Why "How To Self-publish" guides systematically give you the wrong advice: Revisiting 1000 true fans

A couple of years ago, in the earliest nanoseconds of the big Kindle bang as Brian Cox might say, you could barely come across a post about self-publishing that didn’t refer to Kevin Kelly’s seminal article “1000 truefans.” These days, mentions are as scarce as a self-published book in Waterstones.

The idea behind 1000 true fans, and earlier versions of the theory (which Kelly outlines at http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/04/the_case_agains.php), is that it is possible for an artist to make a living wage by building and then looking after a small, dedicated following (in this case 1000, but he is not dogmatic) of people all of whom are willing to pay a relatively small amount for your work on a regular basis.

It’s easy to understand why so little is said about 1000 true fans (as well, I’ll admit, as a lack of case studies of those using the model to earn a living). Post-Kindle (I wonder when we will start saying BK and PK, for all it makes me want to sit down with a whopper and do some freerunning to burn it off), advice to self-publishing writers focuses fairly exclusively on maximising revenue from ebooks (in practice, this usually means talking about Kindle).

In this piece, I want to suggest three key points that most advice in the PK era focuses on, all of which is antithetical to the 1000 true fans model, and then next time I want to reclaim the model, looking at what working by it might look like for writers, and arguing that not only might there be some mileage in the economic aspect of the theory, but that this is a very good way for us as artists to do our art.

1. How-to advice focuses on volume – on how to sell more books. Where this is moderated in some way it is in terms of the relationship between volume and price and how that feds into maximised royalties. There is little place for discussion of how to achieve a fixed or maximum number of sales
2. Advice focuses on how to use charts and algorithms to create exposure for books, effectively looking to hit a sweet spot where sales become self-generating, whereas the 1000 true fans model looks at selling only at a very specific, and fully defined, customer base
3. When how-to advice looks at craft, at standards and doing things better, the focus is on objective criteria – professional editing, formatting, proofreading and cover design, for example – all of which are aimed to please a notional idea of a customer. With 1000 true fans, on the other hand, the artist aims to meet subjective criteria or, rather, a single subjective criterion – pleasing their fans. And not some abstract concept of a fan, but their actual fans.

The thing about each of those dichotomies is that we are so used to a particular mindset we don’t even think of them as dichotomies, as choices – in each case we struggle to see the former as anything but the only option. In brief:

1. Surely we all want to maximise sales, after all we want to make a living (how many times did you read that before you saw it was a glaring non sequitur?)
2. Surely the point of marketing is to maximise the return on your effort, and this means learning to use the most efficient sales generators (well this may be a non sequitur also, and it may be wrong about the purpose of marketing, but what it most definitely is, is mistaken about the most efficient sales generators because its still hung up on measuring volume and not percentage of target audience reached
3. But this is incontrovertible, surely? To rise above the slush we have to present our work professionally. Readers notice. Readers matter. Yes they do matter – your actual readers, the ones who will love your work so much they will buy anything else you write. So give them what they love – maybe that *is* well-punctuated and neatly justified text with no typos. I’d wager it’s not though – stop forming some imaginary ideal of a reader (didn’t that go out when Aristotle slam-dunked Plato?) and look at what your readers want (and also not someone else’s readers, people who would think the only great thing about your book was the punctuation).

Next time I’ll take a look at what a writer’s life might look like if they took the 1000 true fans route, and explore a world of crowdfunding, gigs and merchandise, newsletters and a life without Amazon.

Pirates Ahoy! Why the media just DOESN'T GET the ebook piracy issue

OK, not ALL the media necessarily, but I came across this terribly written article yesterday, and it's representative of most I've seen on the issue of the ills of Ebook piracy

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/business/04digi.html?_r=2&hpw

Let me outline the gist (but please don't take it from me - I AM biased, I may have distorted it) of Randall Stross' article "Will books be Napsterised". As a result of file-sharing the music industry lost vast revenue streams. As Ebooks take an increasing share of the book market, the same will happen there. The problem lies with file-sharing sites like Rapidshare. Sites like RapidShare allow anyone to upload files and then post the URL for others to download them. Whilst they will remove copyright-infinging files on the request of the copyright owner, these files are not policed upon upload. RapidShare talked to Mr Stross, urging publishers and authors to learn from rent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails and use free downloads as part of their business model. Stross ends with a retort to this suggestion:

"I will forward the suggestion along, as soon as authors can pack arenas full and pirated e-books can serve as concert fliers."

Now, there is so little analysis and so much fabulation in this article I couldn't deal with it all (apparently e-book hardware is "on the verge of going mainstream", for example, whatever that means (I didn't see a single reference to the Kindle or the Tablet, and nary a mention of teh phone vs reader debate, by the way)).

OK, it's time for my disclaimer. I hate plagiarism. It sucks, and sucks major. In fact, any form of copyright violation sucks. And it's NOT a victimless crime. But. But, but. But, but BUT. The way to beat pirating is, I'm afraid, as RapidShare's spokesperson say, to incorporate free downloads into your business plan. That's not giving in, it's not kowtowing. It's the way it is.

The obvious way to do that is, as suggested, to study the successful musicians. I've been talking about gigging and merching for authors ever since I got into the blogging business, and I stand by what I've always said. Culture is culture. It inspires communal events, it inspires fans to desire souvenirs, to desire contact. These things aren't unique to music. And as an advocate of the "freemium" model, I'd have to say I think content itself can be charged for in different formats - the special edition, the regular paperback even.

What we need, as authors, is to work - collectively and individually - on ways to adapt to the file-sharing world. I DO have a problem with exploiting fans. I don't like the idea that some people pay for my stuff and others don't pay for the same thing - so for me, ebooks have to be either free or not free (or it jas to be transparent which is which). I DO think, though, that we need to loko for soemthing slightly more exciting than "free".

Part of the thing about file-sharing is the fact that it creates communities - where has the industry's sense of history gone? Do they not REMEMBER the Warehouse and Rave scene? The buzz of these things is that they're outside the usual channels - an anonymmous URL on a bulletin board, a phone box on the M25. It's the same thing. These are communities that exist and get their energy from being on the outside. Bring them inside and they instantly use their energy. So "free" isn't the only answer - that would be like having your parents sit down to watch Debbie Does Dallas with you on your 18th birthday.

As authors we DO need to use free, but we also need to be clever how we do so (but not, as I say, so clever we pretend our ebokos are for sale to try and make it seem a thrill to pirate them - that just exploits our fans). I'm not 100% sure what all the answers are (but Kevin Kelly's 1,000 true fans is part of the answer). But THAT's the interesting debate - not whingeing when we left the sweet shop open that someone took our candy canes. And I never thought I'd say this, but the places we need to be looking are those semi-legal communities that use bulletin boards and chatrooms - the modern equivalent of rave culture - be it the BDSM scene, or the dogging networks, or the secretive supper clubs I saw on the news the other day. Come on, guys - we're meant to be creatives, aren't we?!

A further piece of logic that niggles at me. Until now, when I've talked about authors following the music model, and "doing a Trent", I've been told - as Stross concludes - that the two types of fan are fundamentally different, so it won't work. If they're so diffeernt, why worry about "Napsterisation" (other than for the rather unprofessional sake of using an emotive word)? Surely if books ARE "Napsterised", that's just one more piece of evidence for those of us who maintan culture is, fundamentally, culture; and fans are, fundamentally, fans. And if they download stuff, they'll pay for things they like.

A final point, Mr Stross. You complain that the group the file-sharing sites never mention are authors and publishers. And HERE, I'm afraid, you give yourself away. Stop speaking on my behalf, please. As a writer, I'm more than happy to embrace file-sharing. It's not the people who file-share my work I lose sleep over. It's the people who DON'T. The people who will lose out in the new landscape are the publishers. Please stop bundling our fate as writers in with theirs.

Thank You: some surprisingly complex netiquette

It's the thing I want to say most often in life, especially as a writer. Yes, even more than, "sorry, you must send me the dry cleaning bill". In fact, I lose count of the times i want to say thank you in any one day.

Take yesterday. Someone in the publishing industry agreed to look at my book and help me find places to send it for review; an author I greatly admire had a personal word with a magazine editor who then requested a review copy; a bookstore owner agreed to take my book sale or return; a website host posted a great big plug for my book; a blogger I hugely admire gave me a link; most of all, more than one person who's read my stuff sent me a lovely message. I want to buy them ALL milk and cookies and hire the Red Arrows to write thank you in the sky.

But it's not that simple. Thank you is a minefield for a writer.

Let me start with some very bad practice, and it might help you also to see the problem with seemingly good practice. Book blog tours seem to be all the rage at the moment. Or maybe it just seems it because there's a particularly interesting thread on the subject on the excellent Help Supprt Indpendent Publishers group on Facebook.

Maybe it's just me but one thing I've noticed is just how many writers on blog tours, or giving interviews on websites, attract comments from readers, and questions, which are met with a stony silence.

Now, pardon me for being old fashioned, but that's RUDE. And before authors chime in with "you're unpublished, you don't know how busy it is" (true, and also true [but try working a 37.5 hour week, running a festival, coordinating a collective, launching a book single-handed, AND trying to revolutionise an industry]), I KNOW how busy you are, but that's not an excuse. In practical terms, you actually lose readers as well as gaining them (and remember the old adage about one complaint needing nine bits of praise to balance it out. That's not just true in restaurants). But aside from that, don't take it on if you can't manage the courtesy of engaging with the readers when you do. These people are your RAISON D'ETRE. And it's not just that. It's incredibly rude to the blog host, who has to pick up the pieces of disgruntled readers and explain why their star guest bailed half way.

OK, that's a pet peeve out of the way. Do you see the other thing that would have been really rude of me? In the context of calling people who act like this a SUPERCILIOUS PLANK (as I believe I said in a bilious tweet last night :-))?

That's right. It would have been REALLY rude of me to name names.

Which brings me back to the business of when and how you DO say thank you. Take the first two instances. In both cases, I want to say thank you publicly. Because surely that's the greatest honour for someone, and gives them the best rep, the biggest kudos, right? Well, yes, BUT. If I say "Thank you for agreeing to read my book" to someone who's hugely busy and has done it as a favour (either to me or to a fairy godmother of whom I know nothing), they're not going to thank me back when 200 requests to do likewise arrive in their inbox.

So I send a grateful e-mail, right? Well, it's not that simple. Only the other day I was reading tweets by a Well Known But Nameless Agent who complained that authors are stalkers and, in not too many words "get out of my inbox" and certainly "if we've given something, go away and don't come back and bother us again." So the last thing I want to do if WKBNA does a kindness for me is to hack them off by sending a long e-mail thanking them and clogging their inbox. Nor do I want to seem curt. It's a minefield. (In this case, my advice is be thankful for one thing; never ask a second but say yes if it's offered; DO send a thank you that's friendly and personal, wishing well for a current project; I wouldn't offer to "let them know how it goes" - my guess is this will make them feel pressured to reply, which is bad - if they REALLY want to know they'll ask, but chances are they don't, so not offering spares embarrassment).

Which brings us to the nicest category. Readers, and fellow-writers. These are people who have approached you. So you needn't worry you're bothering them (that's NOT a stalker's charter). It goes without saying you MUST say thank you. It also, and this is important, because if you're not careful you can end up with no time to write, and that's actually what people really want from you, should go without saying that you can't, even though you'd like to, be everyone's lifecoach. You need to have boundaries, and to make those clear (which is NOT to say some, probably many, readers and fellow-writers won't become friends, possibly lifelong. I would hope they will. But that shouldn't be the expectation from your initial contact - that's THEIR stalker's charter). On the other hand, if you can do something to help, I really believe you should. That means much more than the words "thank you". You could offer to host them on your blog; or look at a short story; or put them onto a helpful website.

Yes, again. I KNOW you're busy. And I know it's easy fro me because I don't really have any fans. But remember those times before you were famous, when you were met with silence? Remember the mutterings under your breath. And remember the one person who showed you even a bit of kindness? I bet you DO. And don't EVER forget it.

Which brings me to a general observation. One of the most important articles ever written about culture (or business) can be found here. Kevin Kelly's basic premise is that you only need 1,000 true fans to sustain your business/life as a writer. I happen to think he's right (I'm not getting into that argument here). Now 1,000 is NOT a huge number. Certainly not if, like me, you write 50-100 e-mails a day. One reason I like 1,000 true fans is because it's a way of being that allows you to engage with everyone who's a fan of yours. And if you're a writer, someone who communicates, that's really how it should be, isn't it?