Fans, Friends And Followers: Building An Audience And A Creative Career In The Digital Age [Paperback]

Scott Kirsner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 18, 2009

An essential guide for filmmakers, musicians, writers, artists, and other creative types. "Fans, Friends & Followers" explores the strategies for cultivating an online fan base that can support your creative career, enabling you to do the work you want to do and make a living at it. Based on dozens of interviews with the artists pioneering new approaches to production, marketing, promotion, collaboration, and distribution, it presents strategies that work - in a straightforward, jargon-free way. Featured artists include YouTube star Michael Buckley; the animators behind JibJab, Homestar Runner, and Red vs. Blue; video artist Ze Frank ("theshow"); comedian Eugene Mirman; singer-songwriters Jill Sobule and Jonathan Coulton; OK Go frontman Damian Kulash; filmmakers M dot Strange ("We Are the Strange") and Curt Ellis ("King Corn"); writers Brunonia Barry ("The Lace Reader") and Lisa Genova ("Still Alice"); and artists Tracy White, Natasha Wescoat, and Dave Kellett.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Scott Kirsner is a journalist and blogger who writes about new ideas and their impact on the world. He edits the blog CinemaTech (http://cinematech.blogspot.com), which explores the way technology is changing the entertainment industry. He is the author of "Inventing the Movies," a technological history of Hollywood published in 2008, and "The Future of Web Video: New Opportunities for Producers, Entrepreneurs, Media Companies and Advertisers," first published in 2006. He writes regularly for Variety and the Boston Globe. Scott's writing has also appeared in the New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Wired, Fast Company, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, BusinessWeek, and Newsweek, among other publications. Scott is one of the founders of the Nantucket Conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation, held each May. He also speaks and moderates regularly at entertainment industry events, including the Sundance Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the South by Southwest Film Festival. Scott is a graduate of Boston University's College of Communications and the New World School of the Arts, in Miami. He can be reached at [e-mail].

Product Details

• Paperback: 188 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (March 18, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1442100745
• ISBN-13: 978-1442100749
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #345,281 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great overview of DIY culture March 29, 2009

By Charles E. Tryon Jr.

Format:Paperback

Scott Kirsner's Fans, Friends, and Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age uses interviews with a number of prominent artists who have been able to forge careers and gain widespread popularity primarily through promotional and distribution tools available online. For those of us doing research on digital cinema, Kirsner's book is a valuable resource, one that illustrates the ways in which content creators are navigating, and sometimes profiting from, what Chris Anderson has described as the "long tail" of digital distribution and what others have described as do-it-yourself (DIY) distribution. While my own research, in Reinventing Cinema (Amazon) , focuses exclusively on filmmakers, Kirsner assembles a number of key figures from what he calls the "era of digital creativity," including musicians, comics artists, visual artists, and novelists, in order to establish or explore how a set of practices have emerged that allow artists to escape the "gatekeepers" of traditional distribution and market themselves. While Kirsner's book is generally optimistic about the potentials of DIY, a number of significant themes surfaced throughout the interviews.

Kirsner knows DIY culture as well as anyone, and he is well-positioned to document what is happening in a variety of digital media, to provide that crucial snapshot of digital DIY practices. He is also aware that what he is providing is just that, a snapshot, pointing out that these practices are far from static and subject to alteration as new artists find new techniques for having their voices heard (and hopefully making a living from it). The book also provides at least some statistics about what opportunities are actually available financially to even the most successful digital artists, making the book a useful guide to all of us interested in the ongoing practices of indie filmmakers, musicians, and artists alike.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Plenty of useful examples - you do the thinking. May 29, 2011

By Richard N. Stephenson

Format:Paperback

Pros: Mr. Kirsner lays down the foundation for an inspirational and passionate adventure into the Digital Age's internet based livelihood and does so in a very readable and entertaining fashion. The sheer amount of personal stories from the "it crowd" of the Digital Age is awesome enough. However, the real content of their stories is where the value is at. Getting a closer view of how these folks did what they do, did it passionately, and it just happened to make a living for them is highly inspiring to me. Some VERY good lessons to learn from this content. Excellent resources at the end of the book.

Cons: Not a whole lot of analysis going on as a vast majority of the book is interview / anecdote. The responsibility is on the reader to draw conclusions and see how the lessons learned could impact their lives. I don't view this as a bad aspect, but I could see how some readers (that are looking for concrete answers) would.

Assessment: Definitely worth buying and adding to the library.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Must have for small business October 26, 2009

By LAMakeupGirl

Format:Paperback

I had the pleasure of seeing Scott speak at a technology seminar. What had inspired me to purchase the book was that he shared a very real world approach to building an online community. By real world, I mean something that required some effort, but was not cost prohibitive. I am not an artist, but I own a small business and realize that small business and art live in someone parallel worlds. Both are creative and typically strapped for finances. To get our message out, we have to be creative. This book gives you simple guidelines and ideas on hoave best to create an audience through the power of the web. It lays out what your audience (customers) are looking for, how they want to be involved, and how best to include them, and FREE resources to do it. If you own a small/midsize/ or even large business, read this book.