The art of asking Amanda Palmer: 'The system is going to start favoring the direct voice of the people'

As an artist, singer, poet, crowdfunding mastermind, musician, author and more, Amanda Palmer is the consummate multi-hyphenate. Her latest endeavour is a book called The Art of Asking, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help.

She stopped by the Guardian’s New York offices to hold a live Q&A with Guardian readers. In real time, she responded to questions about her most controversial music, the battle between Amazon and Hachette, harnessing the power of the internet, tattoos, writing – and of course, her husband, author Neil Gaiman.

Below, we’ve excerpted some of our favorite moments from her conversation with our readers. Here she is, in her own words.

On writing her book, The Art of Asking

exactly a year ago (nov 2013) hachette came to me asking if it was humanly possible to get the book written by spring, so they could put it out this fall. it meant i’d have to unplug my life completely after getting off tour around christmas and produce an entire book between the months of, oh … february and may. four months to write and edit a whole book. i’d never written a book. it SOUNDED possible. so i asked the dude in my social circle who knows the most about books: mr neil gaiman.

“do you think i can write an entire book in four months if i do nothing else?”

“yes,” he said.

so i believed him.

i took a plane to Australia, played the sydney festival, cleaned my inbox as best i could, and then sat my ass in a chair in melbourne every single day for about 7 weeks, and wrote about 2-5,000 vomit-style words a day. i literally did nothing else. i drank coffee, went to yoga, and wrote. and ate falafel.

i handed the book in at the eleventh hour: literally on the last date the publisher said they could receive it and still get it out on november 11th.

then i drank wine and took a picture of myself ecstatic in my underwear.

And on asking, in general

everybody has the right to ask for what they need, and if you deny anybody that right – for any reason – you’re silencing their voice and making the human family more dissociated and detached from one another.

On crowdsourcing

i think crowdsourcing tools are for EVERYBODY … from the garage band down the street to … well, lady gaga or justin bieber, should they choose to use them.

.... and crowdfunding

i think crowdfunding is definitely wearing people out at the moment, on both sides ... and there’s kind of a grand balance happening in the AMOUNT of crowdfunding projects out there: there’s a kind of crowdfunding-fatigue i see happening, because so many people are using it … BUT on the flip side, now that people are UNDERSTANDING how it works, it’s becoming an even more powerful too.

On her controversial song, Oasis

my take on oasis isn’t that it’s so much a satire on “the way women are treated” so much as a self-satire about the way women can wind up feeling around the issues of rape, abortion and sexual violence: sometimes, especially when we’re young and completely confused by what the rules are, the easiest way out can be to simply DISMISS and laugh off the things that are happening to us.

this is the strange thing about humor – and art – and the internet. humor is such a powerful powerful tool when dealing with hurt, with the darkness, with any sort of difficult situation, sometimes I think it’s our most powerful tool as human beings.

as I said back then and still say now: “when you can’t joke about the darkness, that’s when the darkness takes over.”

On Amazon v Hachette

i think there’s a fundamental difference between major labels and major publishers: the major publishers seem to have a more concrete understanding that artists are people, not products, and that books come from writers, not from machines, and that taking care of the artists’ longevity is in everybody’s best interest.

now culture at large, human beings, are making real concrete choices about what kind of art they want to see manifested in their worlds. as far as i’m concerned: there will still be a need for big entities (large publishers, editors working in offices, journalists at places like, oh, say, the guardian, actually on a salary to bring us things we need) but the system is going to hopefully start favoring the direct voice and needs of the people, not so much the needs of the corporations who dictate from above what we read, listen to, see, and love by default.

On summarizing her marriage to Neil Gaiman

two children in mutual confusion

On her fears:

i am scared shitless of:

• being unloved
  
• being alone
  
• being misunderstood
  
• being invisible
  

On her marriage

we make it work by constantly talking and making our number one priority to Not Hurt One Another.

the main rules remains: us first, compassion first, honesty first. when those go away, we start floundering.

A fan asked Amanda to draw a Tardis “for down the road tattoo purposes?”

totally down for a tardis.

On privilege and responding to critics

“asking your community for help” is not a privilege reserved for....anybody. i talk about this a lot in the book. part of the problem with the idea of “privilege” is this: if you define very strictly who is and isn’t allowed to be loved, helped, seen, heard, and supported, you’re ALWAYS going to be leaving someone out of the human ecosystem.

On her upcoming event at New York’s Barnes and Noble

just come and hang out. i will leave no human unhugged.