

Louis C.K's email to his Beacon Theater Show customers - danso
http://danwin.com/2011/12/louis-c-k-thanks-his-fans-for-buying-his-5-beacon-theater-show/

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mxavier
Like this email, I've noticed Louis' personality permeates the whole
experience. An interesting little tidbit: the password emailed to me after
purchasing to access my content didn't work. I clicked the button to reset my
password. I received an email with the text:

Apparently you forgot your password? Ok, so here's your new one, stupid:

My generated password was prefixed with "idiot.THENEWPASSWORD". It's little
touches like this that I find really nice.

Also, needless to say, I would buy one of his specials in a heartbeat should a
similar offer come up in the future. I watched the special last night and it
was outrageously funny.

~~~
brightsize
I did the same thing, but my password was prefixed by "stupid". Your insult
may vary.

~~~
dspillett
"moron" here.

I wonder if the first passwords are deliberately wrong so that peope will
request a new one (if they revisit instead of downlaoding/streaming
immediately and never going back as they have no need to) in order to be
insulted. Its the sort of thing I'd do...

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dmix
Whats most interesting is that this whole release is notable because hes
treating his fans like _humans_.

Making content easily accessible, being very hesitant to be invasive with
emailing, not pushy at all with marketing. Being honest about how much he made
as well as the costs and process of creating it, etc.

This experiment is detached from all the bullshit about "social media
marketing". It shows that effectively selling on the internet comes down to is
a) be interesting b) have great content and c) be accessible in as many
channels as possible as a human being not corporate PR speak.

~~~
adamdecaf
Which is exactly the reason I bought it. Sure, I like his comedy, but I wasn't
going to buy his live show. That is, until I read his appeal and found out how
humble he really is. It's great to finally see humans treating each other like
humans and still make money.

~~~
Natsu
Yeah, I hope more artists follow this example, because it's very successful
for the artists and far more satisfying for the audience. Another person like
that is Howard Tayler (author of Schlock Mercenary, among other things) who is
a very, very clever author/businessman who is very inventive in how he
interacts with his audience. For example, Howard holds parties to get people
to help him ship out his books. They manage to mix fun with work and come out
ahead.

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hendrik-xdest
Does anybody else get the feeling there might be some clever marketing agency
behind all this?

Louis persona seems so well thought out and is applied in every aspect. I
never met the guy but it is astonishing how well he is following his known
character in every public appearance.

Maybe he is just a well organized micromanager of himself. But if you think
about the slight change of tone from his "Louis C.K." show on to his "Louis"
program that brought him all his success. I just can't believe that this is
all him on his own.

~~~
jonbro
I think that when you write for yourself for that many years, you generate a
really strong character. If there is an agency involved, then they have really
good writers that understand how to write for his voice, which is in itself a
huge challenge.

Louis CK is also famous for his work ethic. This amount of copy may seem like
a ton to someone that is used to working with clients that always deliver late
(not saying you do, but that was my experience when I did web work). I don't
think this amount of copy is that hard for a working comedian, especially one
as hard working as Louis.

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emehrkay
Even the email was funny. Great five dollar experience all the way around.

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jtgeibel
From the email: 'And i know that now you are thinking "aw shit. Why'd i let
this guy into my life this way?". Well dont worry. Because i really swear it
that i wont bug you.'

Yes! this was exactly my initial reaction when I first saw this in my inbox so
_soon_. The whole experience has been so honest, genuine and fun.

------
dicroce
Imagine if he keeps doing this... One day I'll have a pretty bad ass directory
of comedy mp4's... :)

------
stfu
_The development of the website, which needed to be a very robust, reliable
and carefully constructed website, was around $32,000._ What? Oh well,
probably including traffic & hosting etc pp?

~~~
mattmanser
Didn't he say he'd made like half a mill?

That means it had 100,000 downloads in 5 days, each d/l 1/2 gig maybe (I have
no idea of the bitrate/size used)?

You need someone who's done that before, plus all the other stuff like
actually designing it and that's going to cost you.

It might look a little high, but I think it was probably worth it.

~~~
sangaya
For anyone that's curious, the file is a 1.2GB MP4 encoded with H264.

~~~
mikescar
The lower-quality one is 340M, and is plenty of definition/quality for a
standup special.

------
MikeMacMan
Gmail flagged it as spam...

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funkah
Man, he is like the best person. I'm a huge fan of all the stuff he actually
performs for the public (standup, TV shows, movie work), but I also love how
he writes in situations like this. So good.

------
ck2
Look, I am glad this is successful because he was smart about it and listened
to the right advice.

But let's not pretend Louis C.K. is not a millionaire, because he is, and
we're essentially giving him promotion for free.

I'm okay with that, just be aware of what we are doing.

He's not some poor independent artist that needs help to be discovered.

~~~
drcube
The whole point is that he IS a millionaire. It wouldn't be surprising if it
was some poor college kid putting his work out there for cheap and refusing to
treat fans like criminals.

This guy is one of only a few millionaires doing anything remotely like this.
And it's important, because we need popular, revenue-generating artists like
this to break the backs of the anachronistic, parasitic publishing industry. I
hope in ten years -- no, five, maybe less -- this sort of thing is the norm,
RIAA and MPAA are just some irrelevant alphabet-soup organizations people have
never heard of.

~~~
earbitscom
Ask Stephen King what he thinks of the "parasitic publishing industry". You
forget that they used to be, and in many cases still are, a good creator's
path to fame and wealth. For that they take a portion of the revenue. Same as
VCs, same as a lot of things.

If, in 5 years, there are no big publishers, labels or production houses to
help artists bring products to market, it will be similar to when there is no
VC funding available. Creativity and innovation will be stifled. You will get
only the content made by people who also have the wherewithal to distribute it
and do a phenomenal job marketing it themselves, who do not need a real budget
to do so. There are a lot of good artists who do not fit that description. Try
not to wish away their means to an end.

~~~
vidarh
The majority of creation in many fields happen without a promise of getting
paid.

Only a tiny minority of authors ever manage to sell their novels. Even a lot
of successful published novels only gets out there because of the sheer
persistence of the author in question in getting past rejection, not because
of writing quality (a favorite anecdote of mine is how John Irving attempted
repeatedly to get one of the short stories attributed to the fictional Garp
published, only to get rejected over an over; in The World According to Garp,
the short story in question was rejected, and John Irving had written a
rejection letter for it. In the end he substituted one of the _actual_
rejection letters for it. The short story went on to win a price in its own
right)

Only a tiny minority of musicians ever get a record deal.

If anything, the current system is so focused on promoting the "big ones" that
a _lot_ of great creative works goes unknown because the big money goes
towards building a culture focused on the top few.

It might not be the case in all fields (I happen to _like_ a lot of the
expensive effect-laden Hollywood movies, for example, and I have a harder time
figuring out how the economics would work for that), but it is most decidedly
not a given that creativity and innovation would be stifled in every fields.
Some are likely to flourish.

~~~
earbitscom
Sure, but the same as your thoughts on expensive movies can be said for many a
great album. I know some of my favorites would not be what they are if they
had to be self-financed.

