“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.”-Kevin Kelly The theory of 1,000 true fans is true to a very small portion of the “creators”. If you want to make a living as an artist, 90% of the time you are all about whatever it is you are doing. That leaves 10% of your time to kiss your fans asses. True fans will see that and not take offence to the lack of attention.Anyone I have ever known who has tried to “make it big” on their own has epically failed. Since this is my blog after all, i will say pish posh to “name” when he says“You don't need a million fans to justify producing something new. A mere one thousand is sufficient.”It isn’t possible to make the best art you can when you are dealing with all the other people involved in making your project expand. If someone had produced a new masterpiece or legendary idea, no one is going to believe or give a shit unless a bunch of other people do. When one is their own manager, they have contact the merchandise companies, talk to the tshirt designers, pick the brands, arrange printing the shirts, talk to the record distributor making copies and packaging your cds..enough right? On top of that, Kevin suggests that talking to each individual personally is the optimal way to gain them as a “true fan.” Chances are, that true fan isn’t going to want to buy your shitty recording and screen printed shirt you made in your garage, especially when they've been supporting your ass for 3 years and you're still living the same. “Compressed audio quality and lack of physical artwork create the sense of a lowering in collectible value.” The whole point of the music industry is to make your project, music in this case, and jazz it up enough so that you can focus on the song/album, most importantly; let them take care of the rest that will make you bills. “it rewards the artist to remain true, to focus on the unique aspects of their work, the qualities that True Fans appreciate.”Although it’s totally fair to argue the industry is anti-true fan theory, it’s also on the same ship with gaining loyal fans who love to buy useless junk(sorry indie-starving artist, you are likely to be useless anyway, your true fans will love you forever though). Robert Rich, an independent true fan fan, even admits he probably still would have had his day job if not for outside help. ”I was relieved over the years when a couple small labels showed interest in helping me----I snuck in under the collapsing framework of independent distribution, at a time where small companies could cast a medium-sized fishing net, to catch the interest of listeners who would otherwise never have known they liked this type of music. ”He had a good analogy with the Sispphus, rolling a boulder all the way up a mountain just to watch it fall again,”When I finally do release something that I feel to be a bold new direction, I manage only to sell it to the same 1,000 True Fans. The boulder sits back at the bottom of the mountain and it's time to start rolling it up again. “ That gets into a whole other aspect of stress from the demand to create more ideas faster. since the same people aren’t going to stay intrigued far as long as the consumer baby out of a promotional effort that might have lasted longer. “Artists, the majority of them, are introverts. They thrive living in their worlds (writing, painting, composing, etc) and get quickly overwhelmed by too much external input. And hiring a manger is not an option for most artists either. Yet, promotion through social interaction is essential for success.” The true fan theory totally works in certain artists communities, “by purchasing more per person, by spending directly so the creator keeps more per sale, and by enabling new models of support.” But common now. A thousand regular fans isn’t the same as 1000 true. If you had 5000 people who heard your stuff, you are going to have a lot bigger chance of getting 1000 of them to stick with it, regardless of if you are personally talking to them or not, and the only way to do that is to get that exposure to begin with. This person obviously has never been in the company of aspiring bands and seen first hand the amount of tedious work that will swamp your life. Within the past few years technology has significantly cut down that time. Technology is key to gain fame and wealth independently.“What is different now is the reach and power of technology, which makes it much easier to match up an artist with the right passionate micro patrons, keep them connected, serve them up created works, get payment from them directly, and nurture their interest and love.” There are many websites out there now, like Fundable and thepoint.com that fund artists through donations from people, with the promise of great finished work in return. Kevin Kelly does have some good points for people to get some insight on how to better market themselves. but as i said before, artists start to lose motivation to keep going with no feedback from people, so they probably wont spend too much effort on keeping people following them. “Not every artist is cut out, or willing, to be a nurturer of fans. Many musicians just want to play music, or photographers just want to shoot, or painters paint, and they temperamentally don’t want to deal with fans, especially True Fans.” taken from-http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/when-one-thousand-means-over-fifty-thousand/ 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. |
