The Problem with 1000 True Fans

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

John Scalzi is discussing potential flaws to the "1000 True Fan" model of cyber-success. He raises some valid points.

But at a $100 threshold, his question "Would you spend that much money on a single creator in a year?" made me pause ... I can think of at least one person for whom I probably hit that target in the past. If I were not starving-broke, I'd probably be hitting that target for one person consistently, and maybe more than one. In fact if I had plentiful money, I'd be doing that deliberately because I like patronizing the arts. Last night at the harp concert I dropped $25 on CDs and coaxed my partner into buying the third one.

Comments

[newroticgirl.livejournal.com]

The point (from Scalzi, I think) that hit me truely was the one about the True Fans sticking with just one person for the long haul. Like many people, I tend to be fickle. For a while, I'm REALLY into something... and then I move on. I don't know that I could reserve my True Fan $100 for the same person every year.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Interesting... I'm not like that. If a particular creative person keeps creating stuff, I will keep buying it, year after year after year....

Scalzi's point was an interesting one, but I wonder about it. For instance: buying for other people is far more tempting than buying for myself. $8 for a book? I might pass. But if I'm getting it for someone I know will like it, I'll buy it without a second thought.

Paying artists this way hits the same mental trigger, particularly if I don't have to deal with physical media, and twice particularly if it makes things available to a community at large. I am buying "something" for someone else: in this case, groceries or living expenses for a creative person; and getting to give it to lots of other people (the community).

It's more like charity than it is the old model of supporting art, the difference between buying a copy of an artwork you're going to hang in your office and making an artwork available in a museum.

[newroticgirl.livejournal.com]

Well on the other hand, I'm very willing to shoot smaller amounts of money at the same people consistently. But still... I look at my bookshelf for example. Anne McCaffrey, who is the reason I'm so in love with genre fiction? I stopped buying her books a long time ago. I still like the ones I have, but I've moved on to other obsessions.

But I'm also flighty... or ADD, or fickle, or short attention span, or whatever you want to call it. Even my own hobbies tend to change frequently. For a while it was aromatherapy. Then jewelry. Now glass. I don't ever stick to one thing for my own pleasure.

I see what you're saying... I'm just not wired the same way, I think.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Hmm. This is interesting to me. Are there any artists (by which I mean musicians, artists, writers, dancers, etc) whose work has endured for you, or do all of them fade?

There are people whose work I no longer enjoy, though I did when younger. But there are people who continue to give me pleasure. This latter category is smaller than the former, but I do have some people that will probably always bring me pleasure....

[newroticgirl.livejournal.com]

I can't think of anybody that I run right out to buy everything they do. Part of this is that I often don't have a single favorite anything, but a changing group of favorites-of-the-moment. When pressed to pick a favorite band, for example, I'd go with REM. But I don't own all their CDs -- despite still listening to the ones I have from time to time and liking them.

And I don't think it's that I don't like them anymore... it's maybe that I have other things that I'm more excited about. The same thing happens to my own story ideas... as if they're in a line, the one at the front of my head is the Most! Exciting! until something else sneaks up and then the old Best Idea falls to the back and rarely comes forward again.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Hmm. So old things don't bring you comfort?

[newroticgirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, they do.

I didn't delineate clearly enough between what happens to my own story ideas (go away and usually don't come back) and my affection for other people's stuff. Sorry about that. I'm very distracted and agitated and afraid and concerned today... so things aren't coming out of my brain clearly. (Yet I'm so desperate for company that I'm flapping my yap over here... heh.)

But yeah, other people's stuff that is "old" or "not the newest obsession" is comforting. I have favorite books ... hell, I reread everything I own at least once, often more than that. And it may be largely finances that keep me from following old favorites farther -- it's often a choice between old favorite and new exciting thing and the new exciting thing wins the few dollars I can spare.

I'm a contradiction. That's for sure. Sorry to be confusing!

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Not confusing, but definitely intriguing!

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

The payments I make are usually small ($2-5) with occasional larger ($19-20) ones.

With crafts, I have a set of things that I cycle through over time. With fiction and art, I tend to have a few long-term favorites, then miscellaneous ones that come and go.

Also, while I'd love to have $100,000 a year, I don't really need or expect it. I could live just fine on about a quarter of that.

Re: Thoughts

[e-cunningham.livejournal.com]

Good post. It raises several questions and observations about the 1000 True Fan model:

1) How feasible is to to assume a creator can product $100 worth of new material a year?
2) How many fans can afford to drop $100 on a single creator?
3) It is not reasonable to assume that True Fans are singular in their focus. Avid readers tend to read the work or several/many authors. Few people listen to a single band, or purchase the wares of a single craftsperson or artist. Most likely, creators will share their True Fans with more than other other creator. This forces True Fans to pick and choose--unless, of course, they have hundreds or even thousands of dollars in discretionary income to spend each year on books, art, graphic novels, music, and concerts.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Good questions! Let's see...

"1) How feasible is to to assume a creator can product $100 worth of new material a year?"

Depends on your product and creation speed. For an artist, one painting can easily be worth $100; or even a print if they're large and/or archival. That's anywhere from one day to several months worth of work. Adding up the "Buy It Now" prices from my last Poetry Fishbowl would have been well over $100 if one person bought them all.

"2) How many fans can afford to drop $100 on a single creator?"

That's a good question. I think, not a lot, but maybe more than people expect. My budget has gone from shoestring to dentalfloss due to household job loss, but I still eked out a tiny contribution to a new projet that I dearly admired. And a few bucks here and there adds up through a year.

"3) It is not reasonable to assume that True Fans are singular in their focus. Avid readers tend to read the work or several/many authors."

True. I will throw a dollar or two into the hat of any musician who impresses me. But Wednesday's suprise harp concert had me buying two CDs and wheedling my partner into buying the third. For long-term support, I'm inclined to pick one to three people whose work I believe in so deeply that I want to have as much of it in the world as possible. Those are conscious choices. When I can't give them cash, I give them other things.

*ponder* If I counted donating my editorial expertise, I'd be a True Fan for several people, and far over the threshold. That's another way to cut overhead, actually: if you don't have to pay for services out-of-pocket but can get your TFs to do them cheap or free, then you can more easily and cheaply produce hardcopy products. That just happened with the chapbook edition of The Aphorisms of Kherishdar and that one's already sold 27+ copies.