I’m just going to outline what I am doing here
I started writing this letter because I was fed up with seeing the same generic advice over and over again:
- Network
- Work on your craft
- Take a workshop in the X, Y, Z methods
- Use your Industry connections
- This is how to get into drama school
- Attend this casting director workshop
- Blah blah blah.
All either for beginners, or relying on the “get more lucky by doing this” notion.
But nothing concrete. And nothing really for us. The actors in the middle. Those who are working sometimes, but a lot of the time not. Those who want to start families, those who want to buy a house, those who want to find some sense of security, those who are fed up working in bars. Those who know that one more “work on your craft” class will probably be great fun, but wont tip the scale when it comes to survival. The ingenious actors who must become creative, who can’t lean on their name. Yet. Those actors who in spite of it all, refuse to give up.
At the risk of alienating some, it’s not intended for beginners. It’s not intended for those who auditioned once for something, booked the role and havent stopped working since. It’s not intended for those who have never needed to have a side job.
The log line is the following: an email to help actors boost their income without selling their souls. This is because I believe the surest way to help people where they are is to help them increase their income.
Because the financial insecurity we feel, forces us into positions where we must decide between our morals and surviving. E.g. Missing our friend’s wedding because you have to work a shift, or turning to reddit in turmoil because you can’t decide whether to go to an audition or attend your Grandma’s funeral. This is not normal. The scarcity, the lack of jobs is driving us to compromise our humanity.
But thats is just the way it has to be, they say. This is the industry. This is what you signed up for. It’s not going to change.
Why though?
Why can’t it.
Why not.
That’s who this newsletter is for.
Those who choose to wade against the current of “If you don’t like it, then you should get out”
No –
If we don’t like it, we’ll change the fucking current.
HOW
If there is one generic piece of advice I think should be shouted above them all –
So loudly that no one hears anything but that, its-
Make. Your. Own Work.
Whatever that means to you – new writing, old writing, theatre companies, tv writing, radio plays, one person shows, films, performing on the street. It is the only thing we have the power to do.
And the actor who is able to do that is the actor who is more powerful than they know.
Michaela Coel, Phoebe Waller Bridge, the chap from the reindeer show, liz Kingsman all found mainstream success making their own work.
But so far – so edge cases. For each of the above there were thousands of actors who made shows, put them on lets say up at edinburgh and have not found mainstream success.
But we’re not talking about mainstream success.
We’re talking about making a living
We’re talking about 1000 people.
Your True Fans
Kevin Kelly is a chap who was the founding editor of the tech magazine Wired. What about him? He wrote a blog called 1000 true fans
The moment I read it was the moment things made sense for me.
The concept is simple. To survive and thrive, you don’t need mainstream success, you dont need millions of people to know your name, all you need is 1000 dedicated people who will turn up because they love the shit you make.
Thats it.
If you can find 1000 people to turn up to 2 of your shows a year you have enough money to pay your bills, take a holiday, save for when you’re old, and then some.
I do not want to make this all sound easy. It won’t be. But when i understood this, i couldn’t un-understand it.
If 99.9994% of the people online hate your stuff and the rest like it
Those who like it would fill Wembley stadium.
And if only 2.22% of those people love it so much they paid £29 come see your next show. You’re making over £100,000 a year.
Just 0.00002% of people online. That’s who you need to find.
That’s the equivalent as going to Edinburgh knowing you will pay rent for the year if 5 people to come see your show.
But you must find them, and your show must change their lives.
And that’s the challenge.
How do I make incredible work that will change 5 peoples lives?
And how do I find 5 people?
How to make incredible work:
Incredible work = Bad work x (♾️ -1)
Make more bad work
The first thing we write will not be great
The second thing we write will not be great
The third thing we write we will learn something
The fourth thing we write will drop us into the creative process
The fifth thing we write we show (courageously) to someone who asks us a question about it, which starts us thinking about it in a way we didn’t expect, and gives us an idea that leads to
The sixth thing we write which we have the bravery to publish publicly because we realise it’s really about those questions…
Continue this many times over, and no matter how much your gremlins tell you you are not making progress, you will see it is impossible not to improve.
In drama school we had an expression – let’s fuck this up.
Sit down and tell your self “today i will fuck this up, my work will be bad but it will also a little better than yesterday.” It doesn’t matter what you’ve produced by the end of it, the point is you’ve produced. And chances are it will be better than yesterday.
Make more bad work.
How do I find 5 people?
Publish your bad work.
If no one sees it, does it exist?
I made things from time to time, I would show them to my wife, who was incredibly supportive and encouraging and suggested I put them somewhere others could see them. I told her (and myself), No I made this because I wanted to make it, not because I wanted people to see it.
But if that was the case I wouldn’t have shown it to my wife.
I used to tell myself I’m happy with making things for the sake of making them, but I’m not. I make things because it’s a small way of changing the world, quietly, yes, but changing it nonetheless.
Once I realised this, I knew what was really stopping me.
Fear
Fear that if I took my work to Edinburgh, not only would I not find the 5 people who would love it, I would incur the wrath of the remaining 249,995 festival goers, jeering at me, demanding what gave me the arrogance to put this in front of them.
Fear that I would never be able to recover from that.
It takes courage to look for 5 people.
A courage that comes from a simple choice to start looking.
(♾️ – 1)
At some point, before you get to infinity someone will say, this changed my life.
If one person says it, so will another, and that person will tell another person who tells 10.
And before you’ve reached infinity, at least 1000 people will have turned up screaming for your next piece of “bad work”.
So why aren’t we already doing it?
The unspoken hierarchy
The widely held belief is that Self published on the internet is a place where those who can’t make it IRL must retreat to. A desperate sign that you don’t have anything worth putting in front of society at large. You will do better on the fringes. But traditionally, as we know, those who live on the fringes find it harder to pay the bills. This has led to there being a hierarchy of work:
- Cinema
- TV/Streamers
- West End
- Off west End
- Video games/voiceover
- Regionals (I gather this has a tier system too?
- Ads
- fringe
- self published internet web shows
If you are sitting in an agents office, looking for representation, would they react differently if you said you were doing a self produced, self directed tik tok series, to if you said you had just finished shooting the lead in the new Netflix drama?
There is hierarchy.
Maintained by those who have power. Unquestioned by those who don’t.
But this provides us with opportunity…
The industry’s conservatism means that there is untrodden snow for actors
and these are the three such areas that I’m excited about:
- Artists being hired directly by another artist (e.g.without the need of middle men – this happens in the audiobook world, and is incredibly empowering)
- Using the creator economy to our advantage (e.g. actors teaching what they know to online audiences, working better hours for better pay)
- Self producing inexpensive narrative art (e.g. web series, short films, films, etc) and getting audiences to pay us directly for it.
These all move the power away from those who are picking us, and puts it into our hands.
Here is an example of a few ideas that are in progress/waiting to be explored:
(if there are any you want to take and develop please do – and keep me updated with how you get on)
- Help actors find their true fans (and vice versa)
- Build an internet ensemble to answer the question – can we make exciting and enthralling work that uses the different mediums on the interweb (email, youtube, websites, social)?
- Help actors set up home sound booths so they can form companies that record high quality audio plays remotely for podcasts/audible
- Help actors become self represented audiobook narrators
- Help actors earn money teaching what they know online
- Can/should we bring back the old patron model (Patreon?)
- Help actors set up a community of self tapers they can trust in their neighbourhood
- Learn how to write serialised Tik tok dramas
- Figure out if we can make rep profitable online.
- Help actors make their own work where they cast themselves as the lead character
- Support actors with how the fck to start a familiy/buy a house
- Help actors with budgeting, tax and finance
- Create a community for actors who identify as being Actorpreneurs
- Help actors create their own work that is inline with their goals and desires.
- Create a place where actors, writers and directors can find each other quickly and easily, without having to go through casting directors or agents.
- Create one site where agents who’s books are open, are matched with actors who are actively seeking representation.
And that’s The What of 6 figure actor.
I’m trying to figure out if there is a better way to be a happy, thriving, less-fearful actor. Whilst sharing my failures and successes en route so that, if it’s something you want to do as well, you can get there faster.
The current model is letting us down, and we are long overdue for something better.
Impossible?
No, I think it will just be hard.
And as Shackleton and JFK both showed us in their time –
Hard = Important and worthwhile
It’s time to
- find your true fans
- make more bad art
- keep finding better ways to earn money doing what your love.
It’s time to fuck it up.
See you next week.
A xx
p.s. I love writing these, and I’d love to help more people with finding them – if you liked this issue or any other or if they have benefitted you in any way – I would really appreciate your help.
Simply reply to this email with your thoughts about it, or fill in the quick 30s form below. Even if you loathe the emails I’d love to hear about it. The cruelest punishment in our line of work is being left to rot in uncomfortable silence.
if you do reply or fill in the form with absolutely any response, you will be entered into a prize draw to win a mystery prize. I will announce the winner next week..
p.s. If you know anyone who would like this, help build our interweb ensemble by forwarding it onto them in whatever way you can.
