1000 True Fans for Writers

Holly Lisle posted about the True Fans model on her blog and started a thread on it in her Think Sideways forum.

Basically, the idea is that for creative people, you don’t need to be super popular with a million fans (though wouldn’t that be nice?). What you need are 1000 True Fans who will buy anything you put out and support you in your creative career. If you have 1000 True Fans that each buy $100 of stuff from you each year, you’ll make $100,000. (I could sure live on that.)

The initial idea of 1000 True Fans came from Kevin Kelly and you can read his post here.

I was thinking about how to apply this to a writer and shared these notes in the forum. I’m posting them here too because I think this is a valuable discussion for writers. Publishing is changing with the accessibility of information on the Internet. Writers need to be prepared to take advantage of the changes as they come.

My thoughts on how the concept of 1000 True Fans can be used by published authors:

1. You first need to qualify a person as a True Fan. (You can’t give of yourself to everybody or soon you have nothing left for your writing.) The entry barrier needs to be financial. If a person isn’t willing to spend money on Author’s product, service, etc., the person isn’t a True Fan. People value what they have to pay for.

• Person buys e-book from Author (or more than one, indicating continuing interest in Author’s work)
• Person donates money to Author through website – micro-investing in Author’s future work
• Person signs up for serial story subscription from Author (new chapter released in electronic format each month, minimal cost of $2-3 per month for subscription, so total equals cost of hardcover book, with total file available as full e-book at end of subscription). Author could use out-of-print novels or first, unpublished novels (but only if great quality – novels may need to be revised to author’s current writing skill/style) for serial subscription. (Bruce Holland Rogers has done something similar with short stories sent out each month for $5/month subscription.)
• Person purchases other merchandise from Author
• Person purchases True Fan status aka access to Author via Inner Circle membership (This may be the best qualifier of all. If I like an Author’s work so much that I’m willing to pay for increased access to the Author and his/her work, then I’m a True Fan.)

2. Offer increased communication between True Fan and Author with an “Inner Circle”. Provides an “in” feeling to the fan of having special access. Must be invitation-only or it loses its specialness.

• Yahoo Group – free to setup, all members can ask questions, author can answer and all members see responses, community feeling
• Special email address for only True Fans to use to contact Author, free to setup (using gmail, etc.), but could be time-intensive for Author and loses benefit of all members being able to see questions and answers
• Membership site with forum (similar to Think Sideways) – cost to set up, all members can ask questions and see answers, community feeling, less time-intensive for Author, but requires some technical skill or a skilled friend/family member to help
• Autoresponder broadcasts – similar to email list, but is one-way communication (Author to True Fans), does not allow for members to ask questions or get to know each other

3. Offer special gifts/bonuses to True Fans.

• Free exclusive short stories or novellas (digital formats to reduce cost for creation, storage and delivery)
• Free wallpaper of cover art (if allowed) or similar downloads
• Info/postings on current WIP – “behind-the-scenes” look at what the Author’s currently working on
• Discounts on selected merchandise available through Author’s website – t-shirts, coffee mugs, bookmarks, signed book copies, ARCs
• Giveaways of items noted above
• Sneak peek at pre-release chapters of new book

There are technical and logistical issues with much of the above, but I believe they could be worked out so there is a balance between the True Fan’s desire for access to the Author and the Author’s need for time and isolation to keep producing books for the True Fan.

The main idea is to develop a community or tribe (using Seth Godin’s word) of people that support and are loyal to the Author. Communities are about interaction, so anything the Author can do to promote and encourage interaction among his/her fans is in his/her best interests.

I’m still thinking about how unpublished writers could develop a True Fan following.

What are you thoughts about this? Does 1000 True Fans seem more possible than having a bestseller? Do you have other ideas for how a published writer could interact with their True Fans? Or how unpublished writers could begin their own True Fan following?

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