I recently reviewed Fans, Friends and Followers by Scott Kirsner. I finally got around to typing up the quotes I found interesting enough to underline in the book.
“The more opportunities you create for fans to participate in your process, the more engaged and loyal you’ll find they become.” (6)
“When someone is getting their first taste of your work, you need to give them a reason – quickly – to dive in deeper. What you’re up to needs to be crystal clear, or so mysterious and bizarre that people can’t help but have their curiosity piqued.” (11)
“I’ve found that educational stuff can attract an audience. Share your techniques, and tell people about the software you’re using.” (13)
“One piece of advice for people is about consistency. A lot of people put out one thing and it’s really popular. They’re surprised, and they don’t have anything else to do. People really want consistent content. You can’t go three or four months without something new.“ -Michael Burns (40)
“The idea that we’re going to hit some sort of steady model is false hope. You’ve just got to keep moving. We’ve had forty business models in nine years. I don’t see it slowing down at all.” -Gregg and Evan Spiridellis (46)
“The Internet is a collection of communities. You need to create a community around your film. That will not happen if you keep things to yourself. You need to open yourself up, show your face, show your production, let people get inside. People do a lot of things when they get enthusiastic about something. They help the production, give money, or run into the streets and scream about your production. You need to allow people to do that. It’s an enormous viral force.” -Timo Vuorensola (47)
“You need to offer different monetization options for different customers. Some people watch it on the Web for twenty minutes and then want to buy the DVD. Some people watch the whole film on BitTorrent, but then want to support us by buying merchandise. We want to let you give us money in any way possible.” -Timo Vuorensola (48)
“The way I meet people and get most of my jobs is offering to help people.” -Steve Garfield (49)
“I email everybody back. I respond to everything. Think about regular TV shows. In that world, you’d never expect to get any sort of response.” -Steve Garfield (50)
“The audience votes with their ‘forward’ button. If they see a video that they think has something to say, they forward it. All the money in the world and all the kings horses can’t get them to do that.” -Robert Greenwald (52)
“We want to have 5,000 people who are video distributors – who understand that they are Paramount Studios, they are CBS. If they take our video and get it to 100 people, that’s hugely important.” -Robert Greenwald (53)
“As fast as someone becomes your fan, they can become someone posting everywhere and saying you suck. But if you respond to them, they become powerful. They’re like bees, spreading your message.” -M dot Strange (55)
