Yesterday, I asked you to share your thoughts about the modern social media landscape. Wowzers… did you ever! I received so many emails in response that I simply cannot respond to all of them. Rest assured, I’m getting to them slowly but surely.

Today’s piece is long but important. Please stick with it.

The Distribution Problem

I am the son of a literature teacher. A damned fine one at that.

Susan Haines is a bona fide language lover, a National Board Certified, former department chair who passed her passion for language and story down to generations of Advanced Placement students. What she did in the classroom, she did at home, too. Around the dinner table, she’d read stories—The Lion the Witch and Wardrobe, Jack London shorts, whatever. We’d discuss themes—love, loss, human tragedy, human triumph. We’d argue the merits of stories—she loves Great Expectations, while I find it cloying drivel.

I cut my teeth on stories, on the purity of the craft. I believed from the youngest age that great literary work would rise to the top of the barrel like cream. If you wrote and wrote well, people would read.

It was a naive notion, one that did not take into account a simple historical problem: Distribution. Put another way, once a masterwork was complete, how would it find its audience?

Historically, writers have overcome the problem of distribution through the submission process. The writer would create the work, submit it to a variety of publishers, and wait for an acceptance or rejection letter. Once a relationship was developed with the publisher, once the writer had earned her stripes, she could develop a network of outlets, places to submit new work. And as that network grew, so would the author’s popularity provided she continued to produce quality work.

This is an oversimplification, of course. Still, it creates a useful backdrop.

How Social Media Disrupted it All

With the advent of social media, things changed. Writers, musicians, and political pundits took control of their own work, began posting it on personal websites (like this one). With new avenues of distribution—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the like—it was easier than ever to get your work into the hands of the people. Creators had leveled the playing field. They were no longer reliant on traditional methods of publication because put simply, they were the publishers. And on par, this was a good thing, at least for a time.

Consider a specific example. Up to this point in my writing career, I have written in a particular niche genre—faith-based writing. And though I intend to stretch across other genres, I know this one well. I’ve written two books. I’ve co-written and ghostwritten books for dozens of others in the genre. I’ve met with countless publishers, most of whom are hard-working, well-meaning people. But over the years, I’ve noticed a trend. Publishers are putting more pressure on creators (me and my clients) to expand their social media reach.

Put bluntly: No social media platform, no publication.

There are valid reasons for this, of course. What are those reasons?

Social Proof: In our social media age, followers on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok operate as a sort of social currency. The more you have, the influence (or buying power) you command. So, for instance, if I have 6,192 Twitter followers and Rachel Hollis has 74,400 Twitter followers (as of the writing of this piece), Hollis is accurately seen as being more socially relevant. Her influence is exponentially larger than my own, regardless of the quality of her ideas, and she can use that influence in any number of ways, which leads us to our second reason.
Money, Money, Money: With increased social influence comes an increased ability to move product. Taking the above example, with her expansive social reach, Hollis’s ability to drive consumer behavior is at least twelve times my own. (Some would argue Hollis’s 12x power is even larger because of the influencers willing to back her work. I would agree with this argument.) It’s precisely this ability to influence consumer behavior that makes her an attractive prospect to publishers, television stations, churches, whatever. And with every additional book, television appearance, or speaking gig, she expands her network, ultimately driving even more consumer behavior.

“Okay,” you argue, “but haven’t influential creators always been around. Weren’t Dickens’s stories serialized precisely because he could move papers?”

A fair point. But it’s my belief that social media has brought a fundamental shift. Whereas the quality of content has historically taken a front seat (see Dickens’s work, for example), these days, social proof commands attention. Even if your ideas, stories, or political policies are vacuous, with enough social capital, you can flood the market with them. And once the market is flooded, once enough of your followers applaud your latest, vacuous work, the social narrative is set. It’s this reality that’s given rise to the “Influencer Culture,” a culture whose modern scale was unimaginable before the advent of social media.

Okay, But What’s the Problem?

What does this have to do with anything? Everything, I’d argue. Increasingly, publishers turn down very good work (or underpay for it) because the creator’s platform is underdeveloped. The quality of the ideas may be transformative, the story impeccible, the music amazing, but if the creator does not have a readymade audience, if they do not have the social capital to satuturate a market, chances are, they’ll not be published.

The result?

Creators have poured time, effort, and attention into building their social networks, consequences be damned. What are those consequences?

Join me Monday as we explore.

I want to hear from you. Shoot me an email and let me know your thoughts about modern influencer culture.

And please, share this piece with those who might want to read along (change the email address in the form). Ask them to subscribe. Start a discussion with them about the social media ride America finds itself on, and together, suss out whether it’s healthy.