To me, honestly, the time sink of actually trying to do marketing things of various stripes is verifiably bad, but is almost not as bad as the sort of psychological weight I feel, the peer pressure side of it, that I'm Just Not Doing Enough To Get The Word Out, Evar! So, as I said, this post is really just me giving myself permission to not care, to just do whatever blogging, etc., I might just do anyway, 'cos it's fun, like you point out. Also, I think you task-switch much more quickly than I do. Trying to go from typing up a band blog to setting up some new download site's profile to actually working on music is difficult for me unless I have a big block of time, which is rare.
Good point about Life being more of a time sucker than marketing stuff, and I'm sure it's that way for Immi and Zoe and others, but I think that also is what leads me to want to spend whatever time I do have for music on actual music. Even just a half-hour on marketing out of a say 4-hour block of music time can wear me down if it's forced
( ... )
I never really feel it as pressure, I guess. I'm actually relieved I have someplace to channel all my standard opinionated-ness. If it wasn't this, I'd have to be a food blogger or something, and you've seen my kitchen, you know how that could go wrong.
Although as you point out, I do task-switch awfully fast. Like over lunch today I was running an offline bounce while uploading some jank to the ftp site. And catching up on a week's worth of "A Softer World."
It's not just music, really, it's anything that could potentially be entrepreneurial. I know I could probably turn something I like better than software into a source of income (at least a small one)...but ugh. Selling Girl Scout cookies back in the day was bad enough.
I personally feel dirty and whorish even sending out mailing list announcements to people who willingly and voluntarily said, "Hey, please keep me posted about your band!" I've already more or less resigned myself to the fact that my musical legacy (with TSN, anyway) will be a loyal cult following of a few thousand, and maybe in a decade or three, we'll make those lists of "hidden gems from the zero decade." The bands that I've gotten excited about most are the ones whose music, either on album or live, has been so entrancing that I've had no choice but to fall in love with it. And where did I hear about them? Well, to take two current favorites - The Chameleons and the Dresden Dolls - I bought one CD at a flea market in Camden London because it was cheap, a best-of, and sold (used of course) by a guy who said they were postpunk, and I went to see Dresden Dolls open for Edward Kaspell because a mutual friend of Amanda P.'s and mine said I should go to see them. No spamming, no self-promotion involved.
Email updates are another great example of this. If there's something cool going on, then I'm excited to share it with people, but mostly contact lists like that sit around and glare balefully at me, loaded with implicit pressure to "maintain mindshare." Blech.
And I totally agree about the word-of-mouth recommendation being the best way to get and sustain buzz. There's just no substitute.
I'll admit it means a good deal more to me to simply write or perform something I can be proud of than it is to blog incessantly about something I just threw together overnight. I'm not much on marketing myself (hence I like having Laura around!), but I will plug a show or even a new record where applicable. If someone approaches me to use my music in something they're doing, I see that as a passive marketing opportunity as well, but I'm not going to spend countless hours with needless blog posts about things a good deal of people already know about.
(FWIW- this isn't a swipe at anyone who does that, just my opinions on what i prefer for myself. namaste.)
At my day job, we have people who's whole job is just to blog and tweet on behalf of certain clients. It depresses me enormously. When I was "faking the funk" on posts and doing it just to do it, I got that same depressed feeling.
"Write when inspired, rest when tired." as Jeffrey Zeldman says.
Comments 14
Reply
Reply
Reply
Good point about Life being more of a time sucker than marketing stuff, and I'm sure it's that way for Immi and Zoe and others, but I think that also is what leads me to want to spend whatever time I do have for music on actual music. Even just a half-hour on marketing out of a say 4-hour block of music time can wear me down if it's forced ( ... )
Reply
Although as you point out, I do task-switch awfully fast. Like over lunch today I was running an offline bounce while uploading some jank to the ftp site. And catching up on a week's worth of "A Softer World."
Reply
This is really true for me.
At least now, tracks will start leaving the studio for once since I have bandmates to write for instead of just myself.
I don't have much output if left with my own music project, because I always opt for working on life-related stuff I need to take care of instead.
Reply
Reply
Reply
I personally feel dirty and whorish even sending out mailing list announcements to people who willingly and voluntarily said, "Hey, please keep me posted about your band!" I've already more or less resigned myself to the fact that my musical legacy (with TSN, anyway) will be a loyal cult following of a few thousand, and maybe in a decade or three, we'll make those lists of "hidden gems from the zero decade." The bands that I've gotten excited about most are the ones whose music, either on album or live, has been so entrancing that I've had no choice but to fall in love with it. And where did I hear about them? Well, to take two current favorites - The Chameleons and the Dresden Dolls - I bought one CD at a flea market in Camden London because it was cheap, a best-of, and sold (used of course) by a guy who said they were postpunk, and I went to see Dresden Dolls open for Edward Kaspell because a mutual friend of Amanda P.'s and mine said I should go to see them. No spamming, no self-promotion involved.
Reply
Email updates are another great example of this. If there's something cool going on, then I'm excited to share it with people, but mostly contact lists like that sit around and glare balefully at me, loaded with implicit pressure to "maintain mindshare." Blech.
And I totally agree about the word-of-mouth recommendation being the best way to get and sustain buzz. There's just no substitute.
Reply
I'll admit it means a good deal more to me to simply write or perform something I can be proud of than it is to blog incessantly about something I just threw together overnight. I'm not much on marketing myself (hence I like having Laura around!), but I will plug a show or even a new record where applicable. If someone approaches me to use my music in something they're doing, I see that as a passive marketing opportunity as well, but I'm not going to spend countless hours with needless blog posts about things a good deal of people already know about.
(FWIW- this isn't a swipe at anyone who does that, just my opinions on what i prefer for myself. namaste.)
Reply
"Write when inspired, rest when tired." as Jeffrey Zeldman says.
Reply
Leave a comment