A question came my way via Substack Notes (sorry, I lost the link):

I love the idea of working “personal.” From a songwriting lens it’s always been a rule that too personal then others can’t relate. However, with so much content now and like Mr. Banhazl said “the democratization” makes content, whatever form, music being mine, makes it all seem so generic and muddied together? What’s your take?

Here’s my thoughts:

• Rules are meant to be broken
• Don’t make content
• Don’t make generic music (everyone else can do that)
• Every major artist that you know about started out with one fan, then three, then five… no shortcuts.
• Make the music that rings true for you.
• Don’t force yourself into tiny boxes.
• You can be at least one person’s favorite artist.

The allure is real, the possibility that you can post a song and “everyone” loves it. But this happens very rarely, so don’t stake your career on it. As Seth Godin says,

The goal of reaching the masses is rarely compatible with the math of the long tail. Someone is going to win that lottery, but it probably won’t be us.”

For some people, the mass produced, hyper targeted, synthetically created music is good enough. You’re probably not looking to be in that world, so create for the world you want to inhabit.

You’ve been writing for months, right? Maybe a year or two. When is your big break gonna come? Steven Pressfield was “fifty-two, specifically, when he sold his first novel.”

From Rain Bennett, who recently interviewed Pressfield:

“I think about all the writers, filmmakers, musicians, and entrepreneurs who have quietly decided that if it hasn’t happened by a certain age, it probably won’t. Who have looked at the overnight success stories on social media and measured themselves against a timeline that was never real to begin with.”

As Sean Cannon said on one of our Escape Pod Zoom calls, “you just have to be a little bit better so you can survive the war of attrition.” Don’t count on overnight success. Keep making the work, stacking the days, so you can get up and do it the next day. The overnight success happens after years of overnight work.

If you bought movies in the UK on your Sony Playstation, some of those movies will soon be deleted from your account.

“Sony said that affected customers will lose the ability to stream titles including Outrage: Way of the Yakuza, Paddington, Paddington 2, Pan’s Labyrinth, Rambo 3, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas “due to our content licensing agreements.” As of September, Sony will remove any affected titles that UK users bought from their PlayStation library, per the notice.”

Oh, and the Sony Playstation is going to stop making game discs in 2028, meaning you’ll buy all your games… digitally.

There’s a rumor that Bandcamp cut “most of the remaining engineers,” prompting some folks to download their purchased music just in case the site goes dark (the site as been sold twice in the last few years, I think).

The digital goods economy is fragile. In the never ending quest of convenience, we’ve paid for things and let someone else store them, whether digital music, movies, or even our websites on sites like Squarespace.

Like Morpheus said in The Matrix, “They are the gatekeepers. They are guarding all the doors, they are holding all the keys.”

He was talking about Agents that prevented people from escaping, but that seems like an apt comparison. Are you gonna buy CDs again? Blue Rays? Host your own website? Manage your own email list?! Are you really going to escape this system?

I said “maybe centralized kingdoms of power and influence aren’t the answer” back in 2024 and it’s just becoming more true by the day. The allure of all this centralization was convenience and reach. Then, after all these years of handing over our entertainment and audience to the corporations we end up owning nothing.

Start today. Download your data. Make back ups, both locally and in the cloud. Own your work. Build a website and host it with someone you trust. Host your videos. Buy a record (or a digital download) direct from the band.

Or, put all your work into the hands of corporations who will wipe out everything you’ve worked on (sites like MTVNews, Spinner.com, folks who amassed legions of fans on social media etc) with a press of a button.

I’ve seen some posts from people who understand the whole “social media is rigged” thing, going on about the unwritten rules of “don’t include links,” or “post often,” or “make videos.”

These folks buttered up the situation (“haha social media is horrible!”), but then they saw results – it’s a miracle!

No, friends. This is exactly how social media operates. As Cory Doctorow says, it’s the giant teddy bear at the carnival gambit.

At every county fair, you’ll always spot some poor jerk carrying around a giant teddy-bear they “won” on the midway. But they didn’t win it – not by getting three balls in the peach-basket. Rather, the carny running the rigged game either chose not to operate the “scissor” that kicks balls out of the basket. Or, if the game is “honest” (that is, merely impossible to win, rather than gimmicked), the operator will make a too-good-to-refuse offer: “Get one ball in and I’ll give you this keychain. Win two keychains and I’ll let you trade them for this giant teddy bear.”

Carnies aren’t in the business of giving away giant teddy bears – rather, the gambit is an investment. Giving a mark a giant teddy bear to carry around the midway all day acts as a convincer, luring other marks to try to land three balls in the basket and win their own teddy bear.

These posts entice folks back to filling up the feeds, always engaging, and replying to multiple DMs. This means that instead of writing your next newsletter, or working on your website, you’re back on social media throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks.

Don’t fall for it. There are people on your email list, or reading your website, or subscribed to your RSS feed and they love what you do. Invest your time in those people.

And while you’ve got some downtime because you’re not spending 20+ hours a week on social media, I dare you to plan a weekly Zoom call with some weirdos in your creative orbit. I bet you’ll gain more in that hourly call than spending all that time trying to impress strangers.

Why does “promoting our stuff” feel gross? Probably because we see people doing it bad, and instead of just promising to ourselves we’ll never do it like that, we throw everything related to promoting into one big garbage back and leave it on the curb.

Which is wild, because there are so many different ways to doing “promotion,” just as there aer so many different ways of painting, writing a song, riding a bike, posting an essay, making a mug.

Last June Jes Raymond told us how she got people to a show in a town she never played before.

“This past weekend, we had a little show up in a tiny town—St. Johnsbury. One of those places with a small newspaper. And I just decided that instead of making a bunch of social media posts about the show—especially to a town I don’t know—I’d do the human work.

I figured out who the journalist was at the local paper who writes the arts column. I wrote to them directly and sent them a press release. Then I found the local radio station—Vermont Public—and called them. I got our event on their calendar.

We ended up having about 150 people show up at this little church in a town I’d never played before.”

Instead of “making a bunch of social media posts.” she reached out to two people who could help. Instead of her jumping up and down and trying to get the attention of strangers in a town she never played before, she spoke with the people who actually live near that town.

(more…)

​If the thought of “promoting” your work makes your skin crawl, or if you think the only option is yelling into the void on social media, you should join this call.

​Join me (Seth Werkheiser of Social Media Escape Club) and other creative people who are in the same boat, wanting to make good work without hiring ourselves to be full-time marketing directors.

​If you read my Social Media Escape Club newsletter, you should have an idea about the different ways we can promote our work that don’t include making short form video “content.”

​This is not a webinar.
No break out rooms.
This is a group discussion with people from different fields and skill levels – photographers, musicians, artists, poets, teachers!

Monday, June 29 at 9:00 AM EDT – REGISTER → https://luma.com/a5lmsvqn
Thursday, July 2 at 2:00 PM EDT – REGISTER → https://luma.com/igk63i3r
Friday, Jul 3 at 12:00 PM EDT – REGISTER → https://luma.com/na9nfjli

PJ Harvey’s latest newsletter links to her website, where you can “see draft lyrics and listen to Polly’s voice note.” Oh, and her latest music video for Voyager is there, too. On her website. Without linking off to YouTube.

Your newsletter is a delivery truck. Put cool things on your website, and then tell the people on your email list. Give fans a reason to visit your website.

The voice note is wonderful, too. It’s just under two minutes long, with Polly talking about the new single. No bright lights, no 4K cameras, no fancy editing, just a short audio message embedded on her website.

(more…)

It’s none of my business what the kid that sat in front of me in 10th grade science had for breakfast, and people working at social media platforms bought multiple vacation homes convincing us that it is.

Your attention is coveted by the social media platforms, along with the cell phone companies that will gladly take your auto-pay unlimited-plan payments. Heck, Tim Cook is saying iPhone prices are going up.

We don’t need better devices and apps and service plans to keep up, we need better systems and networks to continue making the work we’re called to make.