Get your Facebook published!

How to turn all your gems of wisdom into a real book

ALERT THE MEDIA. I’m going to the toilet.

Then put the photographers on standby. I might drink a coffee.

And prepare to broadcast this news to the world: I need to cut my fingernails.

Why am I sharing mundane non-events? Because that’s what cool people do these days. Humanity has entered the Truman Age. Thanks to the internet, ordinary people share the same publicity platform as celebrities, and we’re making good use of it.

And why shouldn’t we? Celebrities’ posts are often way less creative than ours.

Evidence: Here are five real Twitter updates pop star Lil Wayne posted during his recent tour.

1) “Oakland was one of the best shows yet!”

2) “Indiana was the best yet!”

3) “Dallas was better than ever!”

4) “Miami was awesome!”

5) “Orlando was the best hands down!”

Yes, Lil Wayne’s posts are dull, repetitive bits of egotism. I can do that! In fact I already do. And without STAFF WRITERS.

“An epidemic of narcissism” is sweeping society, Psychology Today says. Too right. I scanned my own Facebook homepage for evidence. “Deva commented on his own link,” said the top post. “Cassius commented on his own photo,” said the next one.

One of my Facebook friends, Tim Sollis, deserves some sort of award for his unrelenting focus on personal trivia, broadcasting to the world endless details about his cats, snacks he has consumed, and his other exciting activities, such as listening to the radio.

On September 6, my world was rocked by the news that Tim was “On the roof, doing some gardening, while listening to Peter King on RTHK Radio 3.”

By October 6, his life had become even more exciting: “Having breakfast while waiting for the kitty to be desexed,” Tim told us. This was accompanied by a map recording the exact position of the café where he drank his coffee, recorded for all posterity.

On Oct 13, the world gasped to see an uncensored photograph of a coffee Tim had consumed at McDonald’s. And on Oct 25, the people of planet Earth were thrilled by a picture of a frappuccino he was about to drink.

I wrote to him with a question: “Tim, how would you respond if people accused you of being trivial or self-obsessed?”

A day later, he wrote back: “I just took a cat to the vet’s to have him de-sexed. Enjoying a cappuccino while I wait. If someone wrote I was self-obsessed, I'd present them with the leftover contents of the operation.”

Anyway, here’s great news for Lil Wayne and Tim and other web trivialists. Ether Press will gather together your 3,200 latest tweets and publish them as a book. Just imagine Lil Wayne’s tweets when his concert tour is over. “This supermarket was the best ever!” “This other supermarket is also the best ever!” “And this one!”

Or there’s EgoBook, a printing firm which will make a book out of your Facebook scribbles in time to give to friends at Christmas. “I wanted to give you something really special so here’s a 300-page book of my Facebook status updates, including such modern classics as ‘woke up late’ and ‘feel like taking a sickie’. ”

I can hardly wait. Okay, I am being ironic.

What I really mean to say is, just kill me now.

***

Technorati Tags: Facebook,narcissism,trivial,Truman,Twitter,status,publish

Comments

[A.N. Author]

Actually I know you are being flippant but I rather like the idea of publishing my facebook pages in physical form. I would have to start again from nothing, though, make sure everything I posted was really clever and witty. Interesting challenge for an author?

[Ram]

This piece of information will save uncle and a lot of other writers from weird people who don't have any idea of what makes a good book and come to ask for ideas on how to write a book, send their poorly organised stories for comments etc. All those guys may now settle down with publishing their own twitter and FaceBook comments.

I can imagine some conversation like this.

Person 1: Nice to meet you. What do you do??

Person 2: I write books.

Person 1: Oh Really! Nice to know that.

Person 2: Yes, have published 10 books already.

Person 1: wow.. That sounds a lot. But, I haven't read any of those books written by you.

Person 2: ha.. Don't worry. I am on my way to publish my 11th book. and I will make sure you get a copy of it. Do send a remainder to my FB or Twitter.

[peter wei]

The idea of a facebook is excellent, but if you're open and aboveboard, exposing social injustice, you could easily be blacklisted by those with vested interests! Don't you agree?

[peter wei]

Would you consider dabbling on district council election vote-rigging - now a hot topic in HK?

[Lift Lurker]

Someone should make super-aggregator of all FB and Twitter posts so we only visit one site:

Welcome to super aggregator!

12:03am 38 million people are clipping their nails right now

12:04am 827 million people are off to sleep now

12:05am 55 million people want to drink a Coke

12:06am Two people love Uncle Jam's latest column

12:07am 130 million people need to pee

12:08am 900 million people think airplane is evil

12:09am one senior citizen pilot in Carribean is having rheumatism pain again
.
.
.

[grandpa]

This facebook printing is wonderful
Anybody will print anything

Ether press adviser:
This one is dull, black bin
this one is dull, but rich, green bin
This one is smart,but politically oriented, blue bin
This one is smart,but politically oriented,but on the rebel side ,red bin
This one is smart, dull and blonde but rich , pink bin
These ones are smart, not rich but Asian, yellow bin

Hey boss , I got 70 millions facebookers in black bin
200 millions facebookers in green bin
70 000 facebookers in blue bin
2 million facebookers in red bin (remember , we are in 2011, when everybody is not happy with their govermment)
3 billions in brown bin

2000 in pink bin

Ok thanks; this is not good , if we want to make money , huge money we have to take drastic action;
Let's replace the governments of the red facebookers,
Let's start with Egypt, Lybia (this guy want to increase the price of its oil, let's target him , with our experimental strategy)
Then Greece, Italy, Spain ; Belgium , France; Iceland

Sell advertising software about learning to write to black bin facebookers ,
2 billions profit
Sell savings program to green bin; 200 billion profit now, and as much ,when we collpase the bank where they put their assets in a year.
sell adresses of red bin facebooker to F BI , 3 billion profit
Sell the same address to their government 2 billion profit, sell tanks and airplanes to their government to squash them; 300 billion moreprofit

Expose pink bin face bookers to the PEOPLE newpapers , they willl attract more black bin facebookers

Hey boss what do we do wuth the yellow facebookers?

Nothing,
They just became the majority shareholders of the company which pays us.
And they are everywhere.

[peter wei]

"Business is business" Virtual reality solves no problem. Isn't it now time for the world to wake up to face up to reality?

[PM]

oh god i love that last snippet! i am also friends with my father on facebook and some days i would open my profile and see tons of notifications, get sort of excited, only to see that my father has liked pretty much everything i have posted the past day.

[grandpa]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/8917836/Facebook-faces-a-crackdown-on-selling-users-secrets-to-advertisers.html

[Bianca Schlimm]

Nury, is this a joke or are these two printing companies real?? I really cannot tell this time.

I think it could be nice to see some nice comments printed.
:-)

Did you phony the entering book-look or is this really how it looks? You've been fooling me so often but ego company looks so real?!

[Richard]

There was one witty celebrity tweet recently, from Will Ferrell as he waited to appear on a US chat show:

"Sitting in the green room with Justin Bieber. Must resist urge to roundhouse kick him in his midget face."