Another Sky Press

I'm having an actual conversation on the io9 article I linked to the other day. I wasn't sure that would happen, since I found the article a couple of days after it went up. I'm having a polite disagreement (no, seriously) with another author about the meaning and implications of "neo-patronage", and he linked me to an interesting page that I actually find to be more in support of my feelings than his, but anyway, I want to share it.

It's from Another Sky Press:

Neo-patronage is an (r)evolution of patronage enabled by the connectivity between artist and audience offered by today’s technologies. At its core, neo-patronage is an honor/trust based system of financial support for an artist that comes from the artist’s collective audience, rather than a single individual or organization. The sum of all patron contributions becomes the means and incentive for the artist to continue his or her work.

This multitude of patrons is responsible for the two most important differences between patronage and neo-patronage:

1. The sense of ‘ownership’ the patron wielded over the artist is completely diffused. The artist is free to continue creating as he or she sees fit, and isn’t beholden to the vision of his or her supporters.
2. Spreading the cost of patronage over many patrons means anyone can become a patron simply by contributing to an artist based on their interest in the artist and their own financial ability.

In practice, the money the artist receives via neo-patronage serves two purposes:

1. It is payment and ‘thank you’ for work already completed.
2. It is the funding that allows the artist to continue to produce new works.

It is essential to understand that there is no line between these two purposes - if, for example, the artist decides to retire and pursue other activities, all future contributions would fall firmly into the first category by default. That said, if an artist is receiving contributions they have a strong incentive (both financially and artistically) to continue to create.

This duality of purposes for a contribution is a significant improvement over traditional patronage where the patron essentially became lord over the artist. Under neo-patronage, there is no longer a power dynamic between artist and patron since everything is voluntary on both sides of the equation. Patrons simply support artists they like and artists simply continue to create in hopes of further support from both old and newfound patrons.

Everybody wins.

That really says it.

I'm also a big fan of their stated beliefs, which, in brief, go:

1. It makes sense [to embrace technology and the free flow of information instead of raging against it]
   
2. The audience is the sole arbitrator of value.
   
3. Art for all.
   
4. Support the artist.
   
5. Dreams come true.
   

Or, as my father put it on the last one: "If you spend your time making it possible for the best things to happen, sometimes they do."

(Naturally, having found someone doing something on the internet, I'm off to offer them advice on how they should be doing it.)

Free = Priced to Sell.

Found via @agletsmycat's Twitter: Malcolm Gladwell reviewing a Chris Anderson book.

That description should be enough to get half my family reading it. For everybody else, though, Chris Anderson is the author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, which is about a phenomenon I've referred to in my previous blogs. It's all about how there are necessarily only a few "big winners" in most any field, but the implications of the internet and changes in how people shop for content and products means it's possible for those living within the "long tail" of a chart of demand can still make a living for themselves.

(See also what I've been saying about how the internet allows for more "modest successes" for authors than older models.)

His new book is intriguingly entitled Free: The Future of a Radical Price.

To quote Gladwell,

Anderson’s argument begins with a technological trend. The cost of the building blocks of all electronic activity—storage, processing, and bandwidth—has fallen so far that it is now approaching zero.

and

Anderson’s second point is that when prices hit zero extraordinary things happen.

The review goes on to cite some of the specific examples Anderson's book provided of the change in demand wrought by an offer of something free, but, really, that's one of the things that should be manifestly obvious. We've all experienced it. When something is free... especially when it's obviuosly well and truly free with no forms to fill out, no strings attached, and no requirements of personal information, we'll try things we'd never have otherwise given a second glance and pounce on things that would otherwise only have just barely piqued our curiosities.

I've spent so much time in the past few weeks talking to other authors (both directly and by proxy through my blog) and entreating them to be less miserly with free-ness, to be open and up front about any content they have that's free, to put it front and center and not hide it behind logins or anything else. As I put it to Matt Selznick in the comments on that io9 article, free can be the difference between a project that has legs and a project that has wings.

There is a colossal power in free product. You still have to figure out how to profit off it, but with the internet reducing overhead to an amount that approaches zero it doesn't have to be a huge profit, especially if you're a solo operator living in the long tail.

So, yeah, I will probably be checking this book out.

(And a tip o' the mitre to popelizbet for pointing me at the tweet.)