Indie 2.0

My friend from the blogosphere, Scott Kirsner has a great new book out, called Friends, Fans and Followers:

I’ve only had time to browse through an advance copy, but it looks great. Here’s from an email Scott sent me on it:

Just wanted to send a quick note about a new book I have coming out this month, Fans, Friends & Followers, which is all about how creative people can build audiences online (and also create sustainable business models.) I also wanted to see if I could nudge you toward contributing to the overall knowledge-base on this topic, with a bit of a blog challenge… see below.

Among the people I interviewed for the book are videobloggers Ze Frank and Steve Garfield; documentary filmmakers Robert Greenwald (featured in the NY Times this week), Sandi DuBowski, and Curt Ellis; Timo Vuorensola of the crowdsourced sci-fi film Star Wreck and M dot Strange of We Are the Strange; singer-songwriters Jill Sobule and Jonathan Coulton, novelists Brunonia Barry and Lisa Genova; the creators of Homestar Runner & Red vs. Blue; and YouTube star Michael Buckley, who got a development deal with HBO last year.

One thing I’m trying to encourage bloggers to do is to either list a few of the artists they think are doing a great job cultivating fan bases online; mention a tool they think is particularly effective at audience-building; or give a quick overview of a strategy or business model that can help support creative work in the digital realm. If it’s tagged “fans friends followers,” I’ll be easily able to collect them in one place.

So it took me a while, but I came up with a great Hong Kong local example of online content doing a great job of cultivating a fan base online: writer/producer/director Jen Thym’s exciting new Lumina web series, which is in post-production now. Check out my interview with Jen in my next post…