1,000 True Fans - Not impossible, but very very difficult (still)
Published by Sushi on Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 6:15 PM.
Kevin Kelly from Wired Magazine wrote an interesting post on how 1,000 True Fans, willing to spend $100, can support a musician.
First, how many True Fanisms are out there? Someone may be a True Fan of five bands, which makes up for those people who aren't True Fans at all, so True Fanism is the more applicable metric in this case. How many True Fans do you know (fits the description above)? I'm not a True Fan of any band, and I know very few people who display that behavior. I'm going to make a very liberal assumption and say that there is one True Fanisms per person in the developed world. If every person in the developed world spent their "one-day-wage" on music, the industry would be much bigger than what it is today, but I'll stick to the assumption for now.
The total population of the OECD countries in 2000 was 1.1 billion people, and that included Turkey whose GDP per capital is one seventh that of the US. If we take that 1.1 billion True Fanisms and split them equally in 1,000 True Fanism chunks, the developed world would be able to support 1.1 million musicians, but you know the world doesn't work like that. The most popular bands (U2, Amy Winehouse, Jay-Z) with major record labels grabs most of the True Fanisms in the world, and the lesser known artists have to fight it out for the small left overs. If 50% of the True Fanisms are available to the musicians you and I haven't heard of, that's a maximum of 550,000 musicians that could make a living. In reality, I'm guessing there are millions of bands that have one or two True Fans, not enough to earn a living, and couple thousand that have captured enough True Fanisms to "make it."
Is 550,000 musicians a lot? MySpace has more than 8 million bands, which I presume is only a handful of all the bands in the world. If there are 16 million musicians, and only 550,000 could possibly make a living, that's a survivability ratio of 3.4%, a dismal figure (It's easier to get into Harvard). In reality, I expect less than .1% of all musicians to be making a living off music, and most of us only see the handful that succeed.
What if those 8 millions bands listed on MySpace actually captured 1,000 True Fanisms and made a living on $100,000 a year? That's 8 billion True Fanisms (more than the population of the world, developed and developing) and $800 billion spent on those musicians, slightly under 2% of the world GDP in 2006.
I agree that now more than ever are the tools in place for creative people to survive off a handful of dedicated fans, but it's far from easy. Sure musicians and artists will be discovered through MySpace and become icons of the post-broadcast era, but for every artist that gets noticed, there are thousands that will never see the light of day (Journalism is riddled with survivorship bias). The music industry is still very competitive, and that hasn't changed with the internet or MySpace.
As for 1,000 True Fans, it's a goal, it's reachable, but it's very very tough. If you're thinking of becoming a musician, you better like music a lot because chances are, you won't be making much money; If you are doing it for the money, you're making a horrible life decision. Go apply to Harvard instead.
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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...It's a great story: with the internet, musicians can support themselves by finding a small handful of True Fans. 1,000 sure sounds like a realistic goal, something most musicians should be able to achieve. But is it? Let's look at the numbers.
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.
First, how many True Fanisms are out there? Someone may be a True Fan of five bands, which makes up for those people who aren't True Fans at all, so True Fanism is the more applicable metric in this case. How many True Fans do you know (fits the description above)? I'm not a True Fan of any band, and I know very few people who display that behavior. I'm going to make a very liberal assumption and say that there is one True Fanisms per person in the developed world. If every person in the developed world spent their "one-day-wage" on music, the industry would be much bigger than what it is today, but I'll stick to the assumption for now.
The total population of the OECD countries in 2000 was 1.1 billion people, and that included Turkey whose GDP per capital is one seventh that of the US. If we take that 1.1 billion True Fanisms and split them equally in 1,000 True Fanism chunks, the developed world would be able to support 1.1 million musicians, but you know the world doesn't work like that. The most popular bands (U2, Amy Winehouse, Jay-Z) with major record labels grabs most of the True Fanisms in the world, and the lesser known artists have to fight it out for the small left overs. If 50% of the True Fanisms are available to the musicians you and I haven't heard of, that's a maximum of 550,000 musicians that could make a living. In reality, I'm guessing there are millions of bands that have one or two True Fans, not enough to earn a living, and couple thousand that have captured enough True Fanisms to "make it."
Is 550,000 musicians a lot? MySpace has more than 8 million bands, which I presume is only a handful of all the bands in the world. If there are 16 million musicians, and only 550,000 could possibly make a living, that's a survivability ratio of 3.4%, a dismal figure (It's easier to get into Harvard). In reality, I expect less than .1% of all musicians to be making a living off music, and most of us only see the handful that succeed.
What if those 8 millions bands listed on MySpace actually captured 1,000 True Fanisms and made a living on $100,000 a year? That's 8 billion True Fanisms (more than the population of the world, developed and developing) and $800 billion spent on those musicians, slightly under 2% of the world GDP in 2006.
I agree that now more than ever are the tools in place for creative people to survive off a handful of dedicated fans, but it's far from easy. Sure musicians and artists will be discovered through MySpace and become icons of the post-broadcast era, but for every artist that gets noticed, there are thousands that will never see the light of day (Journalism is riddled with survivorship bias). The music industry is still very competitive, and that hasn't changed with the internet or MySpace.
As for 1,000 True Fans, it's a goal, it's reachable, but it's very very tough. If you're thinking of becoming a musician, you better like music a lot because chances are, you won't be making much money; If you are doing it for the money, you're making a horrible life decision. Go apply to Harvard instead.
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