Following the success of last year's Inventing the Movies, the ever-prolific writer and blogger Scott Kirsner returns to our bookshelves with his latest work, Fans, Friends and Followers.

We recently spoke to Scott about the new book, which you can purchase through his website, and preview by downloading an excerpt here.

Hi Scott. Tell us about "Fans, Friends and Followers".

I've been to SXSW for the past few years, and one thing that always strikes me is how much creative firepower is collected at the festival. We're at a moment where anyone with a great idea can make a film, an album, a Web site, or a book, and make that product available globally, thanks to the Internet. But the two big challenges I think that artists are facing at this moment are: how do you cultivate a big audience around the work you're making, and how do you develop a business model that will

support your creative career? I talk about those issues in the book, and I include interviews with 30 people who've been at the forefront of developing strategies that work, from the multimedia artist Ze Frank to the singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton to Brunonia Barry, a NY Times best-selling author who self-published her first novel.

What do you hope readers take from the book?

My goal was to serve up some ideas about how you can craft a career, do what you want, and quit your day job in this new world. The old world was nice: you just hoped and prayed to get signed by a record label, a movie studio, a big publisher. Fame and big money naturally followed. This new world entails a lot more work and entrepreneurial thinking.

How have you employed digital strategies in your own creative career?

I've been blogging since 2005, when I started working on my prior book, Inventing the Movies. That's a good way for writers to open up a line of communication with their audience, and share ideas. The readership of my blog, CinemaTech, suggested some great interview subjects for this new book. I've had some great experiences and some not-so-great experiences using self-publishing services like CreateSp

ace and Lulu -- but the economics of them can be better than working with a traditional publisher. I've done lots of blog/podcast/video promotion of earlier books, and plan to do that with this new one. I wasn't surprised when a lot of of the artists I interviewed for Fans, Friends and Followers told me that focused online promotion can be a lot more powerful than traditional outlets like radio, print and TV -- because I'd had that experience myself.

Scott Kirsner writes regularly for Variety and The Boston Globe, and is the editor of film and technology blog CinemaTech. You can download an excerpt from Fans, Friends and Followers here.