Under the tyranny of algorithmic media distribution, artists, authors - anyone whose work concerns itself with what it means to be human - now have to be entrepreneurs, too. That labor amounts to constant self-promotion in the form of cheap trend-following, ever-changing posting strategies, and the nagging feeling that what you are really doing with your time is marketing, not art. While Big Tech sites like Spotify claim they’re “democratizing” culture, they instead demand artists engage in double the labor to make a fraction of what they would have made under the old model. These days, the jig is up.Ĭorporate consolidation and streaming services have depleted artists’ traditional sources of revenue and decimated cultural industries. We like to think of it as the work of singular geniuses whose motivations are purely creative and untainted by the market - this, despite the fact that music, publishing, and film have always been for-profit industries where formulaic, churned-out work is what often sells best. And for people who hope to publish a bestseller or release a hit record, it’s “building a platform” so that execs can use your existing audience to justify the costs of signing a new artist. For some, it looks like updating your LinkedIn connections whenever you get promoted for others, it’s asking customers to give you five stars on Google Reviews for still more, it’s crafting an engaging-but-authentic persona on Instagram. The internet has made it so that no matter who you are or what you do - from 9-to-5 middle managers to astronauts to housecleaners - you cannot escape the tyranny of the personal brand. She’s talking about the hustle bro “gurus” flaunting rented Lamborghinis and promoting shady “passive income” schemes, yes, but she’s also talking about the bizarre fact that her “65-year-old mom, who’s an accountant, is being encouraged by her company to post on LinkedIn to ‘build brand.’” Albers, 39, is an expert in what she calls the “online business industrial complex,” the network of hucksters vying for your attention and money by selling you courses and coaching on how to get rich online. It was ironic, considering her proposal was about what the age of the “personal brand” is doing to our humanity. With any book, but especially nonfiction ones, publishers want a guarantee that a writer comes with a built-in audience of people who already read and support their work and, crucially, will fork over $27 - a typical price for a new hardcover book - when it debuts.

The problem came from the marketing department, which had an issue: She didn’t have a big enough following. When Rachael Kay Albers was shopping around her book proposal, the editors at a Big Five publishing house loved the idea.

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