1000TrueFansRSolidGold

From Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 True Fans posted on March 4, 2008:

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

And published a day later, on March 05, 2008, Reznor makes $750,000 even when the music is free:

And it appears to be working quite well for Reznor, who has managed to sell all 2,500 copies of his $300 package without major label backing or much in the way of splashy marketing. If Reznor’s earlier experiments in digital distribution failed to recoup their costs, he’s clearly learned his lesson: grossing $750,000 in the space of three days isn’t a bad haul for any businessperson.

So it seems Kevin’s concepts can easily work for someone like a Trent Reznor. Kevin does spend a good portion of the article on how a lesser known could make this work as well.