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256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2017
Neistat was expressing a truth every creator learns, one that is all the more essential in an online world where things can be shared with the click of a button: *Ideas are cheap*. Anyone can have one. There are millions of notebooks and Evernote folders packed with ideas, floating out there in the digital ether or languishing on dusty bookshelves. The difference between a great work and an *idea* for a great work is all the sweat, time, effort, and agony that go into engaging that idea and turning it into something real. That difference is not trivial. If great work were easy to produce, a lot more people would do it.
Anyone producing works of art — needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a livingBeyond the importance of a platform strategy, I found Holiday's thoughts on the advertising interesting. While the initial launch is an important opportunity, he discounts the long-term importance of advertising:
If a product is going to sell forever, it must have strong word of mouth. It must drive its own adoption. Over the long haul, this is the only thing that lastsBut how to rate this book? It's certainly not great literature itself. Most of Holiday's recent work (including his "Obstacle is the Way" is written according to the same formula. Find a bunch of great quotes and then include a very thin veneer of analysis and add some link to modern situations.