Launching the Book: Turning Social Media Into a New Product

Anyone who has faced what Ernest Hemingway called famously "The great white bull that is blank paper" in undertaking any major writing assignment knows the terror of wondering whether their efforts will ever amount to anything. Days, weeks, then months go by. The words come slowly. Doubts creep in. Is this really any good? Am I choosing the right words, the right materials, the right points? The end is reached, you struggle with your publisher over the minutiae of grammar, phrasing, packaging and credits - and then it's done. But there's nothing tangible to show for all of that effort, save the bits and bytes that bring the online draft alive as content.

Then one day the doorbell rings and the delivery man helps you carry in a couple of heavy boxes. You know what's in them, yet even as you are cutting open the seals it's a little surreal to think that the content that you've collected from so many talented people and crafted into something unique can actually be touched. You fold back the lid and hold the first copy of your first book in your hands.

You're an author. For real.

I've always defined content as information and experiences that provide value to an audience in specific contexts. Seeing Content Nation shift from an online context to a print context underscores in my mind how social media is about stimulating conversations in valuable contexts. I expect that this book will stimulate many conversations, both online and in person, around the world. The book will be influential in its own way. But like Thomas Paine's Common Sense pamphlet from the U.S. War of Independence that I highlight in the book, print is just the stimulus for the more pervasive influence of social media conversations.

Where does social media go from here? The book offers some very compelling insights as to where social media may be taking us now and well into humanity's future. But ultimately the future of social media is you - the citizens of Content Nation who influence people every day through their own content. If you have any doubt that this is so, just read the book. I highlight not just the big names in social media but the everyday people in personal and professional roles around the world who are making a difference in their own lives and the lives of others because they have the courage to be a citizen publisher. Will you ever be famous from doing it? Who knows. But like the people who read Common Sense, the end results of people taking action based your influence will be famous enough in time.

I do hope that you have a chance to read the book in hard copy, it's a good look at just about every aspect of social media in a perspective that will make you begin to realize just how enormous its influence on human history will be. The people who have contributed to its success are acknowledged fully in the book, but may I thank you all again for having been citizens of Content Nation. You made the book possible through your inspiring publishing. If you like the book please make it a point to leave a review on the major book-buying site of your choice (Amazon's the biggie, of course, but I don't endorse it specifically). Let the world know how important Content Nation has become to your own work, your own life and your own future.

Thanks!