Art of Asking

NOW FEATURING POSTSCRIPT FROM MARIA POPOVA

'When we really see each other, we want to help each other' - Amanda Palmer

Imagine standing on a box in the middle of a busy city, dressed as a white-faced bride, and silently using your eyes to ask people for money. Or touring Europe in a punk cabaret band, and finding a place to sleep each night by reaching out to strangers on Twitter. For Amanda Palmer, actions like these have gone beyond satisfying her basic needs for food and shelter - they've taught her how to turn strangers into friends, build communities, and discover her own giving impulses. And because she had learned how to ask, she was able to go to the world to ask for the money to make a new album and tour with it, and to raise over a million dollars in a month.

In the New York TImes bestseller The Art of Asking, Palmer expands upon her popular TED talk to reveal how ordinary people, those of us without thousands of Twitter followers and adoring fans, can use these same principles in our own lives.

“Amanda Palmer joyfully shows a generation how to change their lives - Caitlin Moran, author of HOW TO BE A WOMAN and HOW TO BUILD A GIRLAmanda Palmer's generous work of genius will change the way you think about connection, love and grace - Seth GodinTo read Amanda Palmer's remarkable memoir about asking and giving is to tumble headlong into her world. Immediately, you notice that her world is really different from yours and mine. Amanda's world is more open, more vulnerable, more fearless, more messy, more surprising, more dangerous, more rich with human encounters and exchanges at every imaginable level. At first, you find yourself thinking, "Goodness, what a crazy world that Amanda Palmer inhabits! How does she possibly endure it?" Then, gradually, as you read along, a doorway opens up in your heart, and you realize, "I want to live in a world exactly like hers". God willing, this book will show us all how to do it - Elizabeth Gilbert, bestselling author of EAT, PRAY, LOVEAmanda has a direct line with her audience - a lifeline for them and for her, the codependency all truly great performers surrender to . . . she's capable of anything, incapable of telling anything but the truth - Bono The Art of Asking is a book about cultivating trust and getting as close as possible to love, vulnerability, and connection. Uncomfortably close. Dangerously close. Beautifully close. And uncomfortably close is exactly where we need to be if we want to transform this culture of scarcity and fundamental distrust - From the foreword by Brene Brown, author of the bestselling DARING GREATLYA story about a life in one dollar bills, from statue to icon, where media doesn't matter, crowds do. Mandatory reading in the digital age, for aspiring artists and their doubtful parents - Nicholas Negroponte, Founder, MIT Media LabFrom this beautiful, heart wrenching story of art comes an incredible account of the nature and future of commerce - or one part, certainly the most important part, of that bit that's new. Here's a truth that someday the economists might begin to grok, but which meanwhile will define everything that's interesting about how art and culture will thrive - Lawrence Lessig, author of FREE CULTUREThis is the kind of book that makes you want to call the author up at midnight to whisper, 'My God. I thought I was the only one - Jenny Lawson, NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of LET S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED”

Amanda Palmer joyfully shows a generation how to change their lives - Caitlin Moran, author of HOW TO BE A WOMAN and HOW TO BUILD A GIRL

Amanda Palmer's generous work of genius will change the way you think about connection, love and grace - Seth Godin

To read Amanda Palmer's remarkable memoir about asking and giving is to tumble headlong into her world. Immediately, you notice that her world is really different from yours and mine. Amanda's world is more open, more vulnerable, more fearless, more messy, more surprising, more dangerous, more rich with human encounters and exchanges at every imaginable level. At first, you find yourself thinking, "Goodness, what a crazy world that Amanda Palmer inhabits! How does she possibly endure it?" Then, gradually, as you read along, a doorway opens up in your heart, and you realize, "I want to live in a world exactly like hers". God willing, this book will show us all how to do it - Elizabeth Gilbert, bestselling author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE

Amanda has a direct line with her audience - a lifeline for them and for her, the codependency all truly great performers surrender to . . . she's capable of anything, incapable of telling anything but the truth - Bono

The Art of Asking is a book about cultivating trust and getting as close as possible to love, vulnerability, and connection. Uncomfortably close. Dangerously close. Beautifully close. And uncomfortably close is exactly where we need to be if we want to transform this culture of scarcity and fundamental distrust - From the foreword by Brene Brown, author of the bestselling DARING GREATLY

A story about a life in one dollar bills, from statue to icon, where media doesn't matter, crowds do. Mandatory reading in the digital age, for aspiring artists and their doubtful parents - Nicholas Negroponte, Founder, MIT Media Lab

From this beautiful, heart wrenching story of art comes an incredible account of the nature and future of commerce - or one part, certainly the most important part, of that bit that's new. Here's a truth that someday the economists might begin to grok, but which meanwhile will define everything that's interesting about how art and culture will thrive - Lawrence Lessig, author of FREE CULTURE

This is the kind of book that makes you want to call the author up at midnight to whisper, 'My God. I thought I was the only one - Jenny Lawson, NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of LET S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED

Amanda Palmer is a world-renowned singer, songwriter, activist, director, and blogger who first came to prominence as one half of the internationally acclaimed punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls.

She is a fellow at the Berkman Institute for Internet & Society at Harvard University and has shown her underwear on Australian television. She currently avoids living in places including Boston, New York, and Melbourne with her husband, author Neil Gaiman, who is easily embarrassed.

Palmer's TED Talk, 'The Art of Asking,' which she presented at a 2013 TED conference, has been viewed at least 8 million times around the world. You can visit her website and blog at

Rock star, crowdfunding pioneer, and TED speaker Amanda Palmer knows all about asking. Performing as a living statue in a wedding dress, she wordlessly asked thousands of passersby for their dollars. When she became a singer, songwriter, and musician, she was not afraid to ask her audience to support her as she surfed the crowd (and slept on their couches while touring). And when she left her record label to strike out on her own, she asked her fans to support her in making an album, leading to the world's most successful music Kickstarter. Even while Amanda is both celebrated and attacked for her fearlessness in asking for help, she finds that there are important things she cannot ask for - as a musician, as a friend, and as a wife. She learns that she isn't alone in this, that so many people are afraid to ask for help, and it paralyses their lives and relationships. In this groundbreaking book, she explores these barriers in her own life and in the lives of those around her, and discovers the emotional, philosophical, and practical aspects of The Art of Asking . Part manifesto, part revelation, this is the story of an artist struggling with the new rules of exchange in the twenty-first century, both on and off the Internet. The Art of Asking will inspire readers to rethink their own ideas about asking, giving, art, and love. 'Amanda Palmer's generous work of genius will change the way you think about connection, love, and grace' - Seth Godin, author of Tribes

REDISCOVER THE FORGOTTEN ART OF ASKING IN THIS NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING BOOK 'Amanda Palmer joyfully shows a generation how to change their lives' Caitlin Moran 'To read Amanda Palmer's remarkable memoir about asking and giving is to tumble headlong into her world' Elizabeth Gilbert 'The Art of Asking is a book about cultivating trust and getting as close as possible to love, vulnerability, and connection. Uncomfortably close. Dangerously close. Beautifully close' Brene Brown Imagine standing on a box in the middle of a busy city, dressed as a white-faced bride, and silently using your eyes to ask people for money. Or touring Europe in a punk cabaret band, and finding a place to sleep each night by reaching out to strangers on Twitter. For Amanda Palmer, actions like these have gone beyond satisfying her basic needs for food and shelter - they've taught her how to turn strangers into friends, build communities, and discover her own giving impulses. And because she had learned how to ask, she was able to go to the world to ask for the money to make a new album and tour with it, and to raise over a million dollars in a month.In the New York TImes bestseller The Art of Asking , Palmer expands upon her popular TED talk to reveal how ordinary people, those of us without

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