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It's hard to support yourself as a writer, and the Internet is swamping the world with content. How do you find fans in an over-populated literary universe?

Recently web guru Kevin Kelly proposed a new model for achieving artistic success in the Age of the Internets. As he outlines in  “1,000 True Fans,” a novelist just needs to find a thousand dedicated readers ("True Fans") who will each spend at least  $100 a year on your books/t-shirts/audiobooks/readings.

That idea made me really excited at first--a way for all sorts of starving writers to support themselves and keep writing. Niche writers, fan fiction, science fiction, and obscure poets could all survive and books would never die.

I'm still inspired, but the excellent (check out Agent to the Stars if you don't believe me) novelist John Scalzi has a little bit of reality for aspiring writers. It's not that easy to end up in Happy Happy True Fan Land, and it took Scalzi ten years to make it all work. Just read this essay:

"I became a strong-selling author (”Strong selling” = six figure total units sold in 2007) in a literary genre well-known for its fandom. Which is to say that before I could lay an arguable claim to having 1,000 “true” fans, I needed to create an overall audience of at least tens of thousands of readers/fans."

Kevin Kelly, who a couple of years ago wrote this provocative article on the future of books, is at it again, this time asking how it is possible to charge for something in a digital world where the cost of duplication and redistribution is almost exactly zero. While books are not the focus of his latest blog post, he could be talking about the publishing industry when he says 'Our wealth sits upon a very large device that copies promiscuously and constantly.'

The problem for content producers and owners, as he describes it, is that 'Once anything that can be copied [eg ebooks] is brought into contact with [the] internet, it will be copied, and those copies never leave. Even a dog knows you can't erase something once it's flowed on the internet.' For book publishers, struggling with issues of ebook pricing, or looking askance at the record business where copy protection is on the way out and the price of recorded music slides inexorably towards free, working out how to create value and encourage people to pay for digital products is becoming an important issue.

But happily Kelly has a possible balm;

'When copies are free, you need to sell things which cannot be copied.'

He suggests 8 'values', including authority, personalization and immediacy which increase value for the user and potentially could encourage payment for a something which might otherwise have a tangible value close to zero. I'm not going to copy his entire article here (though I could simply reproduce a digital copy at no cost to myself at all) - but I do suggest checking it out, it is a most worthwhile read. Perhaps most usefully (and something that really should be obvious) is his suggestion that business models are considered from the point of view not of the content creator, owner or distributor, but from the users perspective; What, he asks, can encourage us to pay for something we can get for free?

Meanwhile, the O'Reilly publishing conference is today starting in New York. At last years' conference Chris Anderson scandalized attending publishers when he said that he was trying to get his new book, Free, priced as close to, er, free, as possible since for him books were an advertisement for his speaking and consultancy business. As every single publisher said, 'that's great for him, but what about us?'. Kevin Kelly, thankfully, provides ample food for thought.

Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher

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A group shot-what a fun bunch of girls! Next to me is Teresa McFayden, our Bella Extraordinaire. She really knows how to throw an event! She is such a sweetheart and is so warm and genuine and so talented! She really went all out for us and made us feel so welcome, I can't thank her enough. You could really feel the bond of friendship between all the women who attended this event. One I know will continue on for a long time to come.

Me and Pam Garrison. Pam is so talented and has been such an inspiration to me this past year. I took her Bella's Banner class and had such a great time. Thank you so much Pam!

And me again with Debby Schuh. Debby really touched my heart this past weekend. We had such fun and I hope we'll be able to have many more good times together. Shall we make this a yearly get together Debby? I hope you don't mind, I snagged these photos from your blog-my camera was for the dogs this past weekend! Ok, so you made me cry...it's the least you could do! :) It was a good cry, not a bad thing so I guess that gets you off the hook for today!

See the cool black vintage style t-shirt I have on? I bought it from the sweet and talented Heather Bullard (my photos of her didn't turn out). Thanks so much, I just love my t-shirt Heather!

What a whirlwind and exciting weekend at Silver Bella, an event I have been waiting to attend for months. It was more than I imagined it to be and today I am enjoying happy exhaustion from all the hustle and bustle of activities. The event oozed with creativity and talent and the bonding spirit of each of the women was incredible. Everyone was so passionate about what they do and what inspired them to become part of this incredible event that set our town on it's heels, literally boot heels! I've so many photos it will take several posts to cover everything.


I met so many wonderful women and I will try to post additional photos from my friends who happily agreed to send me the photos they took with their cameras as my camera was being very tempermental.


From left to right above: Elaine, Me and Debby.


Above: Me and Pam Keravuori.

My constant companions at the event were Elaine Prosser, Debby Schuh and Pam Keravuori. I met Debby through her blog and we have so much in common. She works for Anna Griffin as an instructor teaching paper/scrapbook project classes around the US and is so very talented and genuinely warm. We decided to attend the event together along with her good friend Elaine-who I am after to start her own blog. They introduced me to Pam, another friend of Debby's and a creative consultant and instructor for ScrapbooksPlus. The girls were all so warm and friendly, they immediately set me at ease. The rest of the weekend we were pretty much inseperable. They made me laugh and cry (yes cry!) and entertained me with stories from their adventures and made me let go of my temptation to adhere to perfectionism. And guess what? It worked! By the end of the weekend I just rolled with the punches-and let all those perfectionisms just lift away!

Me and Becky Sower, who's work is incredibly inspiring. She is so sweet and gracious in person and I was so happy to have the opportunity to take her Life is a Lovely Collage class and will post the project once I have photographed it.

Kari Ramstrom and I. Kari is just as delightfully sweet in person as she is on her blog. I was so tickled to meet her and I just love her creativity and talent.

Miss Molly and I. Molly is a true sweetheart who works at our local Archiver's. I was so surprised and delighted to see that she too was attending Silver Bella.

Me with Jennifer Hayslip. Jennifer has such a beautiful decorative style and it is evident in everything she does. She is a busy mom with 3 children and I don't know how she finds the time to do it all.

I am still on this incredible high from the event and from all the amazingly creative and talented women I have met. I know this will stay with me for a long time to come. Now it's off to look at my table covered in precious treasures from Silver Bella! To view some more fun photos from Silver Bella stop on by Jill Assman's blog. I don't have a photo of her but she was so fun to meet in person. Her post of the Queen Bella miss Teresa McFayden (first photo) was the hostess and creator behind this grand event. She really knows how to throw a shin-dig!

What a weekend! Have you ever put some things off until the last minute (due to so many other things cropping up at the last minute) that you kick yourself into the car and back out again? THAT would be me today. And yesterday and the day before. I can count 5 trips to Archivers (2 in the same day) in the last 4 days and maybe one still to go. I am working on a project which turned out to be more than I anticipated yet a fun project none-the-less that I have to finish in the next few days. Of course, I have never done one quite like this so you can imagine everything that could fobile my plan has, thus the extra trips to Archivers. With today's gas prices I've added a pretty penny to this project as it's a good 5 miles one way. I wish I had a set up like Debby, where everything is at your finger tips. Here work space is incredibly well organized and full of everything one would need. I need to start buying organizers to set things right in my studio, that would help immensly.