Behind the Scenes: The Influencer Influence on Indies

Okay, friends. Come behind the curtain with me for a minute because apparently there is some influencer-gone-wild stuff happening in the indie book world, and it got me thinking.

My first reaction to the whole thing was basically:

Who is he?

😂

Seriously.

I saw post after post about PB Squawker (whatever his real name is - who knows) and finally went down the rabbit hole trying to figure out what everyone was talking about.

And yes, before someone tells me—I know he was at a signing with me before all this happened.

Which actually made me MORE confused.

Because I remember being confused then, too. His table was basically empty, and I couldn’t figure out exactly who he was or what he was doing there.

So when my feed suddenly exploded, I did what everyone else did.

I read the posts.

I watched some of the videos.

I tried to figure out what I’d missed.

And eventually I understood what everyone was upset about.

But I was still stuck on a much bigger question.

What exactly are you influencing?

Because this isn’t really about one person for me.

There’s been a whole push lately toward authors paying influencers to post about their books.

Paid campaigns. Paid features. Paid reels. Paid appearances. Paid promotion.

And every time I hear about another one, my first question is the same:

What are you influencing?

Are you influencing people to actually buy books?

Are you introducing readers to authors they’ve never heard of?

Are you building excitement around stories you genuinely love?

Are your followers there because they trust your recommendations?

Are readers clicking?

Are they buying?

Are they reading?

Are they becoming fans of those authors?

Because if the answer is yes?

Great.

That’s called marketing.

That’s a service.

And if you can demonstrate that value, I absolutely understand charging for your time and work. I applaud it. And yeah, I’ll pay it, too!

Indie authors pay for advertising every single day.

We pay Facebook. We pay Amazon. We pay BookBub. We pay designers, formatters, editors, publicists, photographers, narrators, and a hundred other professionals who help us make and sell books.

Paying for a legitimate marketing service isn’t some outrageous concept.

But simply having followers doesn’t automatically make someone influential. And talking about cool shit other people made doesn’t mean you created the cool shit. That’s the part I really keep coming back to.

The authors wrote the books.

The artists created the art.

The narrators gave those stories a voice.

The cover models gave our characters a face—and sometimes a very nice body. 😉

The vendors made all that incredible bookish stuff we absolutely do not need but somehow MUST OWN.

The organizers spent months—or YEARS—putting together events that brought all of us into the same room.

And the readers?

You showed up.

You bought the books.

You listened to the audiobooks.

You posted the pictures.

You recommended your favorites to friends.

You stood in signing lines.

You wore the merch.

You shared the posts.

You told other readers, “OMG, YOU HAVE TO READ THIS.”

Now THAT is influence.

And maybe that’s why the entire influencer conversation feels a little strange to me sometimes.

See, indie authors already know the value of word of mouth.

We’ve built careers on it.

Most of us didn’t start with giant advertising budgets or publishing houses putting our books on tables at every major retailer.

We started with readers.

One reader loved a book and told another reader.

A blogger took a chance on an unknown author.

A Bookstagrammer posted a gorgeous picture because she genuinely loved the story.

A BookToker screamed about a fictional man at 2 a.m. because apparently he had ruined all real men forever.

😂

And another reader said:

FINE. I’LL READ IT.

That’s the magic.

That’s influence.

So when did we decide the author should automatically be paying for access to that?

I don’t know.

And to be clear, I’m not saying influencers shouldn’t make money.

Content creation takes time.

Building an audience takes work.

Photography, editing, filming, graphics, captions—all of that requires effort and skill.

If someone has built a legitimate business providing promotional services to authors, more power to them.

But indie authors are businesses too.

And when someone asks an indie author to pay for promotion, I think we’re allowed to ask the same question we’d ask about ANY advertising opportunity:

What am I actually getting for my money?

Not how many followers do you have.

Not how many people watched your last viral video.

Not how well known you are in a particular corner of the internet.

What can you actually do for this book?

Because visibility isn’t necessarily sales.

Followers aren’t necessarily readers.

Views aren’t necessarily buyers.

And being well known isn’t the same thing as being influential.

Maybe that’s the distinction we need to start making.

I was originally going to write something snarky about everything happening this week.

Believe me. I had material. 😂

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I’d rather use my little corner of the internet to say something else.

Thank you.

Thank you to the readers, reviewers, bloggers, Bookstagrammers, BookTokers, narrators, artists, models, vendors, organizers, librarians, booksellers, fellow authors, and genuinely enthusiastic bookish humans who keep this wonderfully weird indie ecosystem alive.

This gig isn’t easy.

There are late nights, impossible deadlines, launch-day panic, algorithms, ads, edits, formatting disasters, shipping problems, pirating, scammers, bad reviews, disappearing social-media reach, and approximately nine million other things happening behind every book you see sitting prettily on a table.

And then someone sends a message saying:

“I loved your book.”

And suddenly you remember why you do it.

So THANK YOU to everyone who celebrates, supports, and lifts up the people who create, build, and contribute to this amazing bookish community.

You make the hard work worthwhile.

And maybe that’s the kind of influence we should be talking about more.

P.S. Let’s make kindness, creativity, and support famous—not some conceited asshat. 🖤

del mare alla stella,
C.D. Gorri