Louis C.K's email to his Beacon Theater Show customers

http://danwin.com/2011/12/louis-c-k-thanks-his-fans-for-buying-his-5-beacon-theater-show/

by danso • 15 years ago

92 37 15 years ago

dmix• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

maxer• 15 years ago

the video made it for me- humble how it started with just him walking in through the front doors, then walk on stage with no warm up act and no announcements.

Nothing was over produced, human from start to finish

emehrkay• 15 years ago

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

mxavier• 15 years ago

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.

silentific2• 15 years ago

Thanks for sharing that tidbit, that's brilliant.

brightsize• 15 years ago

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

dspillett• 15 years ago

"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...

dicroce• 15 years ago

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

funkah• 15 years ago

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.

stfu• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

abdelazer• 15 years ago

I thought $32k sounded low.

sangaya• 15 years ago

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

MikeMacMan• 15 years ago

Gmail flagged it as spam...

ck2• 15 years ago

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.

smspence• 15 years ago

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

Nobody said he was....

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

Why are you acting like this is a bad thing?

wlesieutre• 15 years ago

And no talking about Google products either, they're a big company and don't need the free exposure.

silentific2• 15 years ago

Kudos where kudos are due. He's doing right by his fans and the technology. That's why everyone is so impressed.

He's brilliant and paving the way for artists to make money. He is the Trent Reznor of his field.

Reznor on "what to do as a new / unknown artist": http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?30,767183,767183

drcube• 15 years ago

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.

earbitscom3• 15 years ago

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.

sriram_sun• 15 years ago

These are a couple of things he had to say in his e-mail: "I learned that money can be a lot of things. It can be something that is hoarded, fought over, protected, stolen and withheld. Or it can be like an energy, fueled by the desire, will, creative interest, need to laugh, of large groups of people. And it can be shuffled and pushed around and pooled together to fuel a common interest, jokes about garbage, penises and parenthood."

"...I have a profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video. They would have given you an encrypted and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would have owned your private information for their own use. They would have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you can watch it in Dublin, whatever the city is in Belgium, or Dubai. I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you). You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from us again."

I really wanted to edit out parts of the paragraph above because it looked lengthy. However, it's worth your while to read his perspective. His reasons for doing this esp. from the second quote above are a lot deeper than just promotion.

BTW: Louis C.K. is super awesome!

jtgeibel• 15 years ago

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.

hendrik-xdest• 15 years ago

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.

jonbro2• 15 years ago

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.

Louis C.K's email to his Beacon Theater Show customers

Related Stories