Writers –Today’s Gatekeepers are Not Who You Think
By: Joseph Anderson
Tags: Culture, Creativity, Publishing, Writing, Education

Writers –Today’s Gatekeepers are Not Who You Think

And what can be done to overcome them?

It’s fall. Autumn leaves will start to fall again, and school is back in session. And with school back in session, countless are indeed wondering “what am I going to do with the rest of my life?”

Students aren’t the only ones wondering that. In an economy where 85% of people actually hate their jobs, it’s no wonder why so many of us are turning to social media influencers in hopes that they will impart on us their supposed transcendent knowledge on how to get out, how to get ahead, and why “hustle” is the closest thing we have in the modern day to virtue.

But a few obstacles lie in the way. These obstacles are not specific, and they aren’t malevolent, either. Their danger lies in the fact that they rest so firmly in the dark, and in the shadows, where we simply cannot see them.

Traditional gatekeepers really aren’t necessary anymore – overabundance and rapid social change have created a new order of gate keepers — the gate keepers of mass confusion that are causing millions of young people to graduate each year with degrees they don’t know how to use, or professionals to crack away at jobs they do not like, or understand. Meanwhile, the people who would gladly hire writers sadly beat their heads in frustration over the growing skills gap. There are plenty of jobs for creatives, but the creatives don’t know that.

What Writers Look Like in 2020

We’re almost in 2020, after all, and the world of writer’s is totally unrecognizable from what it once was. The aesthetic of the writer smoking a cigar while looking over a typewriter has been replaced with harried looking people in cafes responding to ads for writing jobs that pay 25 dollars an article.

Of course, I doubt that charming aesthetic that we apply to writers of times gone is all that true. After all, Faulkner worked in a boiler room, and Stephen King wrote his first book balancing his kids on his knees in a mobile home when he wasn’t doing laundry for a living. Perhaps making money as a writer never really was as romantic as it seems.

Until now, that is. I would argue (and many agree with me) that today is perhaps hands down the greatest age to be a writer. I understand if that confuses you, because that fact certainly is not apparent everywhere. But let me explain by first telling you what factors are not leading to this reality.

It’s Not Because of Self Publishing

Some would argue that the reason for this new renaissance of creativity that’s baffling cafes around America (if not the world) by bringing with it floods of remote, creative workers is thanks to the ability to self publish. Indeed, the ease and swiftness of self publishing is unprecedented in history. However, I would also argue that if someone wanted to hide some massively important, top secret code, that person would be best off hiding it in the middle of a YouTube Podcast, or at the center of a self published Kindle book on Amazon.

Why? Because there are simply so many of them. In fact, as many as 1 million books are self published each year! And the return on investment of those books? On average, they sell about 250 copies. If someone tells you that the reason we are living in the golden age of writing is because of self publishing, stop listening to them right away. Self publishing has only strengthened traditional publishing by lowering the standard of what people expect from self published titles, and making publishing with a reputable publisher all the more necessary as a sort of bare minimum “I’ll bother reading this” stamp of approval. And even traditionally published books aren’t doing so hot, with many publishers expecting their authors to do much of the marketing for themselves.

This was true even back in 2012 when I began writing novels. Although less books were being self published, it was just about as unlikely that they would turn into significant financial opportunities. I know lots of people still make money this way. But they are the exception. I’m only talking about the average here.

Still, writing a novel is a very noble pursuit, and great fiction is more needed now than ever. I’m not saying you shouldn’t write your book. On the contrary, I recently wrote an article saying the exact opposite. I’m simply saying that self publishing has not had a singularly positive impact on the book industry, and that writing a novel is all the more noble of an act as a result. Writing a book now is done purely out of love, not for fortune.

But another kind of writing can make you a very good fortune.

It Is Because of the Internet

The internet is the sole, single reason for why writing today is more accessible than ever! And I’m really glad for this one. Okay, so maybe it took away the chance to ever make it as a newspaper writer or a magazine writer. But let’s face it – how likely is it that anyone of us was going to get one of those jobs, anyways?

What the internet has done is pretty much make it entirely necessary that every single business, public figure, influencer, model, skateboarder or traveling pet has an established website, social media profile, and overarching content strategy aimed at making their platform standout in an incredibly crowded and hyper noisy space.

This was not the case ten years ago.

The New Gate Keeper Is Knowledge

Unlike in times past when the gate keeper a writer had to overcome was a publisher or an editor, today, gate keepers look very, very different. They walk around university buildings wearing elbow patches, or they sit in high school teacher lounges eating apple sauce from cups. They are the old order — the old way of doing things. And they have no idea what it takes to be a writer in a work reality that is as fast moving and crazy as ours is, where tiny little companies create massive revenues and move at the speed of sound in order to beat the competition that is perpetually breathing down their necks like a ravenous mountain lion.

The writing landscape today looks nothing like it used to. Surrounding it is an opaque and misty haze of ignorance that does not allow many, many smart and verbally gifted people to learn the necessary skills and develop the acumen needed to better the global economy. And we’re all the worse off, for it.