The Math: $100 a Year Times 1,000
The arithmetic: if each true fan spends $100 per year on your work, and you have 1,000 of them, that's $100,000 a year. Minus some expenses, a living for most people in most places.
Both numbers are dials, not constants. Charge more per fan and you need fewer fans; $200 a year needs only 500 people. Kelly's alternate framing for the fan-side dial: aim to earn one day's wages per year from each true fan. Anyone who genuinely loves your work can justify spending one day's pay a year on it.
The dials also turn the other way. Add a partner and you need twice the fans. Work through intermediaries who take a cut, and the required count balloons. The math only stays small if the relationship stays direct and the payment stays whole.
One thousand is also humanly countable. You can add one fan a day and get there in three years. You can know these people. The number is small enough to be a plan rather than a lottery ticket.
“You need to meet two criteria. First, you have to create enough each year that you can earn, on average, $100 profit from each true fan. Second, you must have a direct relationship with your fans.”
Key idea
$100 per fan per year times 1,000 fans is $100,000. Both numbers are adjustable dials, and 1,000 is small enough to reach one fan at a time.