“I started tweeting for purely commercial reasons. I realized that when I did a television show to promote a book or record, and that television show had an audience of, say, four million people, about four hundred of them rushed out to buy the book or record. I figured if I had a Twitter audience of, say, four hundred thousand—an audience that was tuned into me—and I promoted a book, then four hundred thousand of them would rush out and buy my book. Instead, forty of them rushed out to buy my book.”
Steve Martin (2,540,574 followers)
Brother Steve gave an onstage interview in front of an audience of around 900 people at the 92nd Street Y (NYC) in 2010. He was promoting An Object of Beauty, a novel he wrote about the art world. The interviewer was an old friend, and they were well into the interview when someone from the Y came onstage and handed the interviewer a note, advising her to shift the conversation away from the “art world” and to focus on Steve’s career as a comedian and actor. Apparently emails and texts were coming in from people who were watching the interview on closed circuit TV; they were not happy with the way the interview was going. The Y ended up refunding the audience for the price of their tickets, stating that the event did not “meet the standard of excellence” audiences had come to expect at the Y.
So yes, he has good cause to feel insecure about his audience. Love ’em and leave ’em.
“Feeling career insecurity, I force a crying kid to take my autograph.”
Steve Martin tweet, Sept 25,2010
Read all about it in his book of tweets. I know I did.