Trust Me I’m Lying Excerpt/Slideshow
I’ve wanted to put something like this together for a long time and so when AMP Energy’s PowerDash proposed sponsoring the idea, I jumped on it. What follows is a selected piece from Chapter II in Trust Me I’m Lying, adapted into a slideshare presentation. It’s a how to for one of the more controversial topics of the book “Trading Up the Chain”–essentially, how to create and influence the news with very little effort. If you remember from the book, this tactic can be used for good (a friend’s charity is my first example) or for bad (I talk about Terry Jones and his disgusting media stunts as well). In any case, it’s something you want to understand, whether you’re in marketing or simply a consumer.
For those of you who have read the book already, enjoy and hopefully show it to your friends. For those of you who haven’t, hopefully this gives you a taste of the book.
Why am I doing this now? The big news is that the Revised & Expanded paperback of Trust Me I’m Lying will be coming out in mid-June and the book is now available for preorder. The paperback includes an updated preface/introduction from me, three case studies, a selection of articles I’ve written and some selected editing and improvements to the main text. It’s worth checking out (plus it’s cheaper).
Without further delay, here is the Slideshare:
Thanks again for AMP Energy and their app AMP Energy PowerDash for sponsoring this and to Mohnish Soundararajan for designing it.
Ryan, I’m interested in your honest assessment as an author regarding the selected edits and improvements you speak of (the revision and expansion I get). I loved the book and refer to it in conversation constantly. I remember some armchair reviewers commenting negatively on the style in which the book was written (load of BS). I can imagine that the main impetus behind your decision for revision was that the publishing house wanted to give you that option. But why did you personally feel you needed to make revisions to the existing main text? Was it feedback you received?
I think it’s interesting because people usually think of books as static and the readers usually assume that the main text was ironed out before it shipped the first time. As a marketer, are you afraid this could be perceived as an admission that the original edition could have been improved? I think there’s few authors who wouldn’t love to go back to improve something in their books, if they were given the chance. But even if they were, most feel there wouldn’t be anything to “improve” regarding the text that which would make a new printing worth it.
Tim Ferris came out with a revised and expanded edition of his first book, but the main text from the original was left largely intact (same wording, sections, flow, etc). I think you had more room to expand on because the topic is media interference and that’s always evolving (especially if some of it evolved as a reaction to your original edition).
Shankman must be shaking in his boots.
99% of the changes were additions–stuff I found later that I wanted to add. 1% were typo corrections.
Great slideshow Ryan.
I suspect the text at the top of slide 37 is supposed to read “If only they knew THEY were promoting the offensive Tucker Max brand for us just as we planned…” though.
Thanks for sharing with us how it’s done!
Does any of this work if you’re not controversial? I have a unique, funny, overly-long, and most likely self-indulgent book trailer going live this week, and I’d love to get press for it, but unless I can get someone to protest my trailer for my book about Happiness (not holding my breath), it probably won’t generate a lot of headlines. That said, my friends are telling me that my seriously funny trailer is a bad idea because, although it made them laugh their asses off, it doesn’t match the tone of the book, which is seriously awesome self-help guidance for getting happy. Maybe therein lies the controversy? How, Ryan Holiday?! How can I make your genius work for ME??!!
Funny videos spread pretty well…
Here’s the trailer, in case you were curious:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6gPCzvugmA