Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Thanks!
  

    
PETER!  My BROTHER!
  

    
Back to my question about the future of media: the Internet's emerging
as a platform for distribution of convergent media, where all film,
television, music, and literary creations are digitized and cooked in a
kind of media stew. To power all this, we see an increasingly
centralized broadband network that to some appears more like cable than
the Internet. And everything's funding by ubiquitous advertising and
marketing. There are already movements emerging that are talking about
building a next generation decentralized Internet as an alternative to
the pervasive media network. 

Another aspect of this evolution is that everything is "social," much
content is created by users rather than professionals, and increasingly
evertything can be annotated or commented. There are so many current
and potential channels for distribution of media and parallel
conversations, we've moved from mass media to masses of media.

This is the context we've been talking about, and I know Ed feels
pretty skeptical about these trends and what goes with 'em. But is
there a positive side for the artist in all this? Does a band with
great chops and high creativity have more control over its destiny than
it would have when it had to jump through record company hoops to get
airplay and distribution? Same for authors, filmmakers? Or are we in a
world where the collapse of the old structures means no chance to
produce greatness, where it's quantity over quality (as Ed seems to be
saying)?
  

    
WE need to remember that the works that achieve greatness under the
collapsing old system aren't the only great works out there. So many of
the factors that determines which greatness comes to mass attention is
arbitrary. For every David Foster Wallace or Zadie Smith or Jonathan
Lethem, there are probably basements full of people laboring away in
obscurity whose work is just as good by any objective measure, or at
least whose talent is equal to theirs, but who failed, for reasons
entirely unrelated to talent or quality, to find their way through all
the gates. 

Seems to me that what we know as great art found its way through a
system (record industry, publishing business, etc.) with more structure
and manifest rules than the Internet offers, but which is no less
chaotic and irrational or just plain stupid, and no more reliable a
judge of quality. Great stuff, probably different great stuff, will
continue to bubble up in whatever the current stew is.
  

    
The overall picture, is that we are pre-Gutenberg and back to an oral
media -- tho now we term it chat, text, voice, etc....but the point is
that it is now an oral tradition again a la Marshall McLuhan, if the
media (medium) is the message, then the new platform is digital, in all
it's forms....

So, for me at least, it isn't either/or but rather, both/and....Yes,
Ed is rightly concerned....we are losing our privacy, if we ever had
it,,,NSA monitors everything that transmits on the NET, Homeland
Security eavesdrops on everything, there are no 1st Amendment rights to
cover our cellphones (so for gopod's sake put a strong password on
that thing!).... It's not that any of us are doing anything wrong --
well, most of us anyhow, but that it is a fundamental right for each us
to have our personal freedom....that needs to extend to our
virtual/digital identity (ies) as well, and to our devices....EFF has a
lot of work to do here....
  

    
He's right, you know.

Speaking as an artist who is competing in this sphere, it's a good thing in
that the playing field has been leveled (apocalyptically!), and a bad thing
in that the ceiling has been lowered greatly in the process.  My chances of
getting filthy rich were never good, and they're worse now by virtue of the
fact that I'm 57 years old and I don't make the kind of music that is going
to get me a prominent spot at Best Buy nor a nice lucrative placement behind
a montage on "The O.C."  But my ability to reach a large number of people
under my own steam is, I think, greatly facilitated by Facebook, Twitter,
etc.

"1,000 True Fans":
<http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php>

An excerpt:

>>>
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.
<<<
  

    

Slippage.
  

    

I've been asked how to use Facebook to market a CD.  My answer tends to be
along the lines of, "Go back in time about five years and become a part of
the community.  Interact with eople - respond to their status reports, post
news items and video clips abut things that interest you.  Be a member of
lots of communities there.  If you just show up and start promoting your CD,
you'll be regarded as a spammer."

In that sense, I am ahead of the game in that I have been online for 25
years, starting right here in the WELL.  On Facebook, I have 5002 "likes" for
my artist page and another 18,000+ "likes" for my radio show's page.  I am an
experienced social networker, and I put energy into supporting other creative
people whose work I like.
  

    
We are being marketed, spammed, collated, spun and bindled into every
category by experts, and targeted accordingly....it's a bore and comes
with "it's free and always will be"....

The telling sign for me was when Amazon and PayPal cancelled
WikiLeak's accounts...and only a handful of us responded by cancelling
our PayPal and Amazon accounts in protest....so it's accidental
tourists in virtual space pretending to be crusaders....Oh well, what's
new?

As for the positive side to all of this....new distribution models and
platforms exist and are in the pipes that will give the artist(s)
freedom of control, production, and distribution, and marketing of
their creations....That's a great thing....sure, there will be chaff
with the wheat, but there always is....

I think it is virtually a great day to be a 'creative'....networks
abound, channels are everywhere you want, you can now hook up 24/7 with
anyone in the world....Really it's all too much, too fast and only a
few have a handle on what now exists, how to develop, use and manage
it....and more importantly, what should supercede the old and be
constructively created to channel the new....

Great Day in the Morning!

(sorry this was so long a rant -- this is dear to my heart and efforts
to change things.)
  

    
more slippage... but I'm glad this rang David's bell as well as mine.
  

    
David Byrne said it takes 5 years to develop a band's following, e.g.
Talking Heads, and then you have your target audience and go from
there....it's a whole lot faster now for someone who knows how to use
YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, iTunes, etc....it's all about audience,
digital marketing and getting viral....Woohoo
  

    
Or not, in the case of the Decembrist's...this week's Rolling Stones
ran an article about how they are number one and now taking a few years
off to pursue other projects -- books, movies, etc....they are
sticking to their original plan in spite of viral success....I take
great heart from that decision....More power to them!! (Sorry, no link
online for this yet)
  

    

Ed knows this story.  How many times did we music journalists discover some
great new album, write it up, and then watch in horror as the vicissitudes of
the release schedule killed it in its crib?  Your life's work comes out on
the same Tuesday as the new Madonna record, and the sales dept, rack jobbers,
et al. just never get to do anything on yours.  And under the record label
model, not only are you dead in the water, but you don't even own the corpse.
I do not mourn the death of that system.
  

    
And it's not that much different with books. Suffer, for whatever
reason, bad (i.e., less than the publisher, with all the tools at his
or her disposal, estimated) sales--which, assuming the book is decent,
is generally the result of arbitrary and external factors--and you're
toast. You do own all the remaindered crumbs, but good luck with your
next project.

So when authors and agents start conspiring with Amazon to cut out the
publisher and release an e-book, they're just doing the thing that
makes sense. Amazon gives you 70 percent of the take. Meaning that if
you sell 20K copies at $12 each, you'll take home $168K. The advance on
a book a publisher thinks might sell 20K will be maybe $75K, and if yo
udon't earn out, try getting another advance of any size. Amazon may
be the great Satan, but at least they konw what they are doing, which
is more than you can say for most publishing houses.
  

    
i think this true for all creatives...we (if I may be so bold) are not
business types for the most part....we think, write, paint, sculpt,
sing and reflect the cultures and worlds in which we find ourselves,
locally and globally.....and then the pariahs come!!!
  

    
Well, evidently if we want audiences and food on the table, we are
going to have to become business types. 
  

    
I just started a new business,,,,and added two business types to my
board so they could do all that for me :)) Got that from doing what
they call a SWAT - Strengths, Weaknesses, Assets, Talents as part of my
business plan...A first for me....they basically want me to think, and
they will handle the business...WOOT
  

    
David, et. al. what do you think about this link?
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/print/2011/04/how-copyright-law-hurts
-music-from-chuck-d-to-girl-talk/236975/
  

    

My responses to that article begin here:

<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.02/oswald.html>

and here:

<http://www.dgans.com/mutilaudio/>
  

    

And two mashups of Beatle songs that we (Rubber Souldiers will never be able
to release):

<http://www.dgans.com/rubbersouldiers/studio/pleasemelong_final.mp3>

<http://www.dgans.com/rubbersouldiers/studio/norwegianboy_final.mp3>
  

    

Really interesting article - thanks.  I have been kicking around a book idea
that would involve building each chapter around a song (by someone else).
Guess I'd have a hard time getting htat published, too.
  

    
The Old Guard will protect every vested interest in every possible
nickel they can get....I think Cory Doctorow and Lawrence Lessig have a
lot going with Creative Commons and free digital offerings....

David, I'm sorry I don't have anything positive to offer in your
dilemma, it just sucks! Maybe Jon or Ed know of something???
  

    
<95> wow, thanks for sharing those....any possibility you could just
ask Paul or Ringo for permission???
  

    
And we're back to the same old arguments, to which I have to offer my
counter-arguments. Copyright, for writers, is essential, especially now
that we're denigrated by the term "content providers" and being told,
after decades, to work for free. Authors can't sell t-shirts or other
merch to make up for loss of copyright, nor can we necessarily take it
on tour for profit the way a band can. Plus, even with musicians, some
of them don't translate to the stage well, and others don't want to
turn into machines touring 300 days a year just in order to make the
rent. The 500 true fans argument is fine -- for young people in a rock
band. For the rest of us it's just blither. 
  

    

I disagree that it's "just blither," but it's a scary situation for sure.