This is a great story. Publishers will publish you if you get a large social media following. They feel at the very least the risk is lower to them because they will get their initial investment back. I’ve spoken to a few editors at national publishers about this. One of my books they seriously considered but one editor told me that they wanted to publish it they only passed because I didn’t have half a million followers. I loved her honesty because the business and journalist in me already knew it.