Are We Members of the Creative Middle Class or the Creative Lower Class?
Everyone wants to be the former
There is a great mythology being created right now, right here. It made it to the august pub, The New Yorker, with an article about the creative middle class.
The article cycles back to 2008 and tech pundit Kevin Kelly’s 1000 true fans hypothesis, which says we can make a decent living with 1000 fans willing to shell out $100/year each to read, watch, or listen to our work.
An idea I, like a lot of people, latched onto that with enthusiasm. As with many forward looking ideas, Kelly was a little ahead of the reality. The tools weren’t quite there back then.
Fast forward 16 years and you have an entire shared dream of doing the work we love, on our own terms, and doing well enough. The emphasis here is on ‘well enough’.
I’m not dreaming of numbers in the millions, whether we are measuring dollars, followers, or likes (remember them?). Closer to Kelly’s convenient round number of 1k, though the real number seems to be around 10,000 people spending some time with our content and a fraction of them paying something for the privilege.
That fraction appears to be somewhere between 10-15%, based on the number of substack subscribers who upgrade to premium, paying memberships. But those numbers don’t net you 100 grand, probably less than half that.
Which would be fine with me. I’m pragmatic.
So, rather than a true middle class income, it’s more like above the poverty line. But hey, we are doing what we love right? If you build it, they will come…
A reminder, that came from a fantasy movie, one I love because I am a sucker for that stuff.
So, if you are compelling, work relatively hard, and stick to it, you will end up somewhere between a fantasy and the rent money, but maybe not that mortgage or a Lambo. Those are some pretty big ifs.
But I still buy into the idea and the promise for one main reason: the cost of entry is low, because of that the risk is low, and there are seven billion souls on this planet, any of them connected and hungry for knowledge.
Seven billion is a big ocean, but the problem with a big ocean is you can disappear into it and no one even notices.
The 1000 true fans premise is based on the idea of a micro business, a small operation that earns enough to survive. I have worked with a lot of small businesses that aspired to that and found themselves in trouble because their niche was way too small or too competitive.
Writing online content, for example, is extremely competitive. There are millions of writers dreaming of those loyal fans except, they are not often that loyal, and it takes a lot of effort to keep them paying attention.
You probably are familiar with the Pareto Principle. At any given moment there are thousands of articles, podcasts, and videos using it to motivate. After all, we all know that we are one of the 20% of creators who create 80% of the value, aren’t we?
Like all convenient numbers, 20% is almost certainly way too high. I’d chop it to 2%, which makes things a lot more daunting to most. I like daunting, it reduces the numbers of players on the field.
So, my first observation and basic rule of getting into this game is to know just how hard it is. It’s really hard and there is that constant factor of dumb luck, which often is defined as right place, right time. If you work hard, market, do very good work consistently, and have your own voice, then you will have the means to get closer to that right place at that right time.
And you just might find yourself entering that mystic space called the ‘creative lower class’. Congratulations, you’re on the first step of the ladder and headed for the top of the beanstalk.
I’ve been studying this stuff for the past two years while slowly building up a tiny group of sort of fans. I have no complaints, in fact I’m still excited by the potential and the tools, largely free, that anyone can use to give it a shot.
But as I said, I’m a pragmatist. It serves me well and keeps me from getting too giddy when something takes off, or too down when it seems nothing will. I’m happy to be in that middle ground in pursuit of that creative middle class status.