Promoting your record - what I learned while promoting my own!

[foosnark]

In which case, why press the record button?

Many reasons.

Because performance is different from producing, and there are things to enjoy about both.

When you have a finished product, that's something you can keep enjoying. I can, essentially, practice my hobby while I'm out for a walk or when I'm at work.

I also enjoy putting together cover art for my albums.

I make music which I believe is more enjoyable to listen to than some other artists' work which I have paid for. Even if I am literally the only person to listen to it (which I'm not, but close) that's worth something to me.

You can often hear, that it's all about fun and making it just for yourself and the like. If such statement comes from someone who's sharing his creations over the internets, I don't believe it. It's sort of justifying your defeat before the game even starts, weak attitude.

I don't love or hate my career in software development. I'm good at it and it's secure and pays well.

I do love making music... and I hate marketing and promotion.

It's nice to dream about sitting in a studio making music all day instead of going to the office. Except it wouldn't be that way at all. I'd be exchanging the office for a bunch of self-promotional bullshit that I hate doing and have no experience with or desire to do, and then spending about the same amount of time making music that I do now anyway. Except I'd be pressured to do it instead of relaxing and playing video games or something instead, and I'd be making music for clients or for an audience, not at my own whim.

No thanks.


I appreciate the few comments I get on the stuff I share. I get a small amount of pleasure from knowing that a few people out there are enjoying my creative output, but honestly that's a secondary effect.

Would I be happier if more people noticed, enjoyed, and commented on my creative output? Sure I would. It's worth it to upload stuff to Soundcloud or my own website... but it's not worth it to make a big investment of time or money or effort into promotion.

[Zombie Queen]

I do love making music... and I hate marketing and promotion.

My point is that sharing your work on soundloud or website or by giving it away to a friend on a cd is a form of marketing and promotion. I'm not saying one should compromise her/his vision to please messes, I'm saying one should embrace that she/he is doing it with other people in mind, in some degree. That music is somewhat a social activity. Making it may be painful and not pleasing at all, yet it might feel rewarding, if you feel you accomplished something that may matter to someone, even if it doesn't.

[foosnark]

Also probably worth mentioning: I don't tend to work in conventional, commercial genres anyway. Some of it's not a challenging listen, some of it is (even for me). But it doesn't really conform to lines where you can make quality judgments about it vs. other artists, for instance; the most meaningful judgement is subjective aesthetics. If people don't like my stuff, it doesn't hurt me, it just reminds me that I'm kind of weird. I'm sure that makes a difference where it comes to my attitude toward seeking approval and a wider audience.

(I have a friend who calls everything from Kraftwerk to Merzbow "techno", and Venetian Snares is "that start again stop again stuff with the drums". She likes all kind of indie rock that I can't stand. Sometimes she is a useful reminder of how big the musical universe is, and how small my corner of it.)

[Amberience]

We released Exegesis in 2012:

www.bridgedisaster.co.uk

That record made us about £2000. Once you account for the £1000 in production costs (excluding the non-existent engineering and production wages that I would've gotten in the 1980's!!!) ... it was successful to a degree. This is all online stuff, not including CD's sold at shows.

In terms of plays, for our "all time" stat, we've had 27,638 individual plays. Since the album was released, it was 26,648 - that means 990 of those plays were before the 'Exegesis' album... which roughly correlates to our promotional efforts being a lot more successful for the 2nd album than the 1st.

Nearly all of those plays were from the bandcamp player; only 969 were from embedded players. Which means people were going to out site to listen.

Worth noting that for our first album Collapse, before we released Exegesis, it had only made £35. Since Exegesis, it has made £255. That tells me that Exegesis drew a lot of people in, and they then went back and checked out our previous stuff.

Dunno if any of this is helpful, but I really rate Bandcamp - it's a very fair platform!

Certainly didn't make enough for five people to live off, but it does make the effort we put into the material feel worth it. Took us about 2 and a half years to write, record, produce, and release that album.

Working on the next one now.

[foosnark]

I'm not saying one should compromise her/his vision to please messes, I'm saying one should embrace that she/he is doing it with other people in mind, in some degree.

Most of my conscious thought about other people is along the lines of "is this activity going to annoy nearby people right now?" or its corollary, "are people nearby making too much noise to record or hear?" or "will I be embarrassed about practicing/playing/recording with other people around?"

I'm not saying any creative endeavor is 100% isolated from other people, because obviously the entire history of Western music up to now and the technology and techniques for making it, and culture as a whole, are obviously important.

I might abstract my audience a bit, when I think "I'm going to make these tempo changes so gradually the listener won't consciously notice" or "this bit here will come as a surprise after the previous section."

But if I ever think about who that listener is, it's me. Even if I'm doing a contest entry. Because I figure, if I think something is cool, some random selection of other people in the world will also think it's cool, and that's the best I can do.

[TristezaOrange]

Have you tried the promotion package from Mondotunes?

Yep. I got a pretty good press release out of it but not much else, unfortunately!

[TristezaOrange]

its no fun is it

Nope, not at all!

[TristezaOrange]

Not a single person from my circle of friends, family and acquaintances bought a copy of the record. Even worse, when given redeem codes for downloading the record from Bandcamp for free, NOT ONE even bothered to download the record for free.

I've had the same experience. If I share music among my friends, maybe three of them will download it. There is a lot of "I was meaning to listen to that but it wasn't a good time when I saw your post and then I forgot."

I understand that though. My dad is a photography nut; he loves going on road trips, hiking and taking pictures of every damned thing and turning them into slide shows. But I don't want to sit through it all. My wife is a writer, and though I love a good book, I don't particularly want to read every unfinished paragraph she wants me to look over. My brother's an illustrator, but all his hard work elicits a "that's cute" or "cool" from me at most.

I used to sell CDs; I'd have 100 copies of my albums duplicated, inserts printed, and plastic cases. I sold out of my first album eventually, and did better than break even on the next couple of them (if you count duplication costs, not gear or my time). But I had a very focused target audience -- I was making music for a pagan group I was part of. I had no competition, but there was little appeal to anyone outside the group.

Once I moved on to more general themes, I only retained a handful of fans among that group and picked up very few new ones. All my music is free now, but it's less popular than the music I once sold.

On a few forums or contests or during things like NaSoAlMo where feedback is encouraged, I tend to hear some nice things -- a very, very small ego boost I suppose.

I basically have to deal with the fact that the person who enjoys my music most, the person it really means something to, is me.

Very interesting read. I agree that not everyone should share our passion for the music we made but it's not like I ask them to listen to every unfinished track I do. What's annoying is that a lot of work went into it - I would definitely read a finished book by my mother and I'd definitely go visit a photo exhibition by my dad.

[TristezaOrange]

Interesting read. I'm relieved to hear Facebook is pointless, it's something I haven't tried yet and I was skeptic about it, but it has sort of hype of a place to be.

To add some of my experiences. I used to experiment with LastFM paid 'air'-play in very small amount. It seemed it had no visible effect. However some years later, it turned out I bought a fan, as I found out in a conversation with someone, who found me on soundcloud. It wasn't a paying fan, but still, I think, it was worth it.

Also I have been trying out theequalground.com, which is kind of review site, where you pay a little to get your work reviewed. I've got quite long waiting time, in which I almost completely forgot about it, quite favorable rating, quite confusing bit of written word and 99% no audience effect. I admit, it must have been quite smart idea to run such site.

Yeah, I wish I hadn't done the Facebook thing. It's not the money I've spent that bothers me (it wasn't a lot anyway) - it's that I now have about 400 "fans" that are not true fans - just people that clicked "like" because they were presented with an ad for the page.

[TristezaOrange]

Hopefully my Podcast can garner atleast a few fans or maybe a sale or two for you
....just got to find a couple more contributors to it.....

We can hope! Take your time with the podcast!

[mn]

Just purchased

[TristezaOrange]

Just purchased

Wow, what?! Thank you so much!! I am currently in the process of releasing a physical CD version (I've contacted a designer for professional packaging etc). PM me with your snail mail address and I'll definitely send you the finished CD as soon as it's ready! Thanks again, really appreciate it!

[TristezaOrange]

Thanks for sharing your experiences, TristezaOrange, it was an interesting read! Makes we want to check out your album (and that was your REAL intention, right? just kidding...).

BUSTED! j/k!

It was cathartic writing the thread to be honest. I also hope that there's some decent advice and pointers somewhere in there!

[mn]

Just purchased

Wow, what?! Thank you so much!! I am currently in the process of releasing a physical CD version (I've contacted a designer for professional packaging etc). PM me with your snail mail address and I'll definitely send you the finished CD as soon as it's ready! Thanks again, really appreciate it!

No problem. Good to hear about the designer. Honestly my first impression of the cover was "wha - this is not doing the release any favors, kinda basic". Then I thought "well, it sort of fits the title, so I don't know. Who am I to say?".

But I think a nicely designed cover is always a good thing, especially if you are going to the trouble of pressing CDs. I've bought many CDs and albums over the years based on the artwork aesthetic. Some were horrible, and some ended up being bands I love.

[TristezaOrange]

Yeah, that cover sucks, right? I did it myself in Paint.NET.

I've also bought a lot of albums based on the artwork so I know what you're talking about. I've PMd you by the way!