Sucking At This Game

this morning i ran some numbers, nothing terribly concrete, but not totally made up either. what i have found is that i really suck at this public relations game. i knew i would, and yet i told myself when this last record came out that maybe it would be different this time. it isn’t. i’ve sent out nearly a hundred emails, distributed several hundred mp3s, dozens of CDs, joined nearly 20 different web sites, uploaded mp3s to each, created custom graphics for each, did the merch thing and what i have found is that all of that energy, all of those resources have been, for the most part, useless.

oh sure there have been some very kind individuals who have taken notice, and have helped spread the word. for that i am eternaly grateful, but by and large, its been for naught.

my frustration isn’t that the record is a failure, that it hasn’t “caught on” and that its being written about or discussed on every corner of the internet. my frustration is that i spent so much time and effort doing the work, knowing that it wasn’t going to work. yeah i have this stupid retarded dream where i could actually make this project self-supporting, meaning that i’d love to be able to make enough money to do three things:

1. press vinyl without using my own money
2. buy the odd piece of gear without using my own money
3. record more in a studio without using my own money

that’s it. its really that simple. those are my objectives. i don’t need to quit my day job and be a rock star (i’d hate that, i’d rather leap to my death from a tall building then follow that path.)

hell, its just really bad when you notice that for all of february this stupid blog got a grand total of 280 unique visitors.

so having said all this, and fully acknowledging the fact that i suck at this game, i’m going to stop for a while. i’m just going to go back, regroup and concentrate on making music. that’s it. if i happen to sell a CD or someone pays for a download, then fantastic, i don’t mind being someone’s secret discovery. but i just need to let go of these expectations that i could make this a self-sustaining project. i was wrong in that, and that consumption of time and resources was a distraction from what the real work is, making this music.

i know i have several handicaps that aren’t helping here, such as, i can’t perform live or tour (its just me, and i don’t want to quit my job to do that and the next reason…) i don’t know anyone. to be good at this game you have to know people. well people are not my strong suit. i don’t cultivate relationships, network or do any of that other stuff that i hate. yeah that’s a big one right there. i just can’t seem to generate any excitement or passion, which i think has everything to do with that, i’m just not producing stuff that would allow that to happen. i read a review someone posted through CreateSpace (the company that manufactures the CD) and it really made sense and crystalized a lot of how i look at this music:

“… It needs to be developed more. You basically have two sections that repeat alot[sic]. It sounds as if the musician or musicians are still learning the craft to play tightly together. I’d say it’s a good start, but is about 20% there.”

Exactly. This reviewer nailed it. In fact i think maybe they were generous here, “good start?” Fair start is more like it. and 20% there? After thinking about it, i’d say about 15% there.

Having that very real sense of reality sprinkled on my perspective has really made me take a look. i need to just stop all the nonsense and get back to working on the music, so that i can increase that number to maybe 35% there the next go around.