Promotion

I've been thinking a bit about promotion (or "marketing", as the snake oil salesmen prefer to call it).

As musicians and/or songwriters, everyone tells us that promotion is key. In fact, there are a WHOLE BUNCH of sites out there just begging us to believe that.

But do we ever stop to think about who we're marketing to, and why?

Here's the thing; I just like making music. In fact, I find that I like the process more than I like the finished product.

Thus, even though I created my own ReverbNation site for my acoustic songs, by no means does that mean that I'm looking to grab the brass ring, or any other cliche you can recite. I just wanted a place to keep all my songs in one handy spot. Not everyone with a music page is trying to promote themselves (but I guess most probably are).

The fact about ReverbNation, Soundclick (that old chestnut), PimpMyMusic.com, ListenToMeOrElse.com (okay, I made up those last two), etc., that none of those sites want you to figure out is, the only other people there are other artists.

Yet, all these sites are more than happy to try to get you to buy the "pro" package, or "pro" widget; pretty much the "pro" anything. Can't they make enough money from ads? And why in the world would I need a pro package? Will that get me discovered? ha ha

I've ranted about "fanning" before, but humor me: I keep getting all these stupid emails clogging up my in box, telling me that John or Estelle just became my fan. Yet, when I checked my stats on ReverbNation today, I've had only 26 song plays. Twenty-six song plays and 58 fans. It's amazing!

So, this morning, I posted this in my bio:

PLEASE NOTE: I REALLY APPRECIATE GETTING FANS, BUT I RESPECTFULLY ASK THAT YOU DON'T BECOME MY "FAN" UNLESS YOU'VE ACTUALLY LISTENED TO MY MUSIC, AND YOU LIKE IT. I WILL NOT TRADE "FANNING". THANKS FOR UNDERSTANDING!

I haven't gotten an email since! Wow ~ I don't get it! ha ha

I consider it a rookie mistake to post one's music everywhere on the web, and to take seriously someone deciding to become your "fan". I'm not saying there aren't any true fans out there, but believe me, they're few and far between. As I said before, 99.99% of the people on these sites are other musicians, and they just want you to listen to their music.

If I could remember every place I've uploaded our music, I would go to those sites and cancel our membership, although I've noticed that some sites don't even give you that option.

Choose one or two sites to host your music, at the most. Then you'll still have a place to direct your friends to, if you want to share your music with them. Cuz honestly, it's only your friends that will listen, and even they might not really want to.

As the manager of our band, I've decided that I'm only going to promote something I really like. Face it, every artist does a lot of songs; not all of them are gems (just ask me!) I'm focusing on promoting the best of the best.

And by promoting, I mean, trying to get the best of the best to someone who might actually do something for us. (Never fear, since this is my personal blog, I'm going to continue to promote all our stuff here; that's what blogs are for!)

In a future post, I'll talk a bit about "opportunities"; the good, the bad, and the ripoffs.

And yes, I love fans ~ real ones!

*My* Songs

I've got a bunch of songs in the pipeline.

By "pipeline", I mean, they may or may not get recorded. But you never know!

The problem I was having was that I kept re-recording guitar/vocal versions of the songs, until I was at least semi-happy with them as demos. But when I went back to listen to them, I had too many versions of the same song, and I didn't know which was the "good"version, and which was a prior attempt.

So, I thought, hey! SoundClick! SoundClick isn't much good for anything other than storing songs for future reference.

So, since it's FREE, I thought, why not set up a page to store all my "best" versions of my demos?

One tiny problem with that is, everybody can listen to them. But that's a small price to pay, really. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? Somebody will listen to a song and think it's horrible? Well, who are these people anyway? And don't they have anything better to do than to troll for new songs on SoundClick?

Face it, if SoundClick thinks all those hip-hop "artists" they keep pushing are so great, how bad could my stuff sound?

So, my initial idea was actually a good one.

I set up a page: Michelle's Work Tapes

And I WARNED people in my "interview" what the page was all about. I asked people to PLEASE not add any of these songs to their stations (people can set up personal stations there). I told everyone in no uncertain terms that these were WORK TAPES.

Did that stop people? No. Of course not.

Somebody added one of my "songs" to their station.

While it's flattering to find that out, it's also really embarrassing. But what the heck?

I guess I choose to look at it this way: At least it tells me which songs people actually like, and therefore, which songs might be candidates for full-blown recordings.

The one song that people seem to like is actually a throw-away. And I knew that, for whatever reason, that would be a song that would get picked up for recording. My producer feels the same way. That song is, "Hello Dear Heartache".

It sometimes makes me wonder why I put so much work into some of my songs, when the quick and easy ones seem to capture people's attention.

What really struck me as funny was that a song that I wrote a long time ago, "Kathryn's Place", actually hit #20 in Cajun/Zydeoco! Ha! It must have been the bad accordion playing that roped people in. Either that, or, there just aren't a lot of songs in that particular category.

Also, surprisingly, a song called, "The Game", that I wrote a LONG time ago, hit #23 in Honky Tonk. Again, not a real popular category, I'm thinking.

So, all in all, this turned out to be an enlightening experiment. The songs I consider to be my "best" didn't chart at all, while the throw-away songs garnered some attention.

Regardless, the next Red River song to be recorded will be, "The High Cost Of Living".

After that, it will be, "Heartview".

Neither of these songs even hit the charts on SoundClick.

I have to go with my intuition, and that of my producer.

Trust me. These songs will sound good. Way better than the demos.

And I hate to break it to the "fans", but "Kathryn's Place" will never see the light of day.

But "Hello Dear Heartache" will no doubt be recorded.

So, that's some consolation.