Book Review: Scott Kirsner's 'Fans, Friends & Followers'

Scott Kirsner has had a new book, Fans, Friends & Followers: Building An Audience And A Creative Career In The Digital Age, and it's a great read. Kirsner is a kind of Michael Musto of the regional technology scene: he knows all the companies and their principals, he knows about new products and partnerships, he knows the venture capitalists and their areas of investment, and his observations of these phenomena and his commentary are published in his "Innovation Economy" column at the Boston Globe. The column, and his InnoEco blog are must-reads for any entrepreneur or anyone working in tech in New England.

Let's go over why Fans, Friends & Followers is so handy. The first 30 or so pages are a description and advisement of the "New Rules" of how individuals and companies build up supporters, audiences, and a customer base. What follows the "rules" are 30 interviews and testimonials of video artists and producers, musicians, graphic designers, authors, and performers. These profiles are inspirational in so many ways: all these people experienced failure, self-doubt, problems, serendipity, and success.

Many of them are now very successful and independent, some are barely self-sufficient, and some are still working day-jobs. It's all about persevering and while these people might be using contemporary web-based tools it's an old old story, just updated. In this list of players, you will have heard of several of them, whether it's the creators of JibJab, Jill Sobule, or Eugene Mirman along with many, incredibly successful people you perhaps never heard of.

The final two sections are about how to monetize your creative efforts, which is helpful, but perhaps the most important section of the book, for those entrepreneurs and artists who are ready to go today, is the "Power Tools" section, with descriptions, pricing, and URLs for all the tools, and then some, that the profiled players used to help them get traction and expand upon their successes.

This is a book for anyone who is considering leveraging a talent that they've developed "on the side", it's a book for any kind of entrepreneur or innovator, and it's a book for established marketing folks who are looking for new tactics, and it's even a book for established business managers who are looking for inspiration and ideas. This is not just a book to put on your LinkedIn reading list to look cool, Fans, Friends & Followers is a book to get now and read now.