Being a Writer in the Age of the Influencer

Left: Pablo Picasso, Self-Portrait at the age of 18, c. 1900, Museu Picasso, Barcelona, Spain; Right: Pablo Picasso, Self-Portrait at the age of 25, 1907. My Modern Net.

Human beings are high-fidelity imitators.

For most of human history, our ancestors looked around and copied whoever seemed to be doing something effectively. If a hunter or fisherman brought home huge catches, others took note. They imitated his methods. They imitated his tools. But just in case, they would also imitate his clothes. They imitated the little song he hummed while cleaning the spear he used. The logic was straightforward. If you can’t neatly separate what works from what doesn’t, you copy everything.

As belief systems developed, people came to see skill and good fortune as signs of divine favor. If a fisherman was successful, maybe the gods had blessed him. So people treated anything connected to the successful person as a possible source of power. A tool, a piece of clothing, a personal habit. Any of it might hold some of the magic that led to his success.

For humans, prestige serves as a binding force. A respected figure becomes a symbol of the group. Anything tied to that person becomes a small badge of belonging. Owning a possession of a high status member raised your own standing. It signaled loyalty and gave you a small share of the prestigious person’s standing.

Move forward to the present and the pattern has not disappeared. People have paid huge sums of money for JFK’s golf clubs or Scarlett Johansson’s used tissues.

This is also why advertising works as it does. Drinking the same protein smoothie or popping the same vitamins as your favorite entrepreneur or podcaster probably isn’t going to do a lot for your own success, but the human impulse to over-imitate the successful still wonders.

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Shortly after Troubled was published, two common messages I received were “Too much self promotion. It’s annoying” and “I didn’t know you had a book out.”

The second stung more than the first. It reveals something important. Even if people follow your work, many of them will still miss the thing you want them to see. Repetition is the only way to break through. Repetition means that some of your long-time readers will get annoyed, but it is the only way to reach people who are unfamiliar with your work.

Writers are usually not known for their public speaking skills. Most of us are better on the page than in front of a camera. We pause, meander, we qualify everything. We add disclaimers to our disclaimers. This is fine if all you want to do is write.

But the job has changed.

Today a full-time writer is expected to have a website, run a newsletter, stay active on several social media platforms, and have a plan for how they will talk about their book once it is out. Writers will think, “I never signed up for any of this.” They became writers because they wanted to write, not because they wanted to learn video editing or email marketing.

Most people don’t want to build a platform. Even people with narcissistic personality styles don’t want to build one, they want to have one.

Still, if you want to sell a book and you are not already famous, you need a way to reach people. Your platform can’t just be a long stream of ads promoting your product or book or newsletter or whatever. It has to be a place where people come to see you as a person with interests, habits, and a point of view.

Then, as an aside, you can say, by the way, I wrote a book. Even before AI, the competition was fierce. Now, in a world where AI can crank out content in seconds, the human behind the work is what stands out.

Many authors tell me they spend more time posting content that has nothing to do with their book than actual writing.

The idea is simple. People follow you because they enjoy what you share. Later, when the book arrives, you remind them that they’ve liked all the other stuff you’ve been posting for free, so why not shell out a few bucks for the thing you’ve been working on.

You have to post regularly. You have to feed the content machine. Most of your posts don’t have to be new ideas. Remember that many people online have never encountered the things you take for granted. I sometimes worry that everything I post is a variation on six or eight topics. So far this has not slowed growth. A good idea is worth repeating.

The truth is that as a full time writer in the current media environment, the only reliable way to make a living is to become a kind of mini-celebrity. This is how it works now. Look at online recipes. They begin with long stories about the chef’s childhood because it is the only way to link that particular recipe to that particular person. If they do not do it, they will be overtaken by bots that can pump out a million cupcake recipes in half a second. When content is infinite, only a human personality can cut through all this noise.

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A writer today needs a constantly updated stream of content that keeps readers aware of who he is. But that stream can’t be a long list of ads for whatever you’re working on. The only way forward is to make things that are interesting for reasons that have nothing to do with making money. You earn attention by being useful or entertaining. Only then can you mention your work.

This might take longer than you think. Most people who make their living writing or podcasting or being influencers of one kind or another tell me that it took them around 5 years on average before they were in a position to quit their day jobs.

I started tweeting with some regularity in 2017, and daily by 2018. It wasn’t until 2020 that I reached 10K followers on what was then called Twitter. I started a little newsletter on MailChimp and it took an additional 2.5 years before migrating to Substack in 2022 where I was in a position to make a living as a full time writer. All told, this took me about 5.5 years. This wasn’t my plan, but it was just how things worked. Had I been more deliberate and strategic, perhaps I could have shortened this timeframe. On the other hand, perhaps it would have taken longer as I would have spent more time thinking about “growth” rather than just writing and pursuing my own curiosities.

Another wrinkle is that an increasingly large percentage of people don’t want to read anymore. They prefer audio or video. Yesterday I was sitting on a flight waiting to depart. I looked around me and at least half the other passengers were looking at Instagram reels or TikTok or YouTube. The number of people who were reading, either on their phones or actual books, was much smaller than those consuming video content.

Depending on your aims, a Substack might not be enough. People want podcasts, short clips, and longer conversations. If I want to work as a full time writer, I have to become something close to a multimedia figure who posts every day and keeps a large audience engaged.

Over time I have reached hundreds of thousands of people this way. I now have 180K followers on Twitter/X, 15.5K on Instagram, and 77K readers on Substack. Building that audience is a full time job. It takes time, planning, and some tolerance for trial and error.

While promoting Troubled, I appeared on more than a hundred podcasts and did various print interviews. Sometimes I discussed the book itself. Sometimes not. Many interviewers don’t read your book prior to the interview, so you have to be able to speak about a wide range of topics. You need stories, opinions, a point of view, and general knowledge you can draw from that will interest other people. The hope is that if listeners think you are interesting, they’ll assume your writing is interesting too.

Perhaps they decide to follow you on X or Instagram. Or sign up for your newsletter. Maybe they follow you for a while. If, after a few weeks or a few months, they like what they see, they consider getting your book. Maybe they sign up for a paid newsletter subscription.

The funnel goes something like you listen to the person on a podcast —> follow them on X —> enjoy their tweets —> sign up for their newsletter —> take pleasure in or find useful information in their writing —> get their book and/or subscribe for premium membership.

I believe it was Douglas Murray who once said that after you finish writing your book, that’s when the real work begins. He was talking about the grind of promotion. But this work becomes easier if you already have a platform. It helps you get the book deal in the first place and helps you make the book succeed once it is published.

A platform also makes other parts of the process easier. For example, getting blurbs from well known figures is less challenging when those people already follow you. When I asked for blurbs, people like JD Vance and Jordan Peterson responded because they already knew who I was and followed me online. That’s the advantage of being visible.

My friend the Ogilvy vice chairman Rory Sutherland has said, “You make yourself widely known and famous because you increase your chances of getting lucky in some way you can’t predict in advance. One point of fame is to simply increase your surface area exposure to lucky accidents.”

Exposure to lucky accidents is more likely to occur if you put out interesting ideas rather than slop. If an influencer starts out by posting content that is thoughtful and measured, rather than chasing easy engagement, their audience will expect substance. Those expectations can pull the creator upward. High standards attract people who want high standards in return.

It works the other way, too. If you pander to idiots, you will make yourself dumber in the process.

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On social media, can be hard to distinguish between who is actually stupid/vapid and who is playing a role for the audience.

You see a video on TikTok that seems so idiotic or shallow that you assume the person behind it must be the same. But the competition for attention is brutal. The people who rise to the top and manage to stay there have a form of cunning, even if it is not the kind that impresses a traditional intellect. They are solving a hard problem. They are cracking the code of what millions of people will want to watch. Ethan Strauss calls this a form of “smart-dumb” intelligence. I’m speaking here about people who sustain their popularity, not the people who go viral once and then vanish.

If you have snobbish instincts, it is easy to laugh at someone who fills every sentence with “like” and “umm.” But then you watch them plan a podcast episode or a TikTok series or map out a posting schedule, and you realize they are reading human psychology with an impressive level of precision. Nothing they do is random. Everything is tested.

A well known podcaster once told me over lunch, “Rob, I don’t know how genuine your thing is, but whatever it is, it’s working.” I replied that I wouldn’t even know how to be anything other than myself. But I also know that social media distorts personality. The version of you that lives in the minds of other people is a simplified one. It is a thin slice of the full person. There is no way around that.

Another time, before the cameras started rolling, a podcaster chatted with me in a normal, relaxed tone. The moment the recording began, he dropped his voice a few octaves, rearranged his face, and became a completely different person. This happens more often than most people realize. This is why it helps to listen to a podcast before joining as a guest. Weirdly, as a guest, it’s more important to understand the persona of a host rather than the real person behind it.

These pressures come into play because only a tiny percentage of creators earn real money. You are one fish in a massive ocean. Only about four percent of creators make more than a hundred thousand dollars a year. If you have fifty thousand or a hundred thousand followers, you still have limited leverage. There are many people with similar numbers.

I wake up each day competing not just with other writers but with every platform that wants a piece of someone’s attention. Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, and everything else. This newsletter exists because if you want to survive as a writer, you need a small corner where people step away from the noise long enough to read some essays, and maybe buy a book.

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A friend of mine says that on a long enough timeline, all Substacks turn into screenshotting tweets and offering hot takes. I try my best not to do that too often.

Every good writer I know is obsessive about what they consume. They treat their information diet like a craft. Good writing comes from good taste. Newsletters only succeed when they offer entertainment or valuable information on a topic readers care about. The topic is almost never the author. Few writers are interesting enough that people want weekly diaristic reports about their private lives.

The process itself is iterative. A writer might test an idea with a single tweet. Replies push the idea in new directions. Then it becomes a short blog post. Later, after several rounds of changes, it becomes a talk or a lecture. Over time it becomes a chapter. Eventually, a book forms from these layers of revision.

It is also easier to get a book deal if you already have some kind of presence online. Publishers see an existing audience as insurance. They want authors who can bring readers with them.

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Nate Silver once wrote that you have to always be blogging. The idea is simple. If your value depends on having unique insight into a subject, you have to show up and say something useful, even if it ruins your evening plans. Readers expect that if you can contribute a unique perspective or insight, you will be there when it matters.

This rhythm creates its own kind of training. You write often enough that the work becomes second nature. One day you sit down and produce two thousand decent words in a short burst and wonder how it happened. The truth is that you have been thinking about the problem for weeks or months or even years prior. The writing is fast because the bedrock has already been laid.

A writer also needs room to wander. You need time to notice things, talk to people, and follow small ideas that might turn into bigger ones. A lot of “writing” (meaning mental effort that you will put on the page later) happens in the space between tasks, when you are not sure you are even working.

This is one of the dilemmas writers now face. Writing requires deep thought. Very few people read. Making short posts or chopping up video content requires less mental effort. And far more people will read a short post or watch a reel than read an essay.

But the essays and books are how you make your living. And writing is a far more satisfying activity.

I tell readers often that I am thankful. It is a privilege to write for people who care enough to follow along. I also know the reality. The rest of my career relies in large part on whether I can think or write well. But plenty of writers can do those things. To survive, I have to write well and also post consistently and, perhaps, my point of view will interesting enough for people to follow. That is the structure of the internet age. If I don’t like it, I can always go back to washing dishes.