It couldn’t be a worse time to be a long-form print journalist. Everywhere I go now, it feels as if people aren’t reading much or are reading only when a book comes highly recommended by reviewers and digital tastemakers. The latest Sally Rooney or Dolly Alderton makes for trendy book club material, even as the rest of the wider, complex and coloured world of literature struggles to make a minor ripple in the literary world.
It’s no longer just enough to write a book and send it out into the world, knowing that you poured everything into it and it’s now in the hands of readers to make of it what they will. In the age of social media, writing a book is only the first step. Once freshly bound copies arrive from the publisher, an author must transform into a nine-headed Hydra—a marketer, a PR rep, a hot-take machine, a personal essayist, an influencer—to give their work the boost it needs to rise above other authors vying for the same readers, which in itself is a steadily shrinking pool.
It’s little wonder then that the hype around a book often reads like fiction itself. Case in point? A Business Standard headline from February proclaimed: Prajakta Koli’s debut novel, Too Good To Be True, becomes a publishing sensation with 1,50,000 copies sold within a month of its release. Koli, better known to her combined 18 million Instagram and YouTube followers as ‘MostlySane’, didn’t just wake up one fine day and release her debut novel. One month before its release, the frothy romance climbed to the number one spot within hours of going on pre-order on Amazon and was followed by multiple magazine covers, lit fest appearances and collaborations with Blinkit and Spotify. The YouTube star’s vast digital audience made her book impossible to ignore, turning it into a bestseller even before it hit stands.
This is not an isolated incident. In June this year, Sukhnidh Kaur, who goes by (@pavemented) on Instagram, posted a reel asking her audience to help her cross 100K followers so she could secure a book deal. 24 hours later, she had thousands of new followers. Within a week, all the big publishing houses were knocking on her virtual door—her inbox. One might deduce that if Kaur were to bag a deal, it could be credited to an internet audience that doubled overnight.
The publishing industry has always operated on a combination of sharp art and smart commerce. But with traditional media shrinking and marketing budgets being allocated elsewhere, a writer’s follower count is now as crucial as their manuscript.
Literary agent Kanishka Gupta, whose clients include International Booker prize winners Geetanjali Shree and Banu Mushtaq, admits that this shift has made it convenient for publishers to land their next cash cow. “Many influencer-writers are offered contracts based on their social media following alone,” he shrugs. But given the current publishing climate, Gupta also acknowledges the upside. He points out how social media has allowed authors to bypass literary gatekeepers, giving space to voices that have traditionally been refused entry. “Dalit and anti-caste creators like Anurag Minus Verma and Siddhesh Gautam (@bakeryprasad), and political cartoonist Rachita Taneja (@sanitarypanels) built audiences online before attracting publishers’ attention.”
Despite these merits, there’s no denying that the blame for authors having to chase virality lies with the once-dedicated reader, who has fallen prey to the attention economy and is unable to read more than a couple of pages without reaching for their phone. It’s only natural that writers, therefore, feel compelled to appear where readers spend most of their time: on social media.
In the not-so-distant past, landing a book deal meant the publisher handled your publicity from start to end. This included pitching to bookstores, lining up reviews and author panels, and submitting the work to award juries. Those departments are now leaner. As resources grow scarcer, authors are expected to function as their own PR machines. Constitutional lawyer and science-fiction novelist Gautam Bhatia, who has 143K followers on X, has seen the shift occur in real time. “Earlier, when you had a book deal, the publishers would work on getting your book in the right places, in mailers, in newsletters and so on,” he recalls. “That work was done by the publicity department at the publishers. It still exists but has been significantly downsized.”
Penguin Random House India’s executive editor, Deepthi Talwar, echoes his sentiment. “Knowing the author can support marketing through their own social media does help. We have many books to promote, so if an author can amplify the push, it’s a win,” she says.
But if more followers = more sales, why did Billie Eilish’s photo memoir released in 2021 fail to create a splash? The total number of copies sold came nowhere close to covering the $1M advance offered to the pop star by her publishers. “Advertising a book on X may move a few copies, but not many,” Bhatia clarifies. “Social media gets you eyeballs, but sales? That’s less certain, unless you’re a breakout case.”
Journalist Saurabh Sharma is the exception Bhatia speaks of. In 2023, he spent 17 days at the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand, reporting on the dramatic rescue of 41 trapped workers. His in-depth coverage for Reuters captured national attention and led to a book deal, despite his 1,300 followers on Instagram and 6,679 followers on X. Sharma’s experience is heartening proof that a story still speaks for itself. That someone with 2,000 genuinely engaged followers might have the upper hand over someone with 1 million followers. A digital following can open doors, but it isn’t an all-access pass. The ideal balance is achieved when the work—and the audience—are equally real.
“You may get a deal with 100K followers,” Gupta says, “but sell only 10,000 copies. Meanwhile, Avirook Sen’s book on the Aarushi Talwar case sold up to 70,000 copies with almost no online presence—simply because the subject was that compelling.” After all, aren’t we all just suckers for a good story?
Also read:
The rise of Indian social media influencers
How social media influencers are revolutionising the fashion industry all over again
How has 10 years of chasing likes on social media affected our lives?
