“I am not a self-made man.

Every time I give a speech at a business conference, or speak to college students, or do a Reddit AMA, someone says it.

“Governor/Governator/Arnold/Arnie/Schwarzie/Schnitzel (depending on where I am), as a self-made man, what’s your blueprint for success?”

They’re always shocked when I thank them for the compliment but say, “I am not a self-made man. I got a lot of help.”

It is true that I grew up in Austria without plumbing. It is true that I moved to America alone with just a gym bag. And it is true that I worked as a bricklayer and invested in real estate to become a millionaire before I ever swung the sword in Conan the Barbarian.

But it is not true that I am self-made. Like everyone, to get to where I am, I stood on the shoulders of giants. My life was built on a foundation of parents, coaches, and teachers; of kind souls who lent couches or gym back rooms where I could sleep; of mentors who shared wisdom and advice; of idols who motivated me from the pages of magazines (and, as my life grew, from personal interaction).

I had a big vision, and I had fire in my belly. But I would never have gotten anywhere without my mother helping me with my homework (and smacking me when I wasn’t ready to study), without my father telling me to “be useful,” without teachers who explained how to sell, or without coaches who taught me the fundamentals of weight lifting.

If I had never seen a magazine with Reg Park on the cover and read about his transition from Mr. Universe to playing Hercules on the big screen, I might still be yodeling in the Austrian Alps. I knew I wanted to leave Austria, and I knew that America was exactly where I belonged, but Reg put fuel on the fire and gave me my blueprint.

Joe Weider brought me to America and took me under his wing, promoting my bodybuilding career and teaching me about business. Lucille Ball took a huge chance and called me to guest star in a special that was my first big break in Hollywood. And in 2003, without the help of 4,206,284 Californians, I would never have been elected Governor of the great state of California.

So how can I ever claim to be self-made? To accept that mantle discounts every person and every piece of advice that got me here. And it gives the wrong impression — that you can do it alone.

I couldn’t. And odds are, you can’t either.

We all need fuel. Without the assistance, advice, and inspiration of others, the gears of our mind grind to a halt, and we’re stuck with nowhere to go. I have been blessed to find mentors and idols at every step of my life, and I’ve been lucky to meet many of them.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

It’s easy to forget, but sometimes the easiest and the most valuable thing one can do is simply to ask questions.

It's easy to forget especially if you’re a writer, blogger or any content creator really. You spend most of your time thinking and analyzing, and then before long the only mind-stretching activity you’ll have is reading or watching fellow creators.

So it’s easy to forget the little beautiful thing that took you to where you in the first place, curiosity.

This isn’t going to be a typical blog post, there won’t be any personal opinions nor even comedic takes on topics of any sort.

This is where I ask you, dear reader your opinion about some things I’ve been pondering about the last few weeks.

Publishing 3.0

First it was Gutenberg and the printing press, then came Al Gore and invented the internet, and with it the publishing industry saw a revolution that dramatically reduced the need for gate-keepers by giving the power to the creators.

(I was joking about Al gore by the way).

Nowadays, anyone can publish their own books, novels and stories without any gatekeepers deciding on who or what should be allowed to get published.

“We are now in the greatest era. For the first time ever, with no fucking money, with no goddamn connections, this – referring to his smartphone – can put you on the map.

If you’re good enough, if you are good enough to be up here, to make bling-bling, if you are good enough nobody is stopping you.

Not fucking Donald Trump, not the fucking Russians, nobody!

If you are a minority, if you are a female, if you are a transgender, if you are a fucking alien!

The market doesn’t give a fuck!

If you make the best shit, you will win”.

— Gary Vaynerchuk

So the Question I’m asking myself is:

What’s the next step in publishing? And could steemit play a significant part in it?

Imagine if writers could start publishing online page-by-page having their readers following each chapter day after day week after week in their favorite platform… All while getting incentivized to do so.

Could this be an industry that would help pushing the steem blockchain forward?

After all, we are living among the most digitalized society in human history, and now people love to read online more than any generation before us.

We are living in a time where the attention span is different than other generations as well, so a page by page publishing could on theory make sense as well.

There are so many things that seem to hint that a move in that direction could be a smart thing for authors to do these days.

Meaning that on addition to selling paperback and Kindle editions, they could publish some chapters in steemit as well, and steemit gets an additional audience by introducing more people to the steem blockchain.

I’m truly curious about other opinions on this subject, and that’s why I decided to write this post in the first place.

Which brings us to the second point, and the other thing I'm curious about:

How could we help to push steemian authors reach a wider reader-base with their steemit-published novels?

Maybe this could help bring more audience to steemit, maybe it would promote self-publishing on the steem blockchain. I don't know.

But at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that if we’re the kind of community that is based on continuous improvement and mutual support then probably we will be unstoppable.

Today I want to bring attention to the brilliant author and our fellow steemian @ericvancewalton.

When he first announced that he was launching his second book on steemit, I wanted to help him, I didn’t know how at first.

So I hired someone to promote it and bring more audience and eyes to steemit, and now it has a few thousands views and it’s still running, and will keep accumulating views for over a month.

But we need to do more, so here I am asking you about your opinion of how to help boost book publishing on steemit?

All ideas are welcome, let’s pick each others’ brains and come up with some cool ideas and community activities to help steemit authors with launch their new books in our beautiful platform, and at the same time hopefully add book-publishing to the sectors where the steem blockchain can revolutionize the industry.

And in doing so, I hope we solidify the sense of community we have here because as Arnold said, we may all be standing on the shoulders of giants.

P.S: Special shout out to @ezzy and to David @Kadavy and wishing him luck with his new upcoming book as well, I hope it's a great success!

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