“I still get clueless people who understand nothing about business coming to me and asking what I did with my million dollars.”

Amanda Palmer recently spoke to Forbes about her crowdfunding efforts on the site Patreon where she currently receives $30,000 collectively from fans “per thing” whether that “thing” is an album, video, or piece of writing. It’s the most recent crowdfunding experiment in a string that have caused controversy over the years. The most infamous of which remains a 2012 Kickstarter-funded tour which caused an upheaval once it was understood that Palmer initially did not intend to pay musicians (which she eventually did after the reaction), despite having raised $1.2 million dollars.

Now Palmer has readdressed that controversy by explaining that she “pretty much broke even” on the tour and that the crowdfunded tour amounted to a “loss leader” — essentially something that a business expects to lose money on with the intention of building the business of something more profitable.

“I did it almost deliberately because I wanted my fans to trust the shit out of me and they do,” Palmer explained, adding the suggestion that artists such as Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift could benefit from her business plan.

“There’s no telling what kind of numbers a Lady Gaga or a Taylor Swift could do if they decided to break away from the system and work directly with the fan base that they’ve amassed. You might see Taylor Swift getting paid $6 million a track. More power to her if she can pull in that kind of dough. I think the question is does Taylor Swift want to run her business transparently and does Taylor Swift want to run her own business period?”

Transparency is an essential part of crowdfunding and considering Amanda Palmer still gets “clueless people who understand nothing about business” asking her what happened to that million dollars she could use a bit of it herself.

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