June 14, 2013 11 Reasons Why Your Music Self-Promotion Isn't Working
Self-promotion in the music industry is a topic that has been explored extensively over the past 20 years. Some of the basic ground rules are the same that apply to any business or freelancer. Most people in the industry, however, bands included, don’t know a whole lot about it. Many prefer to hover around the topic of social media because it’s all they know. After all, once you call yourself a “social media coach”, there’s really not much room for expansion besides posting an analysis of every new Twitter or Facebook development/etc. Artists flock to new music technologies, discovery platforms, unsigned networks, indie authorities, and crowd funding platforms looking for the answer, and yet, the message generally being sent to the artists tends to do them a disservice. Promises, promises. Even the term “submit your music” can be very misleading. Submit it where? Well…the junk folder, to be blunt.
Just as people starting businesses often under-estimate the amount of work necessary, so do unsigned musicians and bands. A quick disclaimer: it IS possible to be very successful as a musician in 2013. You can do it. It’s helpful, though, to do away with some of the lies that we typically accept from today’s music authorities, and I’ll go over some of those here. The intention isn’t to be overly blunt. Just to tell the truth. Below are some reasons why your music self-promotion may not be working.
1) You’re waiting in line.
It’s wonderful that there are so many services for artists to use to send their music to either industry professionals, festivals, blogs, magazines, and radio promoters such as Sonicbids and Music XRay. Mixed feelings abound about these sites, but to call them positive or negative would be a snap judgement. Does it suck that it costs $40 to simply apply for X music festival given that this is a digital submission we’re talking about, and chances are your music will not receive a fair listen? It sure does. Would it possibly be a life-changing experience if you were chosen? It certainly would. Musicians today are accustomed to waiting in line for just about everything. After all, it’s busy as hell out there. While it’s necessary to wait in some lines, and good results can come of that, if you merely play by the rules and wait in lines you’ll get stagnancy, and that isn’t a very fun gift to open up for Christmas.
Artists need to think as creatively in their promotions as in their songwriting. Outsource your duties. Get momentum by getting freelancers on your side. Promote outside of the music blog arena. Hire people to promote your music; preferably a lot of them. Get the forums buzzing. Get people requesting your music. Get people writing about your music. Donate to blogs you like. Use Fiverr and similar micro-job sites. Read Tim Ferriss. Read business books. Get out of the “band” mentality. Ignore the music authorities and start infiltrating.
2) You’re only promoting on social media.
Don’t get me wrong. Social media, when used correctly, can have a massive effect on your success. The only problem is, since most industry guru’s and music marketing publications tend to focus on social media exclusively, the current generation of artists are spending all of their time posting, pinning, tweeting, hashtagging, reblogging, liking, sharing, tagging, stumbling, digging, and cultivating the perfect “reddiquette”, but in the end, without the proper balance, the result is something close to a Warcraft or Angry Birds addiction. Time down the memory hole.
It’s easy to forget that not everyone hangs around on these networks, and even if they do, they’re often tuned into only what their personal perceptual filters will allow; not something new. It’s important to keep your communication skills in tip-top shape, to send actual, conversational emails, make phone calls, and speak with promoters in person. The worst faux pas is messaging companies or industry people through networks such as Facebook. These often go unanswered, as these networks are riddled with spam, and real messages get lost in the shuffle. Send a real, personalized email and notice the difference.
3) You’re on automation.
Thought it might be a good idea to outsource your music marketing to a robot? Some of the most heavily advertised automated services such as Beatwire and Musicsubmit look very attractive to most artists. They promise to send your music to X number of journalists, radio hosts, and industry professionals, and charge a flat rate for doing so. The rates are often less than what most publicists charge, making it even more enticing. But how are these emails received? For one, most journalists and bloggers receive dozens, if not hundreds, of real emails daily from promoters, labels and artists who either wrote the message personally or at least prepared a proper email and clicked the “send” button. How much respect do you think they have for the “easy way out”, an automated press release, or possibly a Reverbnation profile delivered to their inbox? If your music submissions say anything along the lines of “powered by…”, you can expect little to no results. I’ve been added to lists by companies like these without so much of a “Hello” or “Would you like to be added to our recipient list?” You know what that’s called? Spam.
4) You’re not “showing them the money”.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve submitted an artist to X Magazine or blog and received enthusiastic response back from their sales department, who conveniently request that I pay an exorbitant rate for an online or print advertisement. When I mention that I’m unable to advertise but would still appreciate editorial consideration, I’m told that the sales and editorial departments are separate. For one, this is the public statement of many publications, but it’s simply not true in many cases. If you don’t buy their advertising, which is often over-priced given that you’re at times the only income stream, your submission goes mysteriously missing. Now, most artists can’t afford to advertise on multiple major magazines, nor is it usually worth it if I’m being honest.
This can be the same with music blogs, and any kind of music service, which makes sense to a particular degree. If you think about it, no one really has all the time in the world to sit around listening to and reviewing albums. There needs to be an exchange, whether it’s properly priced advertising, blog donations, paid reviews, crowd funders or anything else. If a paid review scenario is fair, do it. If it’s outrageous, move on. Remember, you can always find freelance writers who may be interested in writing about your music by advertising on Craigslist.
5) You’re not already on their playlist.
The front door appears to be open, but it’s all for appearances. Many music blogs featured in the coveted directories/aggregators (Hype Machine, Elbo.ws) are closer to personal blogs than anything else. Hundreds of artists submit music to them every day, but chances are they’ll never post a single one. The blog owner simply posts their favorite artists periodically. So why all this misleading the public then? Well, blog traffic is always a good thing for the webmaster, leading to advertising and potentially other partnerships, so cultivating an audience of indie musicians to rack up the hits isn’t a bad thing from their perspective. It ends up being wasted time for the artists, though. Some blogs are good enough to post a simple statement such as “Don’t send me your music. I only post my own findings.”
6) You’re not famous or gossip-worthy.
Which brings me to my next point. Many supposed “indie darling” blogs and publications have, over the past 10 years or so, turned into gossip rags, and you’d be hard-pressed to find any content outside of Lana Del Rae and ASAP Rocky (and not their new albums). Take these off your media list and don’t give them your traffic if they’re of no use to you.
7) You have nothing to barter with.
Put yourself in the blogger/editor/etc’s position upon opening your email. Why should they take an hour of their time to promote you? At the very least, you should have built a large network, and offer cross-promotion for the post. This shows respect on your part. The reason good indie labels, radio promoters and PR companies typically get much better results when promoting artists than the artists themselves get is because of leverage. They’ve built up their networks and regularly cross-promote. They may have arranged other partnerships or deals with the publication as well. You scratch my back. I’ll scratch yours.
8) First-time introductions.
If you’re emailing someone for the first time, it’s a lot like making a cold call telemarketing. You can’t expect the results to be overly high. This is another reason why good labels, radio promoters and PR companies get better results. They’ve established those relationships and they’re not saying “hello” for the first time.
9) You didn’t appeal to their ego (in the right way).
There is no one rule. Some bloggers want personal messages while others would blacklist you for attempting chit chat. Some want you to tell them how much you just loved their recent piece on Daft Punk’s new album (the 633rd one you’ve read), while others would see that as a trite move. There’s no way to win here. What I do, myself, is provide absolutely everything the blogger may need in a concise way, so no Googling is required, as well as sending a personal note going over why I connect with the artist being submitted. If you’d like an idea of how to do this, check out my music blog promotion template.
10) There’s no time.
I was horrified when I first learned that many music blogs and publications often receive hundreds, sometimes thousands of submissions a day. Once again, we’re waiting in line in the review queue. You can’t expect time to magically appear for these people. If I were in their position, I’d shut down. I’d take more time offline and leave the disappointed in my wake.
11) You haven’t differentiated yourself.
This is a big one. You’re lost somewhere in the supermarket, and it’s tough for the store manager to find you because you look similar to every other child there. You’re certainly not “the blue child”. If anyone ever told you to “appeal to the industry” or write songs for the radio/etc, it’s time to throw away those silly notions because they’re destroying what your art could be. Often, the reason an artist goes unnoticed isn’t mysterious at all. You may have, in an attempt to be “heard by the masses”, crafted yourself into a generic package. You’re not really yourself. You’re playing to someone…a hypothetical creation. Be yourself, the weirder and more original, the better. If there are two people doing what you do, the odds are already against you. Be the only one.
Reader Comments (25)
This is wonderfully constructive, James! Thanks! :)
Thanks for making the product of your experience available. I understand the article is part and parcel of promoting your business, but that doesn't make it any less valuable.
The substance of the article rings true. I found out many of the points made the hard way, some of them in a different context. In the context of a band, I think the issue boils down to: Are they serious about making it? Are they willing to take direction, be disciplined about it, establish their brand and promote it relentlessly? Time is limited; are they willing to put off fun to another day in favor of making smart moves to advance the band?
With indie bands, learning how to be efficient is the first major hurdle, and it's one that I think most of them never overcome. Your article makes that clear. I agree that promoting exclusively via social media rapidly reaches a point of diminishing returns. But who can a band trust to guide them? A hard choice. In the end, I think there's often a tendency either to trust the wrong person/group, (desperation is always the wrong basis for a decision, ditto naiveté, lack of business/life experience) or not to trust anyone because you can't be sure you’re not being bullshitted. Either way, the likelihood of advancement is minimal, as the article makes clear.
There is so much unappealing music that's been made immensely popular that you'd think that the rare new band that actually writes great songs would be a shoo-in. Not so, of course. That's the great irony; the quality of the music has very little to do with gaining popular acceptance.
Bottom line lesson, IMO: if you're an indie band, whether your music is terrific or not, you're going to need to trust and be guided by someone along the way. A manager, an agent, a lawyer, a savvy friend.
I work with a band that DOES write terrific songs and has gotten a lot of national airplay. The goal now, though, since national airplay, by itself, won’t take the band to the next level, is to focus exclusively on identifying the people who can put the band on the map, as it were, getting the tunes in their hands, and maximizing the likelihood that they’ll actually listen to them. The rest is up to the music. The article talks about ways to make email particularized, more special. I agree, of course, but I think there are other, better alternatives. I guess I’ll find out sometime this year if I’m right or wrong.
Thanks again.
This is a very interesting post. It almost sounds like you're saying things that are open secrets, which should not be said.
Blog Donations - you mention this twice in the article. Can we be straight and clarify what we're talking about here? Blog payola, right? I'm not particularly concerned with the ethics of doing that, but I am skeptical about how effective it is as far as risk vs. return. The risk in this case would be getting a reputation as a group that is looking to buy their way in.
Now, if a major label is "donating" to blogs to get write-ups, that's a different ballgame, since nobody is going to blacklist Columbia Records for ethical reasons. But as a band or smaller indie label, it would seem that the risk would be quite large. Thoughts?
Also, as far as bartering goes, can you provide any examples of how the hundreds of mid-level music blogs (i.e. not Pitchfork) get engaged in a barter with artists they write about? A successful artist is getting written up on dozens of blogs not just one or two who they have the time and resources to barter with. For that matter, record labels and artists don't appear to spend a whole lot of time hyping blogs that write about them, beyond the pro forma posting of any press they may get. What kind of barter can a blog that gets, say, 2,000 views per day, expect to get from an artist? What's the upside for them?
Hi Justin, thanks for your well-thought out comments. To be clear, when I mention "you have nothing to barter with", I'm not presenting an interior solution when it comes to major publications like Pitchfork. The purpose of this article was not necessarily to present a batch of solutions (although I hope there are some constructive ideas here), but to show a side of the industry that I see, and that isn't talked about much. I believe that much of what I've written about the music blogosphere is true, even if it's kind of harsh.
No artist, and probably no PR company or label, is going to have much of a barter relationship with large publications, but with smaller and mid-level publications, there are often trades, whether it be cross-promotion or otherwise. I do specify in the article that this is much easier for PR's and labels, since they build up company websites/social media profiles/etc, but it's still possible for serious DIY bands with a presence.
I don't see how blog donations would be blog payola when there's a donation box. You're showing appreciation for the blog, because, ideally, they cover music similar to yours and you thought they were worthy of sending your music to. Anyhow, I see your perspective. However, most bloggers that I've talked to almost NEVER get contributions to their blogs and they deeply appreciate it. It does work when it's done with honesty and without expectation. If there is a rare case of being seen as an artist trying to buy their way in, that's up to the blogger to see things that way. I see it as an artist who is determined enough to promote, and to keep blogs who put their effort into good music alive. The work is the work in the end. If the music is amazing, I think artists should do everything in their power.
I really do not believe in solely waiting in lines. Anyhow, the point of the article, well you hit the nail on the head. I don't necessarily agree that these things should be kept secret. They may be hard to hear, but once you know them, you start thinking more like a business, outsourcing, etc.
I suppose I'm coming from a different perspective than some because I care about the music first. I like that The Doors got popular after requesting their own songs on LA Radio. That's technically against the rules, frowned upon, dishonest. But it was the right thing to do. Artists today need more of that spirit, because the honest truth is that inspiring, truly amazing music is going to rot in line.
Just my take!
James, thanks for writing back. Hope you don't mind me pressing you a bit further on this, but I'm just glad that somebody on here is FINALLY talking in terms of how things actually work, instead of the usual "Make friends on Soundcloud and build ur fanbase" advice.
I'd really like to hear more about what type of exchanges you are talking about between labels and mid-level blogs. Can you provide any examples (not that you have to name names or anything).
I rarely see anything that I would consider to be a label hyping a blog or providing "cross promotion" for it, though I could see how doing so might be enticing for a blog. Generally I see artists posting links back to the review and maybe saying "thanks" publicly.
Thanks Justin! Well, I can only speak for myself, but when I find blogs or publications who cover music with depth (my niche) or quality, honest rock music, I try to reach out and see if we can cross-promote. If I didn't do this, I'd be all alone out there....This wouldn't be overly valuable to them if I hadn't previously spent so much time building my own site, which also runs as a music blog. Two years of building www.independentmusicpromotions.com and it has significant traffic now. Also, I have a strong presence on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Soundcloud, Stumbleupon, etc. Some blogs I'll exchange advertising with (banners, links, etc). Sometimes it will be guest posts. We'll decide to share social media posts that are relevant to our own audiences. It's most definitely a "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" scenario, but of course, if no one is scratching anyone's back, it's a dicey world!
To me, there's a lot of "solopreneurs" as opposed to "entrepreneurs" out there. The more quality sticks to quality, everyone wins. Artists can do the same thing, but I only see this in cases where the artist has really built up their networks to a strong level. Labels, you're right, tend to very much be "solopreneurs" and they could very much improve in the cross-promotion department. Blogs are guilty of this too...focusing so much on their own little brand that they refuse to co-operate with anyone else.
In other situations like through Fiverr and some publications, writers charge for a review (not a positive one, an honest one) and I think that's great. Artists should look into it.
The biggest form of "payola" happening today is through mid-level and major publications, as in the example I gave of submitting an artist for review/editorial and only receiving back astronomical advertising rates from their sales department. When I question, I'm told that the sales and editorial are separate departments, but this is the front. If I can't cough up a ridiculous rate of, let's say $800 for an online advertisement for the band, say goodbye to the review. And also, even if the ad was purchased, it's misleading how much it would help the band.
I think we need to move away from this, publications counting so much on advertising that they have no issue not providing any value. The advertising doesn't WORK. You should always give proper value for the money, no matter what.
They need to start thinking of other, more valuable ways to get artists involved in their publications, like sponsored posts (for approved artists only). Something their readers will actually check out.
Michael, thanks for your great comments as well. I agree, that sounds like a sound strategy; identify key influencers and tastemakers and make that your priority - to get the music into their hands. I'd love it if you tracked this strategy and at some point, shared how it worked!
Hi James,
thanks for this article. This is not new to me, but I think that there are a lot of artists, companies and other lonesome wolfs that should read this article. I see the mentioned behaviour by many artists or labels out there, who think that our modern world supports direct action just through being DIY.
A lot of folks don't understand the depth of marketing & general business intelligence. It's crucial to understand the facets of this industry and act accordingly - or better.
The Social Media should be hammered into every DIY-artists brain. Most of them think that it's enough to have a presence in this type of media and everything else will play out. "Oh yeah, let's do a Kickstarter campaign!"
Thanks for sharing this!
There is a lot of insight here but ultimately as with a lot of articles written to help artists it falls over spectacularly with its suggestions. The truth of the matter is that independent artists have few avenues to promote their music but often are looking for the magic bullet which is a waste of time and money.
FACT:
PR is a waste of money as no one cares about your music or you. No publication wants to cover an artist no one had heard of and the money you are spending on PR should be spent elsewhere. Spending $1000 and more which is typically how much these companies charge you is better spent on advertising because you know what you will get in advertising.
ADVERTISING: has 2 distinct objectives. Branding and Direct Sales. Both are important for you at different times of your career. Early on branding should be your goal. You want people to know about you. You want them to hear your music and join your mailing list/ Twitter/Facebook/Youtube pages. Link all of the above and you will have them on multiple channels. Once you have them sell them MEMORABLE physical products. Stream on Spotify and Youtube and sell downloads on iTunes. Limit where your music is as the so called long tail effect is irrelevant to you. You could also produce infomercials for direct sales but you'd need a damn good package and need to study direct marketing to do it right.
FORGET: about the music industry and ALL the over inflated egos therein. They don't and NEVER will give a rat's arse about you until you start shifting some real numbers. Put your energies elsewhere.
YOUTUBE: is your friend. But not necessarily Youtube itself but hat Youtube represents. Start a channel and make regular programmes featuring your music. Learn from Jenna Marbles an follow her model. Independent artists are in the YouTube business. Stop trying to be a major label artist and stop following their model. It won't work for you so get off that train. Follow the platform that makes stars out of nobodies and that is YouTube. Everything else will result in frustration. We've all been there and worn the T-shirt.
MUSIC: is where it's at. Make great music but make YOUR OWN GREAT MUSIC ON YOUR OWN TERMS. Q.E.D!
Microjob like sites can really take the punch out of self promotion. It helps you market on a small budget. I've witness several musicians on our micro job site for musicians MusicBusinessMarketplace.com, get to the next level of there career using services from sellers.
You do have to manage your marketing using these services and find good sellers, But if your serious, It will not feel like work.
Promoting music is a job in itself! Getting help is important, but getting the right help with a limited budget ..challenging! If hiring someone to help on Social Media, or other things like Radio Promotion, etc... look up the company's reputation. Do they do what they say? Are you clear on what you want done?
I have looked at a music career as a step by step process, not just one big break. that's not to say that big breaks don't happen, but small steps can also add up to a long distance in a career over time. The important thing is to start, and keep moving, keep growing as an Artist, and don't over-analyze or over-compare yourself to Pop stars.
somewhere it also depends on the person. For free promotion there are lots of ways like social bookmarking but going behind the scene also works like monitoring the tactics used by popular websites and then implementing them to our websites will lead to readership , promotion and traffic.
The only way to promote your music now a days effectively is by preforming, preforming and some more preforming.
Youtube, FB, Twitter etc are trying hard to stifle independent artists with their for-profit algorithms. If there was only the Myspace days...but that is another issue because you will have to compete with 50 million up-and-coming carbon copies of major label rappers who spam the forums for promoting their twerking song.
What really happened to music? There was so much hope for independent music but the music industry is centralized no matter what you say. If you aren't signed to a 360 deal with a major label or signed to an indie label who has ties with a major label good luck in getting your name out there, finding gigs or having radio play.
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This is all brilliant advice! We wrote up another little piece about how to successfully submit to press too. We receive tons of submissions and wanted to push some of our knowledge your way :) http://www.muzicnotez.com/magazine/2014/05/how-to-successfully-submit-your-music-to-press/
can't underestimate the power of promoting music in social media. Few weeks back i was reading the article on the news how a guy promoted his music on youtube, basically remix of iphone ringtone got popular overnight. check out MetroGnome remix, its became viral and got him into music career that he had always ambitioned for.
Hi All,
This is Michael Corcoran, CEO of MusicSUBMIT.com. Below is my written response to James Moore of I.M.P. regarding this post. I emailed James directly in November 2013 after this article was brought to my attention, and I thought I'd share my email on HypeBot, as his article is still generating many inquiries to MusicSUBMIT among indie artists.
All artists, please feel free to contact me anytime!
*************************************************
Hi James -
>
> I recently found your posts in Hypebot ("11 Reasons Why"...and "Has The
> NYTimes...") and I saw you mentioned MusicSUBMIT.com a few times. I think
> you might have some misconceptions about our music publicity service, and
> I'd love an opportunity clear these up with you, as I believe you make a
> lot of other good points on music promotion in your blog posts.
>
> First, I'm not sure if you knew that our Music Resource contacts have login
> accounts? Unlike Beatwire and PRweb, we submit Artist MPKs to our
> Resource's "queue", where other artists' MPKs collect and can be reviewed
> at a later date. As I'm sure you know, when music submissions are solely
> in the body of an email, that submission will get buried underneath
> tomorrow's music submission emails, the next day's, etc. If you believe
> this way of promoting music is a major pain in the ass for Reviewers, I
> would definitely agree with you.
>
> Second, you mentioned "there needs to be a curator or tastemaker, or else
> it's just spam". You didn't mention MusicSUBMIT in this paragraph, but the
> context of your article might suggest to some readers that this would apply
> to us. Again, this might apply to Beatwire, a service that submits any
> press release in any genre to everyone on the list. But we actually listen
> to the music first, then categorize it by Genre and Ranking. And we don't
> submit to "the desks of 30,000 journalists and music industry reporters".
> Our maximum is 1,000 submissions, and that's only for main genres Rock and
> Pop. The sweet spot is around 600 or 400 submissions for most genres.
>
> If you curious about our results, I can tell you from running MusicSUBMIT
> since 2005 that good artists can expect a response rate of about 10% in
> most genres. So, an artist with good music can get submitted to 400
> places, and get back around 40 responses from blogs, college radio and
> internet radio sites wanting to play or post their music. We feel that's a
> pretty good deal for 100 bucks, or about $2.50 per review. I saw you tried
> out Beatwire for $149.00 and got absolutely nothing. That sucks. Again,
> you didn't mention us in that paragraph. But if you had tried us out
> (which, by the way, can be done by today's understandably skeptical artists
> for 10 bucks), I think you would've found our service quite different than
> the average "automated system".
>
> Finally, we actually work with many music publicists who sub out their
> blog/internet radio promo to us, while they concentrate on bigger fish. Ask
> around among your colleagues and I'll think you'll find we've got a pretty
> good reputation for delivering.
>
> Please feel free to call me directly anytime to discuss. I looked around
> for a phone # on I.M.P. but couldn't find.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Michael Corcoran
> MusicSUBMIT.com
> 26 W. 90th St., #2
> New York, NY 10024
> 917.512.2958
>
> http://twitter.com/#!/musicsubmit
> http://www.facebook.com/musicsubmit
>
Great article! I'm such an advocate for this type of thinking! We so often think of these self-promotion ideas as what what we have to do to be successful in this new age. However, we forget that as musicians, producers, artists and songwriters, we create words and melodies and evoke emotions that reach people to the core of their hearts when we create from our souls....why can't we tap into that creativity and learn how to promote ourselves with the same passion that we create our music? This is the music BUSINESS so we need to educate ourselves appropriately and then stop at nothing to go beyond the stagnant methods of promotion that we've become accustomed to, challenge our way of thinking and innovate!. People want to hear our great work and the message in our music so let's be passionate, persistent and smart about getting it to them! It's up to us and these tips and insight surely helps. Thanks for sharing James!
This is more than a little jaded. As a music blogger, I listen to and cover the music that I like. I fully appreciate there are many blogs that have their own exclusive circle of artists and readers, and unfortunately they're often the blogs that do well commercially - because the labels that sign those artists go on to back the blog - but that's not to say ALL blogs are like that...
Social media is DEFINITELY important but don't under estimate the how the quality of music affects everything... the sound of your music, the beats, the instrumentals are DIRECT advertisement of your brand... for example, I get my music from SFR Beats ... they have been putting out beats (rnb pop soul rap hip hop jazz ) for years so i know they can make me sound good and get me noticed when I play my music. So yes have your social media, but even more important than that.. have great quality beats behind you!
The bottom line we all know is that it's almost impossible for an independent music artist it's not known by anyone to become successful in fact the chances are probably zero. With that said music artist still want to make music but the reality is most likely they will make nothing from their music no one will ever hear about them and they will be frustrated artists. I've learned that you have to be happy with yourself and your music and not give an f what other people think. Just realize that if you didn't make it you were actually one very lucky two very lucky three very lucky
The bottom line we all know is that it's almost impossible for an independent music artist not known by anyone to become successful. in fact the chances are probably zero. With that said music artist still want to make music but the reality is most likely they will make nothing from their music no one will ever hear about them and they will be frustrated artists. I've learned that you have to be happy with yourself and your music and not give an f what other people think. Just realize that if you make it, you were actually one) very lucky two) very lucky three) very lucky
great information helps me a lot!
https://soundcloud.com/entheogen-3
" If there are two people doing what you do, the odds are already against you. Be the only one."
Ok, how do I check I'm being the only one? Ok stupid promoter, in sells a product sells better if there are many of the similar one being selling at the same time, but if there are "too many" similar the effect is reverse because your product could not be noticed. You have to have some doing the same, but not too many, even the odds are against you. E por isso que o mundo musical ta quebrado, e' cada cabeca de bagre!