how internet influencers have achieved literary fame – with a very outdated vision of the woman

She has a baderspaniel called Henry and prefers to sew baskets as going out to a disco. Barely a year ago, she was an unknown hairdresser originally from Esbad, in southeastern England. Now, Ms. Hinch – aka Sophie Hinchcliffe – is making a splash on the internet, famous for her very lathering cleansing tips and regular updates on her husband and her imminent first child.

Whether Mrs. Hinch has a prominent place in your life or you've never heard of her before, this 29-year-old has certainly left her mark. The interior design and cleaning enthusiast, who rarely appears in her publications, has built more than two million Instagram subscribers. His first book, Happy Hinch Yourself, published on April 4, became a bestseller thanks to the strength of pre-orders. She is one of many social media stars to have converted a large online audience into gigantic book sales. So, where does this phenomenon of publishing come from?

The new heavy trucks

YouTube stars such as Alfie Deyes, Felix Kjellberg (aka PewDiePie) and Zoe Sugg (aka Zoella) have all achieved something similar in the last five years. Deyes' first book, The Pointless Book, sold more than 100,000 copies in the two months following its release in 2014 and has since evolved into three volumes.

Sugg's first novel, Girl Online, aimed at young adults, was published by Penguin the same year. He broke sales records for the first week of his first novel, surpbading writers such as JK Rowling, Dan Brown and EL James. Sugg, who has a relationship with Deyes, has since continued with two sequels and a non-fiction book on lifestyle improvement, titled Sincerely Invited, released last fall.

Interestingly, Sugg and Hinchcliffe share the same management agency, Gleam Futures. Clearly recognizing the power of celebrity social media in publishing, the agency founded the Gleam Titles literary division in 2017. Sugg and Deyes appear simultaneously to talk about their future:

Felix Kjellberg, who works on the video game, also has a connection with Hinchcliffe. In 2015, he signed a book contract on Michael Joseph's print of Penguin, which publishes Happy Hinch Yourself. Kjellberg's book is called This Book Loves You, a parody of self-help, which has reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list. He also launched computer games and clothing brands, while becoming increasingly controversial for his radical views. Specifically, his PewDiePie vlog was approved by the shooter during the attack on the Christchurch Mosque (Kjellberg quickly moved away from the murderer later).

Edition and celebrity

The jury is wondering where PewDiePie is going from now on, but the audience of these social media stars is a windfall for a risk-averse industry like publishing. Hinchcliffe's Instagram page has grown by 500,000 subscribers in the first three months of 2019. His book was only announced in early December after an eleven-session auction.

This is just an extension of the same game that publishers have been playing with the celebrity call for decades. Witness, for example, the way in which editions such as comedians David Walliams and Russell Brand, football director Frank Lampard and former pop star Tom Fletcher have invaded children's edition, often because of the objections of authors who built their names the hard way.

Social media celebrities can easily fall prey to the same types of criticism. Sugg's literary prowess was questioned, for example, when it was revealed that children's author Siobhan Curham had helped write his first novel. The problem, according to a commentator, when all his mark had been "built on the authenticity". Sugg ended up taking the time to retrieve social media.

Yet Sugg had another chaotic adventure with a much-anticipated lifestyle and home advice book, Cordially Invited. Described as a "project to create an event and a memory of each day," the richly illustrated hardcover book received mixed reviews from readers and critics alike. Many saw it as a marketing ploy designed to extract more money from fans.

In 2019, women like Sugg and Hinchcliffe who build businesses on this lifestyle also have something unpleasant. When Hinchcliffe promises to offer readers: "All the best cleaning tips to make your sink shine and soothe your soul", it may be a time machine in the 1950s. It looks like Anthea Turner, television personality, who broke into publishing a few years ago. At the time, the host of the show The Perfect Housewife of the BBC, Turner published a series of practical books, such as Be the Perfect Housewife – Lessons on the Art of modern household management.

All this perpetuates a very old-fashioned and very problematic vision of femininity and domestic work. It is particularly troubling to see such books emerge via new media, when these platforms have the potential to reverse old standards and ideas. This is not at odds with the literature on the conduct of the eighteenth century, devoted to the education of the reader – usually young women – on the social standards of the time.

Publishing remains as vulnerable as it always has been. Some footprints will likely be burned when this influencer-writer bubble will inevitably burst. In the meantime, I will not be enlisted in Hinch's army. It's fun to see how you can join platforms like Instagram looking for the future and find yourself catapulted into the past.