Patronage (7 P’s of Publishing: 7 of 8)
This element is perhaps one that writers might think is more applicable in today’s world than it might have been decades ago. They would be right in thinking that, but I’m not just talking about crowd-sourcing from places like Patreon, Kickstarter or other crowd-funding services; that is definitely a part of this. I’m talking about the overall idea of patronage. Of willing consumers.
It was Kevin Kelly who first introduced the concept of 1,000 True Fans in a 2008 essay.
In case you aren’t familiar with this concept, Kelly stated that, to be a successful creator able to make a living off of that craft, you don’t need millions of dollars, or millions of customers, clients or fans. You just need one thousand true fans who will buy anything that you produce, sight unseen. These are the fans who would drive hundreds of miles just to see you, who would willingly lay down big dollars for the “unabridged” or “exclusive content” version of something you produce; they will buy the print book, the eBook and the audiobook version of your book. They are the die-hard or super-fans.
Kelly’s concept brilliantly gets into the math, which many people overlook, because they might have heard the concept but don’t understand the details. And I talk about that more later on in this section.
