So far, most discussions of post-digital-download music industry business models have had a fairly top down focus. We’ve seen the cartels angst over ways to resurrect their formerly bloated bottom lines; upper echelon artists, like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, flirt with free downloads; and smaller switched-on labels, like Magnatune, offer more equitable distributions of download incomes to the musicians on their rosters.
What we’ve seen less of, though, are bottom-up models that help individual artists farm an income on their own terms from internet distribution of their work.
Enter the 1000 True Fan Plan… Quite simply, it’s the idea that all you need as an artist is 1000 “true fans” (ie people who will religiously purchase anything you produce.) If you can provide this fan base with a steady supply of new product that they will happily spend up to $100 a year to acquire, then you have created a revenue stream that you can comfortably live on.