Kevin Kelly -- The Technium

The long tail does not raise the sales of creators much, but it does add massive competition and endless downward pressure on prices. Unless artists become a large aggregator of other artist's works, the long tail offers no path out of the quiet doldrums of minuscule sales.

Other than aim for a blockbuster hit, what can an artist do to escape the long tail?

One solution is to find 1,000 True Fans.

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Other than aim for a blockbuster hit, what can an artist do to escape the long tail?

One solution is to find 1,000 True Fans.

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One solution is to find 1,000 True Fans. While some artists have discovered this path without calling it that, I think it is worth trying to formalize. The gist of 1,000 True Fans can be stated simply:

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

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One thousand is a feasible number. You could count to 1,000. If you added one fan a day, it would take only three years. True Fanship is doable. Pleasing a True Fan is pleasurable, and invigorating. It rewards the artist to remain true, to focus on the unique aspects of their work, the qualities that True Fans appreciate.

The key challenge is that you have to maintain direct contact with your 1,000 True Fans. They are giving you their support directly. Maybe they come to your house concerts, or they are buying your DVDs from your website, or they order your prints from Pictopia. As much as possible you retain the full amount of their support. You also benefit from the direct feedback and love.

The technologies of connection and small-time manufacturing make this circle possible. Blogs and RSS feeds trickle out news, and upcoming appearances or new works. Web sites host galleries of your past work, archives of biographical information, and catalogs of paraphernalia. Diskmakers, Blurb, rapid prototyping shops, Myspace, Facebook, and the entire digital domain all conspire to make duplication and dissemination in small quantities fast, cheap and easy. You don't need a million fans to justify producing something new. A mere one thousand is sufficient.

This small circle of diehard fans, which can provide you with a living, is surrounded by concentric circles of Lesser Fans. These folks will not purchase everything you do, and may not seek out direct contact, but they will buy much of what you produce. The processes you develop to feed your True Fans will also nurture Lesser Fans. As you acquire new True Fans, you can also add many more Lesser Fans. If you keep going, you may indeed end up with millions of fans and reach a hit. I don't know of any creator who is not interested in having a million fans.

But the point of this strategy is to say that you don't need a hit to survive.  You don't need to aim for the short head of best-sellerdom to escape the long tail. There is a place in the middle, that is not very far away from the tail, where you can at least make a living. That mid-way haven is called 1,000 True Fans. It is an alternate destination for an artist to aim for.

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Young artists starting out in this digitally mediated world have another path other than stardom, a path made possible by the very technology that creates the long tail. Instead of trying to reach the narrow and unlikely peaks of platinum hits, bestseller blockbusters, and celebrity status, they can aim for direct connection with 1,000 True Fans. It's a much saner destination to hope for. You make a living instead of a fortune. You are surrounded not by fad and fashionable infatuation, but by True Fans. And you are much more likely to actually arrive there.

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In 2004 author Lawrence Watt-Evans used this model to publish his newest novel. He asked his True Fans to collectively pay $100 per month. When he got $100 he posted the next chapter of the novel. The entire book was published online for his True Fans, and then later in paper for all his fans. He is now writing a second novel this way. He gets by on an estimated 200 True Fans because he also publishes in the traditional manner -- with advances from a publisher supported by thousands of Lesser Fans.  Other authors who use fans to directly support their work are Diane Duane, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, and Don Sakers. Game designer Greg Stolze employed a similar True Fan model to launch two pre-financed games. Fifty of his True Fans contributed seed money for his development costs.

The genius of the True Fan model is that the fans are able to move an artist away from the edges of the long tail to a degree larger than their numbers indicate. They can do this in three ways: by purchasing more per person, by spending directly so the creator keeps more per sale, and by enabling new models of support.

New models of support include micro-patronage. Another model is pre-financing the startup costs. Digital technology enables this fan support to take many shapes. Fundable is a web-based enterprise which allows anyone to raise a fixed amount of money for a project, while reassuring the backers the project will happen. Fundable withholds the money until the full amount is collected. They return the money if the mininum is not reached.

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I accidentally cultivated 15,000 True Fans by filling a need in an underserved niche online while following my heart…Ummm, so like I put up a little website about my family living on a raw-vegan diet of fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds - unheated - oh, yeah, everyone knows about this now right? Well, anyway, it was one of the first raw sites about 10 years ago and after reading an article about Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing in YIL (remember them?) - I put up a newsletter. For many years I slaved away maintaining my list through entourage groups - I should have my head examined, I know! But now all’s well with dadamail and life is good!

So, I understand how to do this in an underserved niche I think - But how do you stand out as a musician - my next test…..Maybe out of those 15,000 I can find 1,000 True Fans!

Thanks for putting this concept into concrete form! The Internet saves starving artists and keeps them off the street at the same time! Cuz y’know it takes a lot of work but yes it is so gratifying to actually communicate with your fans, read their emails, soak up that love! :)

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Kevin, I will never think of it the same way again. Thanks! You (or listmates) might be interested in Steven Van Yoder’s book, Slightly Famous at www.getslightlyfamous.com. It helps you figure HOW to get 1,000 True Fans. It’s aimed at businesses and self-employment in general rather than just creative endeavors.

Judith,who’s slightly famous at homeschool conferences

Judith Waite Allee Co-author “Homeschooling on a Shoestring” and “Educational Travel on a Shoestring”

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Kevin,

Very interesting article.

I agree wholeheartedly with Keith Burtis, the web makes it possible to find those 1000 people who can support you doing what you do rather than what you need to do to survive. The necessity of living in a large city like Paris, London or New York; for a long time the only way to make your way as an artist, is no longer so important. I live in the middle of nowhere in a small ruined hamlet in Provence, I have one neighbor, (a sculptor) and a DSL line. I have managed to make a living now for ten years by selling my paintings and as the internet and blogosphere grew (I set up my first website in 1998) I gradually increased my ‘fan base’. In 2006 I was fortunate to have the NYTimes published a small article on my 19th century meets 21st century life and I was given an energetic push over that 1000 base. I send out a new painting to three thousand people almost everyday of the week, I can experiment and always some people will come with me. As I mature(?) as a painter and my work changes I am confident that enough ‘fans’ will come with me to enable me to continue for the rest of my life (touch wood).

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Kevin, this post should be called “THE TAO OF LONG TAIL.”

What you’ve articulated here is a classic middle way. You must have some Buddhist DNA!

It’s always amazed me that most of what you read about musicians seems to be focused on the exceptional success stories at the head of the power law curve, while those who inhabit “the flatline” as you call it, are left with their day jobs.

I’ve produced, published and advised independent musicians for 30 years, and the ones who are successful at making a living on their music have two things in common: they are realistic about where they exist in the music food chain, and they create and sustain themselves on multiple small revenue streams. These other revenue streams should be considered to round out the picture you paint above of direct support by users.

They include: teaching, performing on other artists live gigs and recording projects; producing and/or engineering other artists recording projects; selling studio time to other artists; scoring small films, multimedia and commercials; building instruments; writing for music periodicals, blogs and web sites; and for a few, product endorsements.

Then there is the whole category of “licensing income” which is only going to get bigger in the digital era: music publishing royalties from their composition copyrights (ASCAP/BMI/etc), residual payments for licensed use of their recorded music in films, television, and advertisments.

This is not an exhaustive list — there are many ways to operate if you want to make a living at music. For a more complete treatment of these ideas, please see my long interview with independent musician Jamie Bonk.

:: SH

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Kevin

A brilliant article. I’m going to publicise it widely.

Your advice to creative individuals is intelligent and appropriate. It fits in with my own experience and my own advice to the creative people I help in a professional capacity.

There is a free eBook for creative people who want to know more about cool business ideas, called ‘T-Shirts and Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity’. It’s online here: http://www.davidparrish.com/dp/uploads/TShirtsAndSuitsAGuideToTheBusinessOfCreativityDavidParrish.pdf

It’s free! And it’s a Cool Tool !

Keep up the good work…

David http://www.davidparrish.com

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I always tell myself and other musician clients and fans, “You don’t want transitory, massive Digg-like traffic hits on your stupid shit. You want to cleverly poise and promote your stupid shit to key fans who understand your message and aesthetics. Loyal intelligent fans who have good connections or lots of smart energy.”

You seek the music aficiandos and elite change agents, plus regular fans with COLLECTOR MENTALITY who will seek out every fart you emit, and pay any price for it.

But give most of your stupid shit away for free, to generate buzz and addictive behavior modules.

STR8 SOUNDS Therabusive Noise Carnival

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Kevin —

Great summation of something I’ve got some data on, that I addressed in a scholarly article, called The Deep Niche (Journal of Electronic Publishing), regarding our experiences at the National Academies Press.

A large proportion of the publications of the Press are exceedingly small-market publications — things that could not be affordably “marketed” in traditional terms. But many of our publications are sustainable because we’ve found the “1,000 true fans” of some abstruse topic.

While you’re mostly talking about artists — writers, artists, musicians — the same can also be true about ideas, or memes, or scientific conclusions.

In a world of a billion Web users worldwide, there’s a remarkably resilient market of interest in specific, pertinent content that is of use, and of interest to, a thousand (or ten thousand) readers who care enough to want the final publication. Making the material openly available means they find us, and can browse, and can make use of the content.

Thanks for your smart distillation of the functional application of the phenomenon. It may lead to some new economies, and new opportunities for creative expression, of small-market (and large-market) ideas.

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Kevin,

Fantastic insight here… and it certainly has hit quite a few heads [which i’m glad to see!]. 1,000 seems like a solid, reasonable number to me. In my chosen field (music and performance) it is definitely viable but perhaps still difficult to maintain on my own.

I’m thankful for the ‘patrons’ i’ve had so far, have a donation button on my official page and myspace page that hints at special gifts for those that donate a bit more than postage would allow, and even have a few things hidden online that i send them as a way of showing gratitude for their support. Though i’m far from a comfortable living at the moment, the inroads i’m making are in line with your thoughts here.

The one stumbling block i see in this model [even as evidenced by this page] is that there are simply SO MANY people with creative aspirations these days, and the number continues to grow. I can foresee a point where everybody with access to a computer believes they should be nurturing some outlet, and thus expect their desire to result in financial gains too.

If everybody is fostering product-involved-genius, how do you justify your want for income? Where does the money ultimately come from if it’s just exchanging hands in support of one another?

As much as i enjoy the idea of being completely independent, i’ve enjoyed the ‘old-model’ way of label-side patronage for musicians more and feel it may still be the best way to kickstart one’s work towards artistic feasibility. My output as Phylum Sinter has involved about 12 independent labels so far [including compilation releases] and i’m still grateful for the offers to release with those that believe in my work enough to let me realize what i want to release without oppressive creativity shaping tactics on their part.

The one-to-one contact involved in keeping my fanbase alive has been an inspiration on it’s own, but maintaining it has a few implications for me — perhaps i’m not strong enough to take that much input directly and not have it influence what i had in mind?

Thanks for this one, i’m bookmarking it and will be re-reading it as i conspire in the near future.

Best regards, c.todd phylum_sinter

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I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, lately, about how I might move from the world of “corporate jester” to providing something creative that a smaller audience might find more useful. Right now I engage with a very few corporate types (about four) who value me very highly to get to that 100K — actually more than that, as expenses to find and satisfy them are pretty high.

I’m going to do some thinking about what it would look like to make 1000 people a little bit happy instead — would it be writing, or helping them improve their skills, or offer them a way to lessen their pain? I could do all or some of those, I’m sure.

Nice post.

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Personal coaches, who are creative entrepreneurs, use this approach. Actually the number of True Fans needed for a coach to prosper is probably much less than 1000, because coaching clients pay a pretty high fee to work one-on-one with their coach. Perhaps we could call these Ultra True Fans.

Fortunately for coaches, most of us love nurturing our fans. As a former choreographer, I must say that for me, co-creating with my clients is much more fun than being an artist!

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Great article.

I’m so glad that you explained the concept so clearly.

I’ve had a similar model in my head as I started my own business, publishing illustrated books/products about friendly monsters.

It wasn’t named “1000 true fans” or anything like that, but it just seemed like creating and selling directly to the fan-group is the way to go for people like me.

I hadn’t really equated it to how many fans it might take; I just know I need to bless as many as possible.

Here were my thoughts: (echoing yours)

1. Don’t rely on a big break; I don’t want my chances of success to ride on the back of an endorsement by Oprah.

I’d rather build my base myself, by hand, because this doesn’t require a rare, crazy-lucky break. I also don’t buy lottery tickets for the only chance to live my dream.

1. Create relationships directly with the fans. Talk to them, listen to them, and offer them products, directly.

2. Produce quality stuff that I can be proud of. I’m tired of seeing great ideas watered-down by committees.

3. Think long term. I try to make things that I can hopefully be proud of 10-15-20 years from now. If I can still be selling my first book when I’m 77, then I’m probably doing something right. (And have probably made a good return on that effort)

The Big Challenge for someone like me is creating enough products that can engage the super-fans for your $100 per fan example.

$100 per person a lot of product, since I can only afford to produce one book per year.

However, you’ve spelled out some other ideas (virtual product, print on demand, donations) that might fill that void.

Okay, back to building.

Thanks again.

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Thank you Kevin for this enlightening write-up - for those who like me and my readers who strive to become independent of the existing work system, your ability to have articulated this out is absolutely fantastic.

Not only.

I believe that the greatest outcome of this may go actually well beyond the economic benefit that such people could gain.

It is in fact in our newly conquered ability to do what we really want and what we are inspired to that in my humble opinion will create the biggest impact and the most positive consequences.

Identifying and articulating so clearly how those who have something to share can indeed not only survive but also create more wealth and opportunity for themselves and for others is certainly the greatest news you could ever bring here for me.

Thanks from the heart.

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