I just finished releasing an album a few months ago.
And there’s always the hope that somehow, magically, the album is going to land in the right hands and take off in popularity.
But the reality is that it almost never works that way.
WHAT WORKED BEFORE
The focus used to be on artists creating albums.
Then launching those albums with a lot of fanfare, creating excitement.
But I’m not sure that makes sense for an independent artist when you are just starting out.
No one knows who you are.
No one is waiting in line to check to see when your album is coming out.
You have to start from ground zero.
No fans. No fanfare.
You have to figure out how to make great music.
And then…
You have to figure out what you can do to get attention for your music.
And this is the new mystery.
How does an unknown artist get attention in a sea of thousands of people vying for attention?
MODELING WHAT WORKS
If I look at some other independent artists that are starting to see success in their efforts here’s the basic recipe that I see:
They’re doing a mix of releasing songs frequently and posting a lot of content.
They start with one social platform.
Keep trying different types of content until they find things that hit.
Keep posting content consistently for a few years.
Build their audience and continue to create great music.
WHY I THINK THIS WORKS
Think about it.
You could spend up to a year working on an album to get it all done.
Then you put out some content before the album launches, then after the album launches and hope that through that you build an audience.
But what are people going to do for the rest of the year?
Do you think that they are going to sit around and wait for another year before you put something else out?
Nope.
They’re gonna move on.
Now think about an artist that just releases songs as soon as they are finished.
They are putting out new music every few weeks, and in between those releases they are putting out a steady stream of content that is entertaining, and points people towards their music.
Who do you think is going to have a better chance at getting discovered?
They are creating more “at bats” for themselves.
This gives them tons of opportunities to be discovered.
And if one of those things hits, then they might be off to the races.
STRATEGY BREAKDOWN
This is what I’ve seen work.
An artist releases a song every 2-3 weeks.
And every week that artist is putting out at least 2-3 pieces of content that point to the music that they have created.
I’ve been studying a couple of different artists.
Connor Price, Neffex, Russ, and Nic D are the artists that I’ve seen really embrace this model and do it well.
They just keep this cycle going.
Song, content, song, content.
They are testing out different content types to see if they can find something that resonates.
Over and over.
Simple, right?
So why haven’t I found success in music yet?
Let’s do a little bit of post-mortem here to see some of my glaring failures.
MY MISTAKES
Here are some of the biggest mistakes that I’ve made over the past few years.
- I focused on album projects instead of singles
- I was not consistent in producing new music
- I did no content whatsoever
- I did not tell anyone that I was releasing music, including my own family
Hmmm …
That’s just dumb on my part.
Part of it was a lack of knowledge.
Part of it was just straight up fear and laziness.
So what now?
THE NEW PLAN
This is what I’m marinating on in my mind right now.
I want to get to a place where I can release a new song every two weeks.
And in between those releases I want to create 2-4 pieces of content a week that help promote the new song or older songs in the catalog.
But I’m not ready or able to pull that off.
I need to take some baby steps to get to that level.
So my current baby step is to start working on music a little bit everyday.
I’m currently working on music for about 20-30 minutes everyday.
It’s not much, but it’s a start.
I haven’t completed a bunch of songs yet, but I have a few that are nearing completion.
I want to work up to releasing every two weeks.
But right now, it might be more like every 3-4 weeks, or more …
DREAMS and ASPIRATIONS
Let me be clear.
I am not trying to live some sort of weird, rockstar lifestyle.
I’m married, I have a dog, a house, and a full time job.
I’m not looking to run around like a 25 year old eating ramen and sleeping in a van.
(although I might sleep in a camper van!).
I would love to do some shows in the future, but I want to build an audience first.
And the beauty of the internet is that I can do that.
I would love to collaborate with dream artists in the future.
And see what kinds of opportunities can come from taking this seriously.
So I’m going to focus on making music and content.
And then putting it out in the world.
I want to build an audience for the music that I create.
And I hope you’ll hang out with me as I go on this journey.
If you want to keep up with what I’m doing and working on, then you can type your little email address in the box below, and I’ll do my best to keep you in the loop.
Cheers,
Jeremy
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