Little, big: You don’t have to be a rock star
Take dirkthecow’s perspective on blogging (blogging is dead; blogging has been taken over by big corporate entities that are not the same as MSM but big and corporate all the same; tweeting is the new blogging, but not always) and mix it together with Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 True Fans.
Kelly acknowledged the power of big (Amazon, Netflix). It’s like getting signed by a record label (used to be). Big, giant, unimaginable numbers. Playing in the NBA. Nirvana. But on the other hand, there’s the reality of an artist (we might substitute the word blogger, or even journalist) who simply needs to eat, pay the rent, maybe keep up her Netflix subscription. If you’re a solo act, you don’t need a world tour to make ends meet.
A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up.
Kelly estimates you need 1,000 of these folks to make a living. You set out your little tip jar, and if each one of those True Fans drops in $100 a year, you’ll be grossing $100,000. Hey, you could live on that. Even if you had to buy your own health insurance.
The network makes it possible: “[Y]ou have to maintain direct contact with your 1,000 True Fans. They are giving you their support directly. … As much as possible you retain the full amount of their support.” You are always findable, always up-to-date, always ready when they are.
Would it be possible to get 1,000 True Fans paying you to blog? Hm … maybe not.
Today, anyone who blogs solely to get readers is really on a hiding to nothing. Unless you are some kind of minor celebrity, you just aren’t going to get thousands of readers overnight and you shouldn’t expect to. (dirkthecow)
But with a combination of means — blog, Twitter, YouTube, the occasional freelance article for, say, Salon, and maybe, one day, a book — a journalist (or a blogger) might still be able to get 1,000 True Fans working. If you have something to say, then a blog gives you a way to build a base. You do it by reaching out, by searching for like-minded blogs and commenting on them and linking to them.
If you don’t reach out, it’s really unlikely now that people will find you. You should be using tags and shared bookmarks and Twitter and all kinds of other tools to make sure you are noticed.
You need to be sincere about it, not spammy. If you write thoughtful comments elsewhere, people will read those comments and click your name and find your blog. Many of them will look and leave.
Some of them, though, might become your True Fans.
Related: According to A visual history of 11 successful blogs, some of the most popular blogs of the moment started up only two to three years ago. (Link via Blogs.com.)
Categories: blogging, participation
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