You only need 1,000 true fans to make a living
The co-founder of Wired magazine, Kevin Kelley, famously said the following:
”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.”
We're all creators
Did you know that crafting 1,000 word posts that people want to read makes you a creator too? And over time, as your stats show more and more returning visitors to your site, you'll be gradually building towards those 1,000 true fans that Kevin Kelley spoke of.
Carefully crafting our paragraphs to be readable, selecting images to add impact to our writing and tailoring the SEO to enable those that seek our words to find them is just as much an act of creation as wielding a paint brush or playing a musical instrument.
The art you sell
Our art is our words and although we offer those for free, it is our hope that we will be recompensed in some small part by someone clicking on one of our affiliate links and completing a purchase.
Many people here will use affiliate links to make a living, relying on their true fans to trust them enough to make a purchase through their niche website but there are other ways for you to gain value from your true fans, just as you're giving value to them.
Offering information products is still a viable way to make a living. I have a friend that lives in Thailand that lives off the proceeds of ebooks and video courses that he creates on Amazon and Udemy respectively.
I've been earning $15 to $30 a month consistently from a video course that I made two years ago on one of the video course sites, in spite of doing no marketing at all for it.
Acquiring our true fans
In order to find our true fans, we have to become courageous leaders that stand on the hill-tops, unfurl our banners and be as visible as possible in the vastness of the Internet. I say courageous because it takes strength to publish our words in a public place and then post to social media accounts, inviting all to come and read them.
There will be those that hate what we have to say, hate the fact that we have affiliate links at all, or hate the fact that we're competing in a niche they see as theirs but your true fans will gather around you because of your style and presentation, the art that makes your words uniquely yours.
You are not selling affiliate links. You are selling trust and inviting those that trust you to invest in the niche items that you have selected for them.
Don't let them down. They thirst for new content in the style that only you can offer. Quench their thirst and they will be yours forever... or at least until the next shiny thing catches their eye.
Recent Comments
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Great post man. We are all artists in our own rights. Writing is an art just like music, painting, dancing... Do it well enough and the crowd will aplaude you for your fine work.
Thanks Leonard.
I think if we recognise ourselves as artists it helps us to write that next post too. It's not a soul-less exercise to get money, it's an act of creation that our fans are waiting for.
It would be nice if we were all master crafters, and that includes me. An interesting post.
Don't sell yourself short Stuart.
If people are reading your content, it's because they're fans and possibly true fans.
I'm sure you're already a much more able wordsmith than when you first started at WA. :)
This is so TRUE and many have espoused this concept. In any social media platform or for your website, you only need 1000 to start, most notably Kevin Kelley with his "100 true Fans Theory".
Nice post Phil!
Thanks Kaju. Indeed, I've seen it mentioned by quite a few people but from what I've observed, it's true.
Many of the people I follow have their die-hard fans that will literally buy anything that is created.
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Fantastic post right there