When you get down to the core of what an online influencer is, these are people who leverage self-publishing tools like blogs, social networks, photo and video sharing sites to create content. Those that create compelling content or engage an audience of people around that content, or both, accumulate a following of people they have some degree of influence over. 
One of those platforms where people create content and build an audience is podcasts. The current wave of podcast explosion which includes the emergence of the one you’re listening to, is actually the second generation of podcasts if you will. The medium had its first wave in the early to mid-2000s. 
In 2007, an aspiring science fiction writer was turned down by publisher after publisher. And then he read an article about podcasting. After some investigation, he decided to start recording the first part of his book as episodes of a podcast. Fast forward a couple years and his audience of 50,000 listeners suddenly looked appealing to St. Marten’s Press, a well-known publisher.
That author was J.C. Hutchins. The novel was 7th Son: Descent. He was a new media publisher who built an audience in a self-publishing medium and became an influencer. And that led him to the opportunity to sell his work through a traditional publishing medium. Some might call that being “legit” but it’s probably now becoming more aligned with “old fashioned.”
Hutchins went on to self-publish the second and third book in the series. He’s continued his writing for television shows and other side projects, but also leads the content efforts for a content marketing firm. 
J.C. joined me on the show to talk about his episodic life through self- and traditional publishing, becoming influential and putting that into perspective with age. We both share some back and forth of our experience in publishing, so for those of you interested in writing a book or self-publishing something, this episode will be particularly interesting. 
He also says if he had it all to do over again, he would do a few things differently.
This episode of Winfluence, the podcast, is sponsored by Winfluence, the book! Get a special discount by clicking the button below, buying on the Entrepreneur Press bookstore and using the discount code FALLS20. That earns you 20% off the retail price, just for being a Winfluence (the podcast) listener. Read and learn why we’ve been backed into a corner to think influencer marketing means Instagram and YouTube and how reframing it to be “influence” marketing makes us smarter marketers.
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