photo credit: Diegosaurius Rex

So, here we are at the last of my Music Success in Nine Weeks contest posts. It’s been an interesting journey, in some ways a microcosm of the somewhat larger personal and professional transformation I’ve been going through. I have to say it again: I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I was looking for some tips on more effectively marketing my existing back-catalog of instrumental work, as well as a little multimedia-book project I’m launching. I got more than I bargained for.

I’m going to begin with a little wrap-up of what I’ve come away from this with, then segue into focusing on this chapter and what I plan to do with it.

As far as I can tell, there is really only one way forward at this point for independent musicians (and/or other creative types) who want a viable and sustainable way to make a living from our creative work in this brave new digital world as it careens forward into an increasingly chaotic and unpredictable future, and that is to play a bigger game. Take it to the next level. Read the rest of this entry »

Jason Alexander as George Castanza

As mentioned, I’m kind of blasting through these as the contest deadline looms, which I feel a bit bad about as it’s not quite the spirit of the thing. At the same time, even though I’ve been too busy and all-over-the-place to post about it, I have in fact been reading and digesting all of these lessons over the past few weeks and things have been percolating, so now it’s really just a matter of writing down some of the results of that process.

And so: Chapter 8 is all about live networking – you know, the old fashioned kind where you actually meet people face to face and interact with them in person. Strange concept, I know, but most business used to work that way and if the truth be told, much of the important stuff probably still does.
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photo credit: Matt McGee

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I used to pitch in little league baseball. I wasn’t a great pitcher. Pete Byers, our first call, was a great pitcher. I was the reliever. Normally I played third base; I was a pretty good third baseman. Third base is all about the turnaround – like the guy on first, you have to be able to catch anything in your general vicinity, but then you have to turn it around FAST and accurate to make the double-play.

Pitching is different. Pitching is psychological. Pitching is about speed and control, yes, but it’s also about confounding expectations – faking the batter out. You have to be as fast and accurate as a laser, yes, you have to know exactly where you want to put the ball and be able to nail it every time, like a Zen archer… but you also have to give it a twist, change it up, do something just a little unexpected.

The second chapter of Music Success in Nine Weeks (here we go) is about crafting the perfect pitch, and although we are talking about marketing here, a subject into which I claim no special insight, I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that the lessons of the baseball mound might very well apply.
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As mentioned previously, I am participating in a ‘blogging contest’ sponsored by Ariel Hyatt of Cyber PR. The objective is to write 9 blog posts, one for each of the 9 chapters of Ariel’s book, ‘Music Success in Nine Weeks’. This is part two of my first ‘official’ blog entry.

Well, as promised in Part 1, I went off to battle with my demons and came back victorious, carrying the Spoils Of War: some goals for 2010 that I am prepared to stand behind. I wrote these by hand last night, after turning the computer OFF, as it’s about the only way I can really isolate myself from distractions completely enough for such a task.

I also did this between 2 and 3 am – a time when the phone is extremely unlikely to ring, the family is asleep, and really nothing else is going on. My brain, if I am not asleep or exhausted or surfing, is often a kind of neuron furnace in the wee hours… and when I get going, I can usually more or less keep up with it in a kind of frenzied chicken-scratch shorthand I used to use when taking notes in university. It takes some time to decode later, but it’s effective.

I have divided my results into Personal and Professional categories; only the Professional set will be included here, as I don’t really think personal ‘resolutions’ are particularly relevant to others. In fact, I don’t spend a lot of time on them, for various reasons; I may try to install a few new habits this year, but I won’t bore you with the details here. I’m actually pretty happy with my personal life, so I’m not looking for major changes there. One or two long-term goals that are better kept private.

Having said that, by its very nature this kind of thing is ‘all about me’… all I can do is try to keep the focus, as always, on aspects of my own experience that seem likely to be more universal; hopefully readers will connect to those. If so, please leave a comment and tell me what you think!
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As a kind of follow-up to the last post… and again, before I begin the official contest blogs (I have to work with the first chapter a bit first)… I should mention, by way of related news but not directly as a part of this process, that I seem to be doing something a bit radical.

It’s something I’ve toyed with for a while but never quite had the nerve to pull the trigger on, but for various reasons this seems like the right time to do it. I am throwing my entire musical catalog open to a pay-what-you-want pricing model.

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Meet Mister Fear (perhaps you know him already?)

In this week’s issue, our hero finally meets his arch-nemesis face to face… and with astounding courage and lightning speed, leaps up and strips away the mask from his terrifying visage, revealing fear’s true face…