They key for you, Ben, is going to be all the other merchandise. Ben t-shirts, Ben novelty towels, Ben bobble-heads. For an artist like you the music is secondary to the look in any case.
Right -- a musician's True Fans buy a couple of CDs a year (studio album, single, compilation that includes the beloved artist, live album, etc), hits all the live shows they can reach, and merch merch merch.
And you don't do 500 paintings, you do a handful of paintings and sell a bunch of prints. I'm about a $100/year True Fan of artist/author Ursula Vernon, but that means I buy her $20 prints, her books, the $150 limited-edition print she did to raise money to pay her taxes a couple years back -- I still don't own any of her original paintings.
It seems as if Kelly took a not very interesting or new idea—artists and musicians can be successful on small scale, who knew—and tried to make it into some kind of framework, mostly via capital letters and occasional numbers.
And I know the long tail has been supposedly refuted, but I still think that those artists who do any reasonable level of promotion on the vast Wide World Webs will have at least 10,000 fans who will spend $100 a year.
Introducing the bob mcmanus plan for making $1 million from the comfort and privacy of your home. CALL NOW. Operators are standing by.
Is a Muslimgauze-like pace faster than a Guided by Voices-esque pace? (All I have is Hebron Massacre - no True Fan I!)
The numbers don't add up, of course, but I doubt that he was trying to actually work out the details of a business model.
Painters have always worked on this model. The "True Fan" is called a collector, or, in earlier times, a patron. Nowadays we separate out the function of creating the art and the function of identifying and nurturing collectors: the second role is that of the dealer. The pieces don't go for $15 of course.
Joyce worked on this model for Ulysses. His publisher identified a bunch of True Joyce Fans and sold them limited editions at massive markups.
So it's a known model. Whether it would work for music is another question.
Anybody see that article asbout the standup comic who was summoned from NYC to Montreal (or Toronto?) for a onenighter with a firm web commitment by a number of fans?
They didn't have numbers. Would 100 fans paying 20 dollars each pay expenses+ for one night?
200 plane + 200 hotel + 100 meals
The bar damn well not charge the comic.
5:I was trying to come at around 100k a year, got math wrong.
But finding 10k fans who will spend 10 dollars might be harder than finding 1k who will spend 100.
I wonder how many Flaming Lips DTV movies have sold in Singapore?
Patronage isn't quite the same thing as bilking fans.
13: I was thinking maybe you meant to type "milking" but have a cold.
7:Exactly. I know nothing about the music, but from what I see at AMG, New Age musicians apparently have something like this business model.
New Age musicians apparently have something like this business model.
Richard Thompson said he didn't mind that the second French Frith Kaiser Thompson album came out on Windham Hill because the sort of people who buy WH albums will just grab a bunch of albums and buy them without looking, or caring, what they are.
11: But if you could actually care deeply about anything, neb, you'd understand that TrueFans don't feel bilked, or milked, or chumpinated, about spending $100 or more a year for the thing they really want.
There are a few musicians out there who have released an album or two that I've really liked, and for one reason or another, usually financial at root, they can't get another one out. I'd gladly pay $100-$200 to help get Invisible Records to stop dicking Meg Lee Chin over and let her release a second album. I'd gladly pay to get Chris Vrenna out of Marilyn Manson's band and see another Tweaker album. I have donated to The Prids' medical fund (after a catastrophic tour-van wreck injuring 4 bandmembers and 2 SOs) and am terribly excited about the new album they're finishing up now.
What else am I gonna do with $100? Buy 5 autotune-whore-of-the-week CDs? I'd sooner burn the bills.
That's patronage, Ham-Love, not buying whatever's sent your way. I know people who did the supporter thing for Einstürzende Neubauten; of course I know that happens.
And of course I know that people will buy all sorts of strange stuff from Chris Onstad. Hot sauce, pint glasses, and cookbooks, oh my. But as a model on which to base your enterprise, "first recruit a thousand people who'll buy whatever I issue" doesn't seem like part of a very good plan.
(I myself used to be willing to at least consider (being more penurious than Ham-Love) the purchase of just about anything King Crimson put out, and went to all their concerts near me that I could afford to, but eventually I realized that (a) their new stuff hasn't been all that great and (b) 41 CDs' worth of material is probably enough. And now I view Fripp's endless repackaging of old stuff as rather cynical and exploitative w/r/t his fanbase's willingness to lap up anything in nice packaging. They may not feel enchumpulated, but they surely are.)
Speaking of buying things -- I now worship and adore these purveyors of remarkably perfect dry-farmed tomatoes and tomato juice. (They also make terrific pickly things.) But the tomato juice is over-the-top wonderful and with it I made the best bloody marys ever. In fact, I shall make some more right now.
Their pickled okra goes for astonishing sums.
And sure, on the flip side, I've bought every Skinny Puppy "From The Vault" release that should have stayed in the vault, but that's me trying to be a retroactive patron for their earlier regular releases.
My wife represents an established but not famous artist -- his works hang in museums but the general public would never have heard of him -- and I think 8's description is right on the money for that slice of the art world.
And the 1000 true fans also seems to an approximately accurate description of the revenue model for some Tai Chi type spiritual reteat-workshop performing artists. You do x number of these per year at different really nice locations, and the faithful line up to attend. There's also merchandise -- DVDs, tapes, etc. -- but no intent to try to scale up to be the next Deepak Chopra
the next Deepak Chopra
As ominous a clause as I've ever read here.
This seems the sort of thing that Cory Doctorow will have inflated a hot air balloon or two about.
I've read articles by photographers explicitly buying into the 'true fan' model. That is, they ask people to sign up for a fee ($100, say) and in return they'll get, say, 2 or 3 prints over the course of the year.
In these cases they are actually getting the prints for (in some cases) quite a bit less than they'd normally cost, but the benefit to the photographer is a chunk of guaranteed core income.
I sure would like to be a professional bloviator
Perhaps you could charge your True Fans for access to Unfogged. Your many cob loggers will obviously necessitate more True Fans than you'd otherwise need, but fortunately,
while increasing the numbers of artists involved in creation increases the number of True Fans needed, the increase does not explode, but rises gently and in proportion.
mcmanus was speaking of the comic Paul F. Tompkins, above, who has expanded the experiment to a pretty robust touring schedule.
29 almost went for the U(t) nomenclature and pwn'd me.
True fans subscribe to the podcast. Can this thread go 300 posts before positing the critical cultural mass to attract and support groupies ?
I could spring $20 for an HL mixtape.
I've considered at times buying anything and everything by Piano Magic (it's not piano music). I was a fan, but not a True Fan, of Crimson.
8: The "True Fan" is called a collector, or, in earlier times, a patron. Nowadays we separate out the function of creating the art and the function of identifying and nurturing collectors: the second role is that of the dealer.
Dealing is a strange thing, dealers being at once maligned and revered, or at least courted; a source of fascination, at least in the book world. But as has been pointed out, you certainly can't, in any genre, announce your intention to become collectible.
Well. Right, there is that Thomas Kinkade fellow.
Actually, scratch half of that: some dealers do, I suppose, identify and nurture collectors. This would be more in art, I think, than in books. I've been given the hot and heavy sell by an art dealer, or his/her protege, once or twice. The good ones are very good at their craft.
The hind legs of a rabbit are meatier, but the forelegs are more flavorful.
But as has been pointed out, you certainly can't, in any genre, announce your intention to become collectible.
Sure you can -- "I'm going to be releasing a limited edition print run of {product X}". It's no guarantee, but it's a statement of intent.
But as has been pointed out, you certainly can't, in any genre, announce your intention to become collectible.
Sure you can -- "I'm going to be releasing a limited edition print run of {product X}". It's no guarantee, but it's a statement of intent.
Right, I stand corrected. You can always announce your intention.
Well if you would stop hitting it with a sledgehammer...
|| Now I'm hating on United Airlines. Our houseguests were supposed to leave Denver at 9 and arrive here at 11:30. Now they're maybe going to leave at 11:20, and arrive at 1:40. But it's not like they figured this out at 9 -- every half hour, a new set of times. It's a crew problem. No co-pilot. I mean, how could they possibly have known that there'd be a flight tonight . . . ?|>
42: It's as if the labor's not properly organized.
But sorry for the late nighter.
It's a lot worse for the guests -- they'll still be on Eastern time when they get here. And tomorrow morning.
his works hang in museums but the general public would never have heard of him
This got me thinking and I don't believe I can name a single museum-displayed living artist (excepting musical artists).
They display living musicians in museums?
I suppose some museum has Stan Lee's work displayed or a finger-painting done by a Senator Byrd, so I'd better qualify that by adding "excepting cases where the person is more famous for something other than art."
47: I thought so, but maybe Oates was just visiting the museum.
Why should a living artist's works be displayed in a museum?
Sadly, Warren Oates is no longer with us.
Maybe I should go watch Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia while I wait for the plane . . .
41 is cool, yeah.
When she was on Later (the big BBC2 live music program), she sang backup for one of the other guests (Eli Reed). For, as far as I can tell, no other reason than it looked fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy6q9HfsJmo
and her own Supremes/Vandellas pastiche on the same show was pretty good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5M6z91yQ-o
41, That family does not have the Lonnie Texas accent.
56, 58: The slogan for Dr. CJB's "Subtle Breast Enlargement Clinic"?
||
"Truth is individual, lies are social" ...I forget where I read that.
Watched Revolutionary Road last night.
I think I could write ten thousand words, but none of them would be kind.
"I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful." ...Bob Hope
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56 -- Semi-tropical weather in ND?
60.last: Kinda like the tears of a slapstick circus perfomer. When there's no one in the immediate vicinity.
||
The tone of this is really offensive. Come back and judge after you've walked a mile in those docs' and families' moccasins, oh all-knowing NYT.
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||
This is, I think, a very fine appreciation of Richard Yates. Fine in itself.
It mentions two movies I liked, Lonesome Jim with Casey Affleck & Liv Tyler. Affleck is a failed novelist who models himself after the likes of Yates, and aspires to be profoundly depressed. Warm & funny.
And then far into the Yates article I read that the writer, Stewart O'Nan, is the author of Snow Angels. I only know the movie, since I don't read anymore, but the movie, with Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell, is good enough that I have watched it multiple times. I expect the novel is better Recommended only to, you know, fans of the Yates-Oates-Carver slit-your-wrists-or-go-bowling school of fiction.
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65.last: fans of the Yates-Oates-Carver slit-your-wrists-or-go-bowling school of fiction
I like this description of that school. A friend is a die-hard fan of it, and is forever pushing such things on me, and I've run out of ways to say that, uh, maybe I'll get to it. Sometime. Not that I hate the stuff, mind, but I do feel that the story's been told, over, and over, and over again. And again.
63: I only got about halfway through, but it didn't strike me as being offensive. What's the problem?
bob, thanks for the link to the Yates review. It's convinced me to read more of him. I've not read much, and had generally put him in a category with Carver and Richard Ford, whose work I find slightly, though not altogether, teeth-gritting.
I'm trying to, among other things, puzzle out why I really liked (if that is the term) my recent viewing of Synecdoche, New York -- which I should have disliked, according to a number of critics. Instead, I found it deeply affecting, not at all tiresome. Isn't it just another tale of middle-class and middle-aged failure? But no, not so much.
I liked the hopeful mention of Jill Sobule as an artist who can survive on micropayments. Jill Sobule is A THOUSAND TIMES better musician than you, the reader, will ever be -- she's one of the best songwriters in the folk/girl-pop genre, has written numerous brilliant songs including some radio hits, and has been touring and recording nonstop for over 20 years. Surely you, like her, can manage to raise $75,000 from loyal fans!
67:Well, I loved Synecdoche, but then I am an aging febrile failure.
It's about memory & time, mostly I think, the construction/reconstruction/deconstruction/decay/persistence of memory which is everybody's art and ambition and isolation and love and solipsism and interaction. The necessity for and impossibility of narrative. Lots of stuff.
Someone said about SNY that we are all actors in each others little plays.
But heck, Marcel did it a century ago. Autumn of the Patriarch. Providence Samuel Beckett. Death of Ivan Ilyich
Christ Almighty how much Art does a man need? A Stone Angel or Fallen Caryatid.
I loved Synecdoche too, but share Bob's concern. Maybe we shouldn't be focusing too much on our own mortality, even when we do it with good art.
The tone of this is really offensive.
More than the tone. The statement "physicians like Dr. Halbridge, in consultations with patients or their families, are routinely making tough decisions about the best way to die" is outrageous and wrong.
Doctors should not be making those decisions. There should always be some sort of substitute decision maker with the final say, and it should never be the doctor. It's not a "consultation". It's called "doing what you're required to do under the law."
71: Near as I could tell, the doc was making decisions about what drugs to give and at what dosages, not having any "final say".
IMX docs will hint to the point of total obviousness but sometimes the closest relatives can't hear even those. When my father had his massive stroke my mother wouldn't sign a DNR for a while. The doc and I agreed that he and his staff would "work very, very slowly" if the monitor went flat.
I've seen "substitute decision makers" with equal legal rights argue for weeks about giving dear old (90+) Gramps morphine. Not fun.
|| I am officially declaring the bacon trend over. Mark your calendars: December 27, 2009. |>
Yay! Back to eating bacon without worrying about succumbing to hipsterdom.
(As if I ever ran the risk of being hip.)
Near as I could tell, the doc was making decisions about what drugs to give and at what dosages, not having any "final say".
That may be what they meant, but that's surely not what the phrase I quoted says.
IMX health care professionals see getting true informed consent - as opposed to a signature on a form - as their lowest priority. They're far more likely to simply say 'this is what you must do, sign here.' I was just reading the HHS site on evaluating hospitals and at the only hospital near my partner the survey said that something like 60% of patients said that staff didn't always tell them what medications they were getting. Similarly, I was with a friend of mine a few months ago and the hospitalist wouldn't release his mom. The doctor said 'we must wait until tomorrow to see the result of such-and-such test." The next morning the doc said "well, we don't have the test result, but we'll release her anyway".
70: I think I'm coming around to that view, which is odd given that it's been a mere two days since I watched the film, and was pretty contemplative then and through half of yesterday. Then I made the possible mistake of reading a handful of negative reviews of the film last night -- trying to determine the source of the hostility -- which led me to ask myself whether there was anything particularly profound going on in the film after all. Felt like it at the time.
Perhaps the subject matter shouldn't be intellectualized overly much.
Maybe we shouldn't be focusing too much on our own mortality
I seem to find some people's willingness to attend to the fact of our mortality a tonic -- against petty self-aggrandizement and such things. Against the claustrophobia of the ironic gaze, or stance.
Am I the only one who thought that 73 indicated that snarkout had made his yearly blog post?
Neb, I've got a draft I'm working on. Give me a couple days. (If I find time, I'll do a special-for-Neb post about this appalling thing.)
63: The underlying issues here are so complicated and potentially explosive that it's hard to imagine what a good article would like like. You've got:
- Severe (and realistic) terror from doctors/hospitals of expensive and stressful lawsuits if one family member later feels that they didn't do "enough" for the patient.
- Wildly varying competencies among next-of-kin, including in their general literacy, health literacy, skill/willingness to push back at doctors, denial/acknowledgment of terminal nature of illness, etc.
- Uneven competencies among health professionals about communicating the stakes and options effectively.
- Both a genuine and a perceived danger of legal liability and moral responsibility if a doctor or hospital puts too much in writing, or is too specific.
- Rapid turnover of medical staff, meaning that one patient can be seen by 40 or 50 doctors, residents, nurses, aides, therapists, etc. in a week's time.
...all taking place in a general cultural milieu that is terrified to the point of hysteria of aging, never mind death.
So no, it's not a very good article. But it's IME a wrenching set of circumstances, even when it goes relatively smoothly. And when it doesn't, it's beyond horrible, as in the case of the family who agreed with the doctor to cease providing nutrition and hydration, expecting their loved one to pass away in a day or two, only to discover after 2+ weeks of agony that a medical worker with religious convictions was sneaking water to the patient. You can file criminal charges, but you can't protect your beloved from that kind of pain.
Witt in 82 is very thoughtful.
I was thoughtfully correcting my English for neb's sake, heebie.
That was awfully thoughtful of Witt to help heebie with her confusion about 83.
Pain medication: for sissies, or for girls?
Fuck a bunch of that article, anyway.
Pain medication is for those in pain.
Pain medication is also for those not in pain.
According to third-hand reports I've heard, arthritis pain can be cured by eating golden raisins soaked in gin. If it doesn't work, at least you got gin and some fiber.
It's not for those not in pain.
Though "pain medication" taken in another sense might be for those who wish to be in pain.
And shoes are not for drinking wine. Who is Vicodin for? Who is heroin for? What is "for" for? Yes, terrible, but not if you like the form "...'x' x..."/"...x 'x'..."
I think if I were an artist with the luxury or time of choosing my fan base, or at least those to whom I sell my work, I'd like to be an artist who only sells to other artists. Then I could be, not by quality or fineness but distribution, the artist's artist.
Late, but 83 is completely right. I think what really bothered me about the article was the focus on sedation and the apparent underlying assumption that there's some sort of duty to maximize the dying person's quality time with their family that's violated by sedating someone when they'd otherwise be imparting final pearls of wisdom or some such. Death is often a process, not an event, and someone who's writing about dying for the NYT ought to understand that it's not unusual for a dying person to be gone before the heartbeat and respiration stop.
Also late, but yes Sunday was my 30th birthday. I had to spend it with my teetotaling family so I couldn't even get drunk which kind of sucked.
I SURE WOULD LIKE TO BE A PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL PLAYER.