Amanda Palmer's Book

"The Art of Asking": http://bit.ly/1zdxvzb

You should read it. Even if you've got no idea who Amanda Palmer is, even if you've never listened to her music, or dislike it.

Because Amanda Palmer is Internet Famous.

That's right, while everybody's been decrying the online world, with Taylor Swift agitating against Spotify this very week, Amanda Palmer decided to embrace it, believing a relationship with her fans is what it's all about, and the new digital mechanisms enable this.

Educated art chick. The music business used to be full of them. Not high school cheerleaders or wannabe famous TV singers, but alienated women who thought for themselves and decided to blaze their own path, to will their own popularity.

Like Madonna.

Only Madonna broke in the eighties, when we were all glued to MTV. Amanda Palmer broke in the twenty first century, when the systems were blown to smithereens, in an era that is still defined by turmoil.

Amanda Palmer is the poster girl for dipping not only your toe, but your whole damn body, because you never know what will happen.

Like a TED talk with 9 million views and counting.

And now this book with Hachette.

She started as a musician, she ended up as a cultural icon. The first player to raise a million on Kickstarter for her album, the first player to be criticized for not paying pickup musicians at a gig, Amanda's a trailblazer, only in this case she had no idea where she was going.

They call that art.

Having gone to Wesleyan, Amanda knows how to write. There you have it, some rules are immutable. The educated upper middle class dominates in America and if you think you can beat the system, you're lucky or delusional.

Because the first rule of book writing is the result must be readable. An axiom that is broken constantly by people with a good story who think they can type it into a best seller.

And the second rule of all art is it must be entertaining. If people don't want to partake, it's a failed effort.

And Amanda's book is such. It's the story of a dream and how living it she got to a destination unforeseen.

But it is not a self-help book. Its advice is near worthless. At first you start to embrace her concept of asking, and then as you read on you realize YOU'RE NOT HER!

That's right, Amanda Palmer is sui generis and she's got no problem asking anybody for anything. And there's nothing wrong with that, but she's not you or me. In other words, just because you asked, don't expect to be famous.

But really, this is the story of Amanda's relationship with her fans. How she nurtured it to the point where it not only kept her alive, it engendered new opportunities.

And if you're into performance art, if you're into niche acts, you'll revel. If you want to be a world famous player, you'll find no instruction here.

In other words, being Amanda Palmer is very different from being Taylor Swift. Swift too plays up the relationship with her fans, but Swift is everybody's, Amanda's fans believe she's theirs.

There's the story of the Dresden Dolls, from a dream of stardom to a deal with a label that neither understands them nor so much of the moving Internet world.

And then the delineation of her relationship with her fans. Never mind her relationship with her husband and mentor.

You see, Amanda Palmer has written the first book to depict what it's like inside the maelstrom. The fans who will keep you alive and the haters who just won't let you go, tweeting and Facebooking all the while. Amanda Palmer is the most famous musician to have done it the newfangled way. And unless you plan to be Taylor Swift, you should read "The Art of Asking" to see how it's done.

If you like to couch surf, if you like to have sex, if you like free food, if you like to hear people's stories, niche stardom is for you! If you want to have a rich and famous lifestyle, not so much. Amanda has leveraged her Internet fame to such a status, but she was the progenitor, you cannot walk in her footsteps.

In other words, if you love lugging your gear, the high of performing, getting drunk while talking to fans...Amanda's been there, her book is illuminating. If you want a manual for world domination, this is not it.

But that's musical world domination. If you want to know what it's like to be a world famous public figure in the Internet age, "The Art of Asking" is a doozy.

Sure, the book has competing themes, the asking and the history, with her qualms about accepting her husband's money intertwined.

But the staggering point comes near the end, when she goes for a massage and the wannabe musician/masseuse asks to speak to her first...because she's been a vitriolic hater of Amanda online, she didn't feel comfortable kneading the star whilst keeping this quiet.

I would say that "Art of Asking" is not going to be a best seller, but the truth is except for a few hits, book sales are anemic, and someone with a fan base like Amanda's can run her book up the list.

That's the power of music, that's the power of a fan base, nurtured online.

This is not a book for the ages. But if you want a snapshot of what is going on now, if you want the anti-Spotify Must Die screed, if you want to know what it's like to keep on keepin' on in this new world, you should read this. Because it nails the experience more than anything else I've read on the subject.

If you've got a modicum of fame the Internet is a swirling snake pit that will embrace you and horrify you all on the same day. Make you feel like a million bucks and contemplating suicide all on the same afternoon. You need to know what it's like.

Caveat: I know Amanda Palmer. I will be interviewing her in Los Angeles on her book tour on November 22nd. This is an imperfect book. But I was struck so much by the experiences she delineates and her reactions to them that I couldn't help but tell you about it. Winners might not care. Losers might be jealous. But the truth is Amanda Palmer is a star, in a movie of her own making. And it's working.


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