We previously linked you to this TechDirt post about how she made more money from fans via Twitter than from her major label record deal this year. And she maintains her in-your-face approach. TechDirt recounts: "For example, she got caught in Warner's stubborn decision to fight YouTube over payments, and had all her videos taken down from YouTube against her wishes. So, at a concert, she told fans to upload the video to YouTube as she sang a song begging her label to drop her." Bwahahahaha. She's also used Twitter to find borrowed instruments, accommodations and actors for videos as she rocks around the world. And it even helped her get back a stolen ukulele from a couple of shame-faced, drunken fans.
Now she's posted her money manifesto at her blog and wants it distributed widely to get people talking. "why i am not afraid to take your money, by amanda fucking palmer" describes some minor backlash against asking fans for cash directly, whether for t-shirts or webcasts or whatever. Palmer has little patience with that:
artists need to make money to eat and to continue to make art.
artists used to rely on middlemen to collect their money on their behalf, thereby rendering themselves innocent of cash-handling in the public eye.
artists will now be coming straight to you (yes YOU, you who want their music, their films, their books) for their paychecks. please welcome them. please help them. please do not make them feel badly about asking you directly for money.
dead serious: this is the way shit is going to work from now on and it will work best if we all embrace it and don’t fight it.
...we are creating the protocol, people, right here and now.
There's a lot more, straight from the sleeve-worn heart of this crazy cool artist, and I recommend you read it all. Because very soon I may be asking you for money.
(Pic by Martyn Foster, via Palmer's Flickr feed.)
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