I’m in the process of launching a new blog which teaches basic first aid to parents. Have a look at http://www.firstaidforparents.org/

I have a simple plan when dealing with fear that I use and lead others in when they are afraid. It asks: what are you DOING about your fear?

A brief summary

• D – Define your fears. Give your fears definition rather than leave them vague and unclear. Ask – what is it I am really afraid of?
• O – Outcomes. Think about the worst things that could happen if your fears come to pass. How likely is this? What are the best things that could happen if you deal with your fear? How likely is that to happen?
• I – Inspiration. Let God inspire you and breath faith into your spirit – it’s a great antidote to fear.
• N – Nerve. Dealing with fear means holding your nerve and exercising some courage. What are the right actions that you should take but that your fear is preventing your from taking? Resolve to do them. What actions could you take that will also help you overcome your fears?
• G – Guard. Keep up your guard. You are in a fight, and fear is your opponent, and it won’t go down without a fight.

I had an interesting conversation with my 8 year old son about fear the other night. He was afraid of going to school on a Monday and he couldn’t sleep because he was worrying about it so much. It reminded me of the time I was 8 years old – I was afraid of going to school too.

Step 1: Define it

Fear works well in the murky and the grey areas. It thrives in misunderstanding and confusion. It loves the dark where it can appear bigger and more powerful than it actually is.

So, to bring it into the light where we can deal with it – we have to define it. By doing this, you’ll be half way there as it is usually not as big a thing as you first thought.

What am I afraid of? Answer this question as clearly as you can. Keep drilling down until you get to the answer (your journal is great for helping you out on this).

My son was afraid of going to school. But that doesn’t really help matters. It is a big, undefined and generalised statement. We have to ask what it is about school that he is afraid of. I asked him a few questions and we started to realise that it wasn’t school he was afraid of – just the literacy part of the day (hence he didn’t like Mondays). And the reason he didn’t like literacy was that he didn’t think he was that good at spelling – so he was afraid of the spelling they did every Monday.

Understanding this changed his thinking about school (he actually liked going to school) – so his fear was now much more manageable.

Me? When I was 8 I was afraid of going to school because I was bullied. Bullying and fear are very similar – their bark is much worse than their bite.

Step 2: Outcomes

When you really begin to understand exactly what it is you are afraid of, you can begin to think about outcomes. And there are two that you should think about.

1. What are the worst things that could happen if what I fear comes to pass? How likely are they to happen?
2. What are the best things that could happen if I deal with this fear? How likely are they to happen?

These are really interesting questions to answer. For Josh – the worst thing that could happen was that he scored a Zero on his test, and the teacher told the class. He would then be ridiculed by his friends (who were much better at spelling). We then talked about how likely this was to happen. Josh began to see that at school he never scored that low on a test. We could get him some extra help as well, so he scores would improve. He agreed that scoring a zero was very unlikely to happen.

The best thing, of course, was that he scored well, and his teacher told the class and his friends wouldn’t ridicule him at all. This was much more likely to happen.

So, when we talked it through, he was scared of something that was unlikely to happen but it was more likely that what he wanted would happen, especially if we got him some extra help.

For me getting bullied, the worst thing that could happen was getting hit. I didn’t like the idea of pain. He also took my dinner money when he could. That wasn’t pleasant either. Getting hit was very unlikely (not that I knew this at the time). Getting money taken off me happened occasionally (although I expected it every day).

The best thing that could happen, if I stood up to him: freedom and feeling safe (as well as eating lunch everyday – which was highly motivating to me!). At the time this was unlikely to happen. Fortunately my mum knew how to level the playing field to make this likely to happen. I was sent off to Judo.

Step 3: Inspiration

It helps to get some inspiration…and if you are a Christian, the best source of that is God. His inspiration will give life to faith.

The great evangelist Billy Sunday once said, “Fear knocked at my door. Faith answered…and there was no one there.”

For me, when I was 8 – I didn’t have faith. It would have helped. Josh is much more emotionally aware and strong than I was at his age. We read the Bible and found some promises from God that we could choose to believe over his school work.

Faith is a choice – a choice of what to believe. Just as you have to define fear so you have to be as specific as you can with what to believe.

For Josh we could have talked about God being there and comforting us in our troubles. A good promise but we want something more specific – how about “whatever we put our hand to, prospers”? So when Josh studied and put in the extra lessons we talked about God blessing that and prospering him with his work. That is something specific we can believe.

Preachers call this the “Rhema” word – something that breathes life into you (inspires you!) when you see it.

It is also in this phase that the Holy Spirit may well reveal to you the root of your fear. Often times this may come as a passing thought – so journal about it when it happens. Don’t go digging – just be aware.

For me, dealing with fear in my own strength is not that exciting buy when I face my fear, I can do it with God’s help. That makes much more sense.

Step 4: Nerve

Dealing with fear involves holding your nerve. It’s interesting to me how whenever an angel appears to someone on the Bible, he starts off by saying “fear not”. How many times does God tell us “not to be afraid”? In others words – hold your nerve!

According to Joyce Meyer (who is great by the way) this doesn’t mean not having the feeling of fear but rather not to let that feeling dominate your actions and stop you doing the right things.

So courage, then, apart from being one of my favourite words in the Bible is “the quality that enables people to meet danger without giving way to fear” (Chambers Dictionary)

So the next thing to write about in your journal are the actions that fear is preventing you from making and figure out how you could do them. What actions could you take that will also help you overcome your fears?

For Josh his fear would have stopped him going to school (mine too) if he didn’t have parents that made him go (me too). And the thing that we could do to help himself was have the extra lessons. And I learned Judo.

Once I learned Judo I had the courage to stand up to the bully. It didn’t happen the same day but it did happen in a few weeks. Funny thing when you stand up to bullies…you find out that they are cowards who use fear as a weapon. Take that away and they are just hot air. If you want to know, I ended up fighting my bully. I ended up winning too.

Step 5: Guard

Keep up your guard. In a boxing match, there is a balance of offensive strikes and defensive guard. Knowing when to hit and knowing when the hit is coming.

Fear is your opponent, so it is important that when you go on the offensive – they’ll be strikes coming back at you. Even when you think your opponent is beat, still keep up your guard.

When old thought patterns start to emerge again and try and choke out your new thought patterns – get your guard up. Don’t be surprised when the hits come. Keeping up your guard is remembering that you are in a fight, review where you have come from and remember where you want to get to:

• Keep your Definition clear.
• Think about Outcomes.
• Be continually Inspired.
• Hold your Nerve.
• Keep up your Guard.

Then you’ll be D-O-I-N-G something about your faith.

Keep reviewing in your journal where you are at and how it is going. Then write your own blog post with your story or post it below. Would love to hear how it went for you!

Well, I now have this blog on two different iPhone apps – one from appmakr and the other from motherapp.

Initially I tried the mother app site. The site wasn’t clear on proceedure so I sent in an email and had an email back requesting some information form me (which I duely sent) but still wasn’t given an indication on price – so I had no idea how much it would cost.

A few weeks later they sent me another email asking for more information (mainly images) – which I sent, but again – no mention of fees. Then a month later I get an email saying that my app is ready (and so I didn’t pay a penny for it. I love FREE but they should market this fact way better!)

Interestingly, the same that app is launched – my other app from appmkr is also ready. Their communication was much better and clearer. The process seemed easy and straight forward to me. The main disadvantage was that I submitted my form too soon without thoroughly checking it. I made a few changes, and re submitted it a few minutes later but it seems that didn’t matter as the original one was still made into the app. I will contact them about updating it but it seems from their FAQ that I’ll have to pay for that.

I used a code with appmkr so only paid $50 rather than the full $200.

Having put both on my phone now and dealt with both companies my preference is appmkr (@$50, as I think $200 is way too much) if I can get my new design working. They had better communication and more flexibility in design. The whole process was a lot quicker and they have a decent support forum.

That said – motherapp was free and their app is ok but a bit buggy as it won’t display images correctly at the moment. Their communication though was a little ambiguous for me, and they took longer to create the app. There is also no flexibility in design or features (you use their template). Still they did a good job with what they had and did I mention that it was free?

Download my two apps on your phone and test them both and see what you think. Would love your feedback and I’ll update this post when I get version 2 running with appmakr.

1. Appmakr version: click here to download
2. MotherApp version: click here to download

So overall – my advice is to try both, especially as motherapp was free – you have nothing to loose. It works (generally) but if you can get a discount code for appmkr – it has more flexibility in features and design and is worth the $50 (but not the $200 in my opinion). Just make sure you’ve got it right before submitting.

I love Liverpool – it is  a great City to live in, but – like most things in life – it is far from perfect. There is rollercoaster of a season from Liverpool football club (I am a life-fan and season ticket holder), the bizarre way in which the council spends money, the weather and now this: the world’s shortest cycle lane?

I occassionally cycle to work (and I say occassionally!). On Friday, I went down Lawrence Road, Wavertree. I have been down this road many times and noticed the cycle lane on the road – but this time, finally remembered to take the picture.

I want to put it in for the smallest cycle lane in the world award if such a thing exists.

What were the council thinking? It is even on Google Maps, Street View. There is even a sign to tell you that there is a cycle line – this is especially noteworthy, but I guess at least they have been thorough?

It makes me laugh/cry/sigh every time I cycle that way.

1. New Software: Evernote. A great place to store notes (privately and public to share to collaborate with your Team members – another great feature), whether text, photo, file or Audio. It works on my iPhone and syncs everywhere. It will even search the text (typed or handwritten) on images. I haven’t got the scanner that syncs with it yet – but it is a strong possibility as I head down the paperless route!
2. New gadget: Amazon Kindle – it has to be. What a great thing this is! Love it! Love it! Love it! Saves carrying loads of books – all in one place. Easy to ready, search, highlight and make notes (all of which sync with your PC for more editing). I love reading (and note taking when reading) and this makes the whole process so easy and paperless! There is even a free app for the iPhone that will sync the books, so if I don’t have the kindle, I can carry on reading on my phone from where I left off, and pick up at the right place on my Kindle later.
3. Favourite Pressie: has to be my Gerber CLUTCH Multi Tool for my key ring (I have a normal sized one like a leatherman, but that is bulky to carry every where). Comes with Pliers, knife blade, tweezers and screwdrivers. It also came with a powerful torch. Very cool indeed.
4. New iPhone Apps: Some great apps to try on your iPhone that I have been playing with over Christmas: Evernote (see above), Kindle, Xpense Trkr, Sky TV (you get 3 months free!), Photoshop (great for creating online photo and video galleries – although you can’t send video from your iPhone yet, you have to do that through the website), CoPilot UK sat nav – although don’t reckon much to the traffic update services as it missed a major traffic delay on the M6), WordPress 2, RadioBox (you can listen to your favourite radio station on the iPhone using Wi-Fi or 3G, awesome!).
5. New business book: Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish. He has a great website too and seems to be connected to some interesting people. I’m a third of the way through the book – and it is a great read, full of practical and helpful stuff for running a business. Got some interesting ideas (and confirmation that I am on the right track with some that we are doing now).
6. New non-business book: The Voice New Testament (Thomas Nelson) and Seth Godin’s free eBook: What Matters Now.
7. Latest productivity time: RescueTime. Will let you know how this goes – but interested to see if this actually works for me.

Jack woke up like he did every other morning: fighting a huge temptation. The snooze button. It is deadly and has the power to seriously wreck a day. Every morning it is a fight.

Today Jack won. This was not true every morning. He is averaging a 60% success rate at the moment. Not great, but slightly above average.

Ironically, his fight with the alarm clock is quite symbolic of life. He is, in his own words, slightly above average. “Nothing to see here” as the police say at the crime scene, trying to usher you past quickly. And there isn’t anything worth seeing with Jack. Everything about Jack’s life seemed to be the same as everyone else. The house, the car, the debts, the job, the kids and the holiday (if they can afford it this year). One day rolled into the next without any real distinction. Sure, there are a few treasured memories and the odd victory scattered in his history annuals, but apart from that – life had blended into a slight blur – nothing really stood out.

Like his colleagues at work, he had the mantra: one day things will be better.

Unfortunately it was blind hope – you know, the kind of hope that blinds you to the inevitable and obvious truth: things aren’t going to change, they are going to be exactly the same each and every day and the “one day things will be better” medicine provides some temporary relief and life is endured again through rationalisation.

Mediocrity had slowly chocked yesteryear’s dreams from Jack. It made sense though; he now had a wife and kids to support and nurture. Mind you, even the marriage and fathering part of his life had settled into a default routine. Jack still loved his wife. Still loved his kids. But he had lost the energy years ago to be really great at being a husband and Dad. Enter the default routine with all its appeal and safety.

From Society’s point of view though, Jack was great. He had entered the system that wants us all, with evangelical zeal, to become average. Jack was one of Society’s testimonies of average. You want average, look at Jack and see what you can have. Secretly Jack despised all the red tape, health and safety nonsense and heavy-handed stifling of the human spirit caused by following Society’s rules. But he was a member of the Church of Society and followed it along. “Tow the party line” was the motto. Default is its greatest appeal. Don’t cause ripples or waves. Rules work.

Jack had become safe, manageable and predictable. And that is just what Society wanted him to be.

Occasionally, he did try a few different things. He listened to a tape on goal setting once. Sounded exciting (something he’d not felt for a while). But any effort he made was not strong enough to escape the gravitational pull of his default life, so he concluded that was not for him but perhaps for a chosen, select few heroes that arise every now and then.

In his heart he knew he had a book to write, and a business to start. But they would always stay there and never be allowed to venture out. “Be realistic” he would tell himself when on those odd occasions that they surfaced in his mind. Of course, what he was really telling himself was that he couldn’t do it. “Be realistic” is reminding yourself that you are a failure who can’t do those things. That is reality: it won’t work.

It seemed his son, Sam, followed a different set of rules. He wanted to be a spaceman. Then a fireman. Then a footballer that plays on the world’s stage in front of thousands and scores the winning goal for his country in the world cup finals. It is a scene that has been rehearsed many times. More often than not though, Sam just wanted to be a hero that destroys bad guys and protects the innocent.

Jack heads for the bathroom, and is awake enough to see that the towel is not on the radiator. He found it in Sam’s room – he had been using it as a cape, again, and forgot to put it back, again.

Jack knew his job was to teach his son to be a man, and in Jack’s house – that means learning to colour inside the lines, tidy your room, save your money, not to do anything too dangerous (as defined by Church of Society of course) and ultimately find his default: the 9-5, house, kids, car, debts and, if possible – the holiday. But Jack didn’t want to teach him this just yet – let him enjoy childhood just that little bit longer. Let him have his dreams for now, but soon Jack would teach Sam the “Be realistic” lesson.

Breakfast was a little different today. It was the usual cup of same-brand coffee, the same cereal with the same milk, but his wife (Susan) brought apple juice by mistake. It was a nice change from the orange juice. Every now and then a little change is good for the soul.

It was quickly back into routine when Jack got in his car and went the usual way to work and got caught in the same traffic. He has started to recognise some of his fellow traffic-sufferers and waves to a few of them with a shoulder shrug that means “oh well”. At least the music is different on the same-old radio station. Same genre as usual though.

This was default in operation, and it was easy – boy was it easy. It didn’t require any real thought or effort. This was what Church of Society promised – and it was coming to pass.

Jack got his coffee and sat down at his desk (the same as everyone else’s desk in the office). He looked at the photo of his family and smiled. This is the reason I am doing this. I have a purpose. Keep going. Only 20 more years until retirement. Then all of this would have been worth it.

“You are the salt of the earth. But if salt becomes bland and loses its saltiness, can anything make it salty again? No. It is useless. It just lies there, white and bland and grainy. It is tossed out, thrown away, or trampled”

Matt 5:13, The Voice: New Testament (Thomas Nelson)

[Translations: French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish]

The long tail is famously good news for two classes of people; a few lucky aggregators, such as Amazon and Netflix, and 6 billion consumers. Of those two, I think consumers earn the greater reward from the wealth hidden in infinite niches.

But the long tail is a decidedly mixed blessing for creators. Individual artists, producers, inventors and makers are overlooked in the equation. The long tail does not raise the sales of creators much, but it does add massive competition and endless downward pressure on prices. Unless artists become a large aggregator of other artist’s works, the long tail offers no path out of the quiet doldrums of minuscule sales.

Other than aim for a blockbuster hit, what can an artist do to escape the long tail?

One solution is to find 1,000 True Fans. While some artists have discovered this path without calling it that, I think it is worth trying to formalize. The gist of 1,000 True Fans can be stated simply:

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

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. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can’t wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

 To raise your sales out of the flatline of the long tail you need to connect with your True Fans directly.  Another way to state this is, you need to convert a thousand Lesser Fans into a thousand True Fans.

Assume conservatively that your True Fans will each spend one day’s wages per year in support of what you do. That “one-day-wage” is an average, because of course your truest fans will spend a lot more than that.  Let’s peg that per diem each True Fan spends at $100 per year. If you have 1,000 fans that sums up to $100,000 per year, which minus some modest expenses, is a living for most folks.

One thousand is a feasible number. You could count to 1,000. If you added one fan a day, it would take only three years. True Fanship is doable. Pleasing a True Fan is pleasurable, and invigorating. It rewards the artist to remain true, to focus on the unique aspects of their work, the qualities that True Fans appreciate.

The key challenge is that you have to maintain direct contact with your 1,000 True Fans. They are giving you their support directly. Maybe they come to your house concerts, or they are buying your DVDs from your website, or they order your prints from Pictopia. As much as possible you retain the full amount of their support. You also benefit from the direct feedback and love.

The technologies of connection and small-time manufacturing make this circle possible. Blogs and RSS feeds trickle out news, and upcoming appearances or new works. Web sites host galleries of your past work, archives of biographical information, and catalogs of paraphernalia. Diskmakers, Blurb, rapid prototyping shops, Myspace, Facebook, and the entire digital domain all conspire to make duplication and dissemination in small quantities fast, cheap and easy. You don’t need a million fans to justify producing something new. A mere one thousand is sufficient.

This small circle of diehard fans, which can provide you with a living, is surrounded by concentric circles of Lesser Fans. These folks will not purchase everything you do, and may not seek out direct contact, but they will buy much of what you produce. The processes you develop to feed your True Fans will also nurture Lesser Fans. As you acquire new True Fans, you can also add many more Lesser Fans. If you keep going, you may indeed end up with millions of fans and reach a hit. I don’t know of any creator who is not interested in having a million fans.

But the point of this strategy is to say that you don’t need a hit to survive.  You don’t need to aim for the short head of best-sellerdom to escape the long tail. There is a place in the middle, that is not very far away from the tail, where you can at least make a living. That mid-way haven is called 1,000 True Fans. It is an alternate destination for an artist to aim for.

Young artists starting out in this digitally mediated world have another path other than stardom, a path made possible by the very technology that creates the long tail. Instead of trying to reach the narrow and unlikely peaks of platinum hits, bestseller blockbusters, and celebrity status, they can aim for direct connection with 1,000 True Fans. It’s a much saner destination to hope for. You make a living instead of a fortune. You are surrounded not by fad and fashionable infatuation, but by True Fans. And you are much more likely to actually arrive there.

A few caveats. This formula – one thousand direct True Fans –  is crafted for one person, the solo artist. What happens in a duet, or quartet, or movie crew? Obviously, you’ll need more fans. But the additional fans you’ll need are in direct geometric proportion to the increase of your creative group. In other words, if you increase your group size by 33%, you need add only 33% more fans. This linear growth is in contrast to the exponential growth by which many things in the digital domain inflate. I would not be surprise to find that the value of your True Fans network follows the standard network effects rule, and increases as the square of the number of Fans. As your True Fans connect with each other, they will more readily increase their average spending on your works. So 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.

A more important caution: Not every artist is cut out, or willing, to be a nurturer of fans. Many musicians just want to play music, or photographers just want to shoot, or painters paint, and they temperamentally don’t want to deal with fans, especially True Fans. For these creatives, they need a mediator, a manager, a handler, an agent, a galleryist — someone to manage their fans.  Nonetheless, they can still aim for the same middle destination of 1,000 True Fans. They are just working in a duet.

Third distinction. Direct fans are best. The number of True Fans needed to make a living indirectly inflates fast, but not infinitely. Take blogging as an example. Because fan support for a blogger routes through advertising clicks (except in the occasional tip-jar), more fans are needed for a blogger to make a living. But while this moves the destination towards the left on the long tail curve, it is still far short of blockbuster territory. Same is true in book publishing. When you have corporations involved in taking the majority of the revenue for your work, then it takes many times more True Fans to support you. To the degree an author cultivates direct contact with his/her fans, the smaller the number needed.

Lastly, the actual number may vary depending on the media. Maybe it is 500 True Fans for a painter and 5,000 True Fans for a videomaker. The numbers must surely vary around the world. But in fact the actual number is not critical, because it cannot be determined except by attempting it. Once you are in that mode, the actual number will become evident. That will be the True Fan number that works for you. My formula may be off by an order of magnitude, but even so, its far less than a million.

I’ve been scouring the literature for any references to the True Fan number. Suck.com co-founder Carl Steadman had theory about microcelebrities. By his count, a microcelebrity was someone famous to 1,500 people. So those fifteen hundred would rave about you. As quoted by Danny O’Brien, “One person in every town in Britain likes your dumb online comic. That’s enough to keep you in beers (or T-shirt sales) all year.”

Others call this microcelebrity support micro-patronage, or distributed patronage.

In 1999 John Kelsey and Bruce Schneier published a model for this in First Monday, an online journal. They called it the Street Performer Protocol.

Using the logic of a street performer, the author goes directly to the readers before the book is published; perhaps even before the book is written. The author bypasses the publisher and makes a public statement on the order of: “When I get $100,000 in donations, I will release the next novel in this series.”

Readers can go to the author’s Web site, see how much money has already been donated, and donate money to the cause of getting his novel out. Note that the author doesn’t care who pays to get the next chapter out; nor does he care how many people read the book that didn’t pay for it. He just cares that his $100,000 pot gets filled. When it does, he publishes the next book. In this case “publish” simply means “make available,” not “bind and distribute through bookstores.” The book is made available, free of charge, to everyone: those who paid for it and those who did not.

In 2004 author Lawrence Watt-Evans used this model to publish his newest novel. He asked his True Fans to collectively pay $100 per month. When he got $100 he posted the next chapter of the novel. The entire book was published online for his True Fans, and then later in paper for all his fans. He is now writing a second novel this way. He gets by on an estimated 200 True Fans because he also publishes in the traditional manner — with advances from a publisher supported by thousands of Lesser Fans.  Other authors who use fans to directly support their work are Diane Duane, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, and Don Sakers. Game designer Greg Stolze employed a similar True Fan model to launch two pre-financed games. Fifty of his True Fans contributed seed money for his development costs.

The genius of the True Fan model is that the fans are able to move an artist away from the edges of the long tail to a degree larger than their numbers indicate. They can do this in three ways: by purchasing more per person, by spending directly so the creator keeps more per sale, and by enabling new models of support.

New models of support include micro-patronage. Another model is pre-financing the startup costs. Digital technology enables this fan support to take many shapes. Fundable is a web-based enterprise which allows anyone to raise a fixed amount of money for a project, while reassuring the backers the project will happen. Fundable withholds the money until the full amount is collected. They return the money if the minimum is not reached.

Here’s an example from Fundable’s site;

Amelia, a twenty-year-old classical soprano singer, pre-sold her first CD before entering a recording studio. “If I get $400 in pre-orders, I will be able to afford the rest [of the studio costs],” she told potential contributors. Fundable’s all-or-nothing model ensured that none of her customers would lose money if she fell short of her goal. Amelia sold over $940 in albums.

A thousand dollars won’t keep even a starving artist alive long, but with serious attention, a dedicated artist can do better with their True Fans. Jill Sobule, a musician who has nurtured a sizable following over many years of touring and recording, is doing well relying on her True Fans. Recently she decided to go to her fans to finance the $75,000 professional recording fees she needed for her next album. She has raised close to $50,000 so far. By directly supporting her via their patronage, the fans gain intimacy with their artist. According to the Associated Press:

Contributors can choose a level of pledges ranging from the $10 “unpolished rock,” which earns them a free digital download of her disc when it’s made, to the $10,000 “weapons-grade plutonium level,” where she promises “you get to come and sing on my CD. Don’t worry if you can’t sing – we can fix that on our end.” For a $5,000 contribution, Sobule said she’ll perform a concert in the donor’s house. The lower levels are more popular, where donors can earn things like an advanced copy of the CD, a mention in the liner notes and a T-shirt identifying them as a “junior executive producer” of the CD.

The usual alternative to making a living based on True Fans is poverty.  A study as recently as 1995 showed that the accepted price of being an artist was large. Sociologist Ruth Towse surveyed artists in Britian and determined that on average they earned below poverty subsistence levels.

I am suggesting there is a home for creatives in between poverty and stardom. Somewhere lower than stratospheric bestsellerdom, but higher than the obscurity of the long tail. I don’t know the actual true number, but I think a dedicated artist could cultivate 1,000 True Fans, and by their direct support using new technology, make an honest living.  I’d love to hear from anyone who might have settled on such a path.

Updates:

One artist who partially relies on True Fans responds with a disclosure of his finances: The Reality of Depending on True Fans

I report the results of my survey of artists supported by True Fans: The Case Against 1000 True Fans

This is the article the Tim referrs to in his talk from http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php

Posted via web from Water Walkers

Fascinating video on how Tim Ferriss launched his Four Hour Work Week book. Interesting to watch definately! If you look at his Posterous Link (http://timferriss.posterous.com/tim-ferriss-how-to-create-a-global-phenomenon) you can also see the slides he uses during the talk.

Posted via web from Matt’s posterous

Came across this interesting video today about how to present like Steve Jobs of Apple fame. It gives a quick and useful summary of how Steve Jobs does actually present. Well worth watching.

Well, I finally got around to creating a video out of my PowerPoint presentation on how to create a good PowerPoint presentation (bad PowerPoint is a pet hate of mine, and would love to see it used better – especially in the church and boardrooms!).