4 ms·

i like the idea in general, but the title is misleading. to have 1000 fans buy everything you put out, paperback and hardcover, you need somewhere between 10k-5

by rStar 6y ago

i like the idea in general, but the title is misleading. to have 1000 fans buy everything you put out, paperback and hardcover, you need somewhere between 10k-50k fans total, a small percentage of whom will be the die hards written about in the article

mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
Yes, this is why the title includes the modifier "true".
- rStar 6y ago
  the following is a quote from the article. the article is a bait and switch. in the title, it tries to get you to believe that, hey, something you thought you had almost no chance of achieving is actually within your reach, but then with this definition of “true fan” define it in terms of a 1 in 50/500/1000 of a population of fans in general, which are worse numbers than i would’ve guessed before reading the article. As I said, bait and switch. “ A true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce. These diehard fans will drive 200 miles to see you sing; they will buy the hardback and paperback and audible versions of your book; they will purchase your next figurine sight unseen; they will pay for the “best-of” DVD version of your free youtube channel; they will come to your chef’s table once a month. If you have roughly a thousand of true fans like this (also known as super fans), you can make a living — if you are content to make a living but not a fortune.”
  - coldtea 6y ago
    I don't see anything "bait and switch" about it. It explicitly states you need "1000 true fans" not merely "1000 fans", and the wording already makes it evident that having a "true fan" is harder than merely having a fan or follower. The title already was clear, and the quote you posted doesn't change anything. So, to talk in paradigms, it's not so much that the article is "bait and switch" but that maybe you were expecting a "silver bullet".
    - rStar 6y ago
      an article whos title translates to, in the mind if most readers, you can be successful with 1000 fans, and then suggests with the definition of the specific type of fan that you may need 100000 to have a thousand of the kind described, is disingenuous, literally, on its face. Therefore, bait and switch seems to me to be an accurate description. Also, the article makes that jump, but doesn’t actually state it straight out, because that would be admitting the title is just clickbait. Enjoy it, benefit from it, be inspired by it if you are so moved, you do you; but in my opinion, it’s trash garbage writing. it reminds me of the way people talk when they are trying to talk you into their cult or pyramid scheme.
      - coldtea 6y ago
        You had to use the qualifier "essentially" and avoid mentioning the actual title of the article, to make your point though... >but in my opinion, it’s trash garbage writing. Whatever. It's an article that makes a simple observation: that in this day and age, there are ways to make a viable living with small-scale patronage, facilitated by the internet, direct payments, and so on. It's not about being it easy to make it without putting the work.
        rStar 6y ago
        i changed my last post to remove the word essentially, since at the time there wasn’t a reply button below your reply and I thought you had blocked me from replying or something. not trying to make you look bad and change specifically what you alluded to.
        rStar 6y ago
        “ It's an article that makes a simple observation” - it’s an article that plays games with language to mislead its audience. to reiterate read the definition of true fan. are you that big of a fan of literally anyone? the true fan bar is so high, the article ceases to have meaning based on its own words. feel free to extrapolate your own meaning, which is what i believe you are doing.
dbspin 6y ago
I'd go further than this. I know plenty of musicians who have far in excess of a few tens of thousands of fans worldwide, but couldn't possibly survive on the income from their music. Similarly I know some writers who's books sell in the low tens of thousands who could never dream of leaving their day job. So it's about more than the number of fans, it's related to the perceived value of individual copies of the work (and how monitizable, sorry horrible word) it is. So a fine artist working in the digital space with a couple of thousand fans, may well be able to make decent money selling prints and NFTs. But a musician, writer or filmmaker will likely need several hundred thousand fans to build a useful number of 'true fans'. A youtuber may need millions of 'fans' to garner the same number of regularly cash supportive fans.
- bckr 6y ago
  This is covered in the article about 4 paragraphs in. You have to make about a hundred bucks a year from each super fan.
stdbrouw 6y ago
No proof of this, but I imagine that (very) small fan bases have a very different dynamic from large ones. As a fan of a generally unknown artist, you're part of a small clique, you enjoy this thing that very few other people love so it becomes a part of your identity, you know that your purchase or non-purchase can make a crucial difference, etc. so you're likely to become a true fan even if you weren't already. On the other hand, those with only a passing interest in the artist's work are not likely to stick around because they aren't constantly reminded that you exist through mainstream media, recommendation algorithms or friends.

by rStar 6y ago

mandelbrotwurst 6y ago

Yes, this is why the title includes the modifier "true".

rStar 6y ago
the following is a quote from the article. the article is a bait and switch. in the title, it tries to get you to believe that, hey, something you thought you had almost no chance of achieving is actually within your reach, but then with this definition of “true fan” define it in terms of a 1 in 50/500/1000 of a population of fans in general, which are worse numbers than i would’ve guessed before reading the article. As I said, bait and switch. “ A true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce. These diehard fans will drive 200 miles to see you sing; they will buy the hardback and paperback and audible versions of your book; they will purchase your next figurine sight unseen; they will pay for the “best-of” DVD version of your free youtube channel; they will come to your chef’s table once a month. If you have roughly a thousand of true fans like this (also known as super fans), you can make a living — if you are content to make a living but not a fortune.”
- coldtea 6y ago
  I don't see anything "bait and switch" about it. It explicitly states you need "1000 true fans" not merely "1000 fans", and the wording already makes it evident that having a "true fan" is harder than merely having a fan or follower. The title already was clear, and the quote you posted doesn't change anything. So, to talk in paradigms, it's not so much that the article is "bait and switch" but that maybe you were expecting a "silver bullet".
  - rStar 6y ago
    an article whos title translates to, in the mind if most readers, you can be successful with 1000 fans, and then suggests with the definition of the specific type of fan that you may need 100000 to have a thousand of the kind described, is disingenuous, literally, on its face. Therefore, bait and switch seems to me to be an accurate description. Also, the article makes that jump, but doesn’t actually state it straight out, because that would be admitting the title is just clickbait. Enjoy it, benefit from it, be inspired by it if you are so moved, you do you; but in my opinion, it’s trash garbage writing. it reminds me of the way people talk when they are trying to talk you into their cult or pyramid scheme.
    - coldtea 6y ago
      You had to use the qualifier "essentially" and avoid mentioning the actual title of the article, to make your point though... >but in my opinion, it’s trash garbage writing. Whatever. It's an article that makes a simple observation: that in this day and age, there are ways to make a viable living with small-scale patronage, facilitated by the internet, direct payments, and so on. It's not about being it easy to make it without putting the work.
      - rStar 6y ago
        i changed my last post to remove the word essentially, since at the time there wasn’t a reply button below your reply and I thought you had blocked me from replying or something. not trying to make you look bad and change specifically what you alluded to.
        rStar 6y ago
        “ It's an article that makes a simple observation” - it’s an article that plays games with language to mislead its audience. to reiterate read the definition of true fan. are you that big of a fan of literally anyone? the true fan bar is so high, the article ceases to have meaning based on its own words. feel free to extrapolate your own meaning, which is what i believe you are doing.

dbspin 6y ago

I'd go further than this. I know plenty of musicians who have far in excess of a few tens of thousands of fans worldwide, but couldn't possibly survive on the income from their music. Similarly I know some writers who's books sell in the low tens of thousands who could never dream of leaving their day job. So it's about more than the number of fans, it's related to the perceived value of individual copies of the work (and how monitizable, sorry horrible word) it is. So a fine artist working in the digital space with a couple of thousand fans, may well be able to make decent money selling prints and NFTs. But a musician, writer or filmmaker will likely need several hundred thousand fans to build a useful number of 'true fans'. A youtuber may need millions of 'fans' to garner the same number of regularly cash supportive fans.

bckr 6y ago
This is covered in the article about 4 paragraphs in. You have to make about a hundred bucks a year from each super fan.

stdbrouw 6y ago

No proof of this, but I imagine that (very) small fan bases have a very different dynamic from large ones. As a fan of a generally unknown artist, you're part of a small clique, you enjoy this thing that very few other people love so it becomes a part of your identity, you know that your purchase or non-purchase can make a crucial difference, etc. so you're likely to become a true fan even if you weren't already. On the other hand, those with only a passing interest in the artist's work are not likely to stick around because they aren't constantly reminded that you exist through mainstream media, recommendation algorithms or friends.