There has never been a time in history when so many people have been creating content.
And there has never been a time when so much content has been available to consume.
Anyone with a simple smartphone can create content that goes viral, and anyone with a computer and an internet connection can write, publish and potentially sell a bestselling book without ever leaving their home.
Every day, millions of people around the world create reels, videos, memes, podcasts, articles, photographs, books, music, illustrations and countless other forms of content. The internet has reached almost every corner of the world, and with it has come an extraordinary explosion of creativity.
Some of it is brilliant, thoughtful and genuinely useful, while some of it is downright ridiculous.
Yet, strangely enough, ridiculous can sometimes be exactly what the internet wants.
We have all seen examples: a pet doing something completely ordinary, someone slipping into a swimming pool in an unexpected way, a person making a funny face at precisely the right moment, an absurdly simple dance, a strange product review, a bizarre everyday observation or a meme that took someone five minutes to create.
Millions of people can end up watching something that the creator probably never expected anyone outside their immediate circle to see.
Meanwhile, someone else may spend six months writing a book, weeks producing a video or hours creating a carefully edited reel, only to receive a handful of likes.
That can be frustrating, especially when you are a creator.
Welcome to the Attention Economy
Today, you aren’t simply competing with a few other people in your field.
You are competing for attention with millions of creators who are simultaneously trying to appear on people’s feeds.
Every creator is fighting the same battle: Attention.
And the competition is not limited to people doing what you do.
A writer isn’t only competing with other writers.
A filmmaker isn’t only competing with other filmmakers.
A musician isn’t only competing with other musicians.
Everyone is competing with everything else that can occupy someone’s screen.
A person who planned to read a book for an hour can suddenly spend that hour watching short videos.
Someone who intended to watch a documentary might end up scrolling through memes.
Someone who opened social media for five minutes might still be there an hour later.
That is the environment creators are working in.
But there is something important to remember: You control what you create. You don’t control what people consume.
You can spend days writing a book, weeks editing a video or hours creating the perfect post. You can put thought, experience, creativity and passion into it.
But once you publish it, you cannot control who sees it.
You cannot control the algorithm.
You cannot control whether someone stops scrolling.
You cannot control whether someone clicks, reads, watches, shares or ignores it.
And you certainly cannot control what the internet decides to make popular.
No amount of money spent on paid advertising can guarantee that people will pay attention to your content, if they choose to ignore it, scroll past it or block it, there is very little you can do to change their minds.
What you can control is whether you continue creating.
Indie Publishing Has Become More Competitive Too
This is particularly true for independent authors.
Indie publishing, just like social media, has never been more accessible. An author can write a book, edit it, design a cover, publish it internationally and make it available to readers across multiple platforms without waiting for a traditional publishing deal.
That’s fantastic.
But accessibility has also created competition.
There are now enormous numbers of independently published books competing for readers’ attention. And those books aren’t competing only against other indie books.
They are competing against traditionally published titles, established authors, celebrity memoirs, major publishing campaigns, audiobooks, ebooks, subscription services and the countless books already sitting on digital shelves.
The barriers to publishing have become lower.
The challenge of being discovered has become higher.
And that distinction matters.
Publishing a book is no longer necessarily the biggest challenge.
Getting someone to notice it can be.
An indie author can spend months writing a novel, invest in editing and cover design, carefully prepare the metadata, publish the book and then watch the sales dashboard remain frustratingly quiet.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the book is bad.
It may simply mean that, among millions of competing titles and an endless stream of other entertainment, the book hasn’t found its audience yet.
And this is where authors need to be careful.
Don’t confuse lack of visibility with lack of value.
A book selling ten copies isn’t automatically a failure.
A book selling a hundred copies isn’t automatically a success.
Numbers tell you what happened. They don’t always tell you why it happened.
Sometimes the right reader simply hasn’t discovered the book yet.
Not Every Book Has to Be a Brest Seller
Perhaps you have published one book and barely sold any copies.
Perhaps you have published three.
Perhaps you have published ten.
Maybe you have spent months posting about your books and your posts receive only a few likes.
Keep going.
Your next book might introduce you to readers who never discovered your previous work.
Your next post might reach someone who shares it with their audience.
Your next reel might unexpectedly take off.
Your next interview might put your name in front of an entirely new group of readers.
Or something you published two years ago might suddenly become relevant.
You simply don’t know.
And that uncertainty is part of being a creator.
Don’t Let the Numbers Silence You
Social media numbers can be addictive.
We look at views.
Likes.
Shares.
Comments.
Followers.
Book sales.
Reviews.
Rankings.
And before long, we start using those numbers to judge ourselves.
But the internet is a strange place.
A carefully researched article might get ignored while a fifteen-second video of a dog refusing to move from a sofa gets millions of views.
A beautifully designed photograph might receive 20 likes while a blurry picture taken accidentally gets shared thousands of times.
A carefully written novel might struggle to find readers while a completely unexpected story suddenly catches fire.
There isn’t always a logical explanation.
That’s the nature of mass attention.
And if you are going to create in this environment, you have to accept that you cannot control all of it.
So What Can You Control?
You can control your effort.
You can control your craft.
You can control how much you learn.
You can control whether you improve your writing.
You can control whether you experiment with different formats.
You can control whether you publish consistently.
You can control whether you listen to constructive feedback.
And most importantly, you can control whether you continue.
That doesn’t mean blindly producing content forever.
It means giving your work a chance to find its audience.
Learn from what doesn’t work.
Experiment with what might work.
Try something different.
But don’t abandon the thing you love simply because the internet didn’t immediately applaud.
The internet owes us nothing.
Neither does the algorithm.
Neither does the reader.
Our responsibility as creators is simply to create something worth discovering.
Keep Creating
We are living through one of the most extraordinary periods for creativity.
Anyone with an idea can potentially share it with the world.
Anyone can write a book.
Anyone can make a video.
Anyone can publish a photograph.
Anyone can create a podcast.
Anyone can tell a story.
But because almost everyone can do it, standing out has become harder.
That’s not a reason to stop.
It’s a reason to keep going.
If you are a writer, keep writing.
If you are an artist, keep creating.
If you make videos, keep making them.
If you create reels, keep creating reels.
If you’re an indie author, keep writing and publishing.
If you’ve sold only a few books, keep going.
If your latest post received five likes, keep going.
If your reel received 100 views, keep going.
You never know which piece of content might eventually find the right audience.
You never know which book might become someone’s favourite.
You never know which post might be shared by the right person.
And you never know when the internet’s unpredictable machinery will decide that the thing you created yesterday is suddenly worth showing to millions of people.
Until then, create because you have something to say.
Create because you enjoy it.
Create because you want to improve.
Create because the next story, the next book, the next reel or the next idea might be the one that reaches someone you’ve never met.
The digital world may be crowded.
The publishing world may be crowded.
The social media feeds may be overflowing.
But there is still room for your voice.
So don’t lose heart.
Keep creating.
Keep publishing.
Keep experimenting.
Keep putting your work out there.
And until the audience or the readers finds you…Godspeed and good luck.
Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
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