How Amanda Palmer Created a Thriving Music Neighborhood

Because the headline of her Patreon web page says, “Amanda Palmer is creating with no intermission.” Her expertise and expertise span consists of songwriting, being a band member, operating an insanely profitable Kickstarter marketing campaign, and now, being a Patreon guru with greater than 15,000 patrons, who’re enabling her to create on her phrases.

That capacity to create for a fan base with out having to undergo document labels and widespread critics allows Palmer to actually be herself and to have a deep and mututally useful relationship together with her followers.

Having signed with a significant label in her 20’s and being a member of the Dresden Dolls, Palmer is not any stranger to the music trade. And whereas Palmer says that she doesn’t have an issue with the trade, she did wrestle to leap the “hurdles” of getting her content material seem marketable to her label. With songs that debate rape, abortion, and miscarriage, Palmer struggled to persuade managers who had by no means had such experiences to place her work out into the world.

First by crowdfunding with Kickstarter (elevating over a million for her marketing campaign), then by means of membership with Patreon, Palmer was ready to connect with her viewers instantly and take full management of her artwork.

“The wonderful factor about Patreon is that it’s so direct it’s nearly disorienting. I simply know that I’ve to write down it, ship it, press a button, and the money drops. It doesn’t matter if it’s going to play nicely to radio…match on a document… The entire different stuff is gone, and it’s fairly wonderful.”

Palmer says that most individuals, particularly artists, have been conditioned to be ashamed of asking for cash. She wholly disagrees with that concept. As an alternative, she desires artists to know that asking for cash and help isn’t grasping or needy as a result of people who find themselves having fun with what artists produce really need to reward and thanks.

Palmer feels so strongly about this idea that she really wrote a e book known as The Artwork of Asking and gave a TED speak on the identical matter. And it’s not simply cash that Palmer believes in asking for. On her non-public Patreon feed, she additionally asks her patrons for artistic enter, and encourages them to share their very own experiences associated to the matters in her songs. As an illustration, when she requested her patrons to answer a music she wrote about abortion, over 500 of her patrons responded with a collective message of hope and security. Palmer’s group gives a secure house not just for her to share creatively, but additionally for her followers to share their experiences as nicely.

It’s instantly apparent if you go to Palmer’s Patreon web page that her character and voice are constant together with her revealed work. Her posts are uncooked and unedited, each in grammar and her trademark choice for some tough language. Swearing apart, the descriptions of her profit tiers have one other vital commonality — all of them specific her immense gratitude for her followers.

Palmer is unfailingly grateful to her supporters. Her lowest tier is $1 per “factor”, however she’s fast to let you know that she appreciates that contribution simply as a lot as those that contribute extra. And the best way she says it’s so candid that you may’t assist however smile:

“i treasure my $1 patrons as a lot as my $1,000 patrons. it’s just like the obama marketing campaign: each goddamn greenback counts. it’s additionally kind of like NPR (that’s american for “Nationwide Public Radio”, for you foreigners): though you donate, no one expects you to be glued and tuned into the radio 24/7 simply since you made an annual donation. you donated BECAUSE YOU WANT EVERYONE ELSE to have the ability to benefit from the top-quality (and free) content material that NPR gives. this can be a group. all people pitches in what they’ll, and i attempt to preserve my content material as free as doable, in order that EVERYBODY, even the individuals who can not afford to be a part of this patreon, can get pleasure from my songwriting and my different creative undertakings.”

Her real voice and conversational tone, make it apparent that there’s a actual one who cares about their artwork behind the Patreon web page. Isn’t that the kind of particular person you’d be extra inclined to help? Over 15,000 individuals have already made themselves a part of Palmer’s highly effective fandom.

When requested at SXSW what the very best a part of her work is now, she didn’t hesitate — for her, the partnership together with her group is the best reward. By asking the group that loves her work probably the most for help, and being courageous sufficient to depart the standard strategies of the music trade behind, she has additional confirmed her first intuition about being an artist — that communication and engagement with followers is a very powerful half.

“Watching the pleasure individuals soak up supporting an unbiased artist is without doubt one of the issues I really like probably the most. It’s this lovely symbiotic relationship. It’s not only a bunch of faceless individuals giving me cash. It’s a bunch of individuals understanding that after they stand at a present and so they know that they’ve made all of it doable, and so they flip and see somebody having a very emotional expertise, they know that they really gave me the ability to do this. It’s a very unimaginable collective expertise.”