour Workweek was turned down by 26 out of 27
publishers.
After it was sold, the president of one potential marketing partner, a large bookseller, e-mailed me historical bestseller statistics to
make it clear—this wouldn’t be a mainstream success.
So I did all I knew how to do. I wrote it with two of my closest
friends in mind, speaking directly to them and their problems—
problems I long had—and I focused on the unusual options that had
worked for me around the world.
I certainly tried to set conditions for making a sleeper hit possible, but I knew it wasn’t likely. I hoped for the best and planned for
the worst.
May 2, 2007, I receive a call on my cell phone from my editor.
“Tim, you hit the list.”
It was just past 5 p.m. in New York City, and I was exhausted. The
book had launched five days before, and I had just finished a series
of more than twenty radio interviews in succession, beginning at
6 a.m. that morning. I never planned a book to