Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Kevin Kelly



This post should probably be called 1,000 True Fans, but I wanted to make sure to give credit to the intellect behind the idea, so Kevin Kelly seemed like the right title to use. By the way, I can take no credit for being ahead of the curve on this information since I found it on the highly trafficked boingboing.net.

Kevin Kelly has written an essay called 1,000 True Fans. His premise should be an incredible source of inspiration to content creators. Basically, if an artist (or other creator) can cultivate 1000 dedicated consumers who will spend $100 a year on the artist's products, then that artist can gross $100,000 per year. You owe it to yourself to read the entire essay here.

For a publishing company like Baby Tattoo, the goal of attracting and maintaing 1000 true fans seems attainable. More importantly, for many of the artists Baby Tattoo publishes, the goal of cultivating 1000 true fans has either been achieved already or is well underway.

In January, I uploaded a post titled I'll Take A Dozen about one of the factors Baby Tattoo considers when deciding what books to publish. The concept of 1000 True Fans succinctly defines another factor. If you're interested in having Baby Tattoo publish your work, Baby Tattoo would be interested in knowing how many True Fans you have.

-Bob Self

No comments: