Dave, don't get me wrong...if these "artists" are able to convince starving musicians to pony up $997 for their "secrets" then they certainly have mad marketing skills! Of course this is nothing new! From the beginning of time humans have been trying to convince other humans to give them their money in exchange for the secret to success.

I recall a recent true story I read in Modern Archeology Quarterly...

Thag claimed he was an excellent woolly mammoth hunter. The best in the land! But rather than hunt woolly mammoths Thag decided he preferred to share his super secret woolly mammoth hunting techniques for the low, low price of 997 cowry shells (and stay safely inside his cave.) He told great stories of Scramp, a neighboring hunter (that no one had heard of) and how ol' Scramp was killing 326.7% more woolly mammoths since subscribing to Thag's course. And, a very small number of people, from the local seaside community of Gull Able, signed up for Thag's course. They did not ever report the kind of results Thag promised but Thag insisted they didn't follow his plan properly. When woolly mammoths started to become rare, legend says the locals boiled and ate Thag.