Tucker, are you a carny or a hipster?

I have a blog. You're reading it right now. Thank you, I appreciate it. I used to describe Songs Tucker Wrote as 'My failed blog' because I did a few posts, shared a few songs and felt like I was talking to nobody. I probably was talking to nobody because I was expecting people to find me. What I've learned is that the way things work is you have to go find the people and bring them to your blog. You have to be the barker in front of the tent promising the world for a nickle. Music as I grew up with was created and marketed with the sole purpose of getting me to go to a music store and buy a CD. Music was sold like cereal. Nice enticing box with a promise of a prize inside. 

Music now is more like when you go to the Farmer's Market and the long-haired fellow behind the folding table tells you exactly where he got the oats and raw almonds for his granola cereal. Then he shows you a picture of his dog running through the wildflowers that his bees pollinated to make the honey that sweetens the clumps of granola he hand scoops into biodegradable bags for you.

I haven't decided if I'm the granola slinging hipster or the carnival barker but what I do know is that I can't rely on people to buy my music, I have to sell it to them. And before I can sell them my music I have to sell them myself. I have to let people know who I am so my song means something when they hear it. Then they can put their own story on top and carry it with them as their own. Once it belogs to them they'll share it with their friends. Then maybe those people will simply buy my music. Nah, I'll probably have to show them the picture of my dog in the wild flowers too1. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. And if you liked this post, please use the 'share article' button below to share it with someone you think would enjoy it. 

1 I guess tha make me the hipster. Oh well, I've been thinking of growing a beard anyway. 

Tucker, do you need a finished product to build an audience?

To answer the blog title in a word: No. 

I just finished week four of the Music Success In 9 Weeks challenge. As I mentioned in the first blog post there are about 60 songwriters taking part and quite a few of us are fairly active in a Facebook group supporting each other through all the steps (each step based on a chapter of the book by Ariel Hyatt).  

Today someone backed out because they didn't feel they had a product ready and wanted to take time away and regroup for the next time the challenge came around. I emailed her this letter1:

"Hello:

It's Tucker. From the SAC blogging challenge. 

About a year ago I tried to do some social stuff like a blog and twitter and felt that I needed to step back and actually create a product so I finished a five song EP. I'm really proud of it and I get lots of great feedback from it. I've just recently paid attention again to the website, twitter and I'll be doing some youtube stuff coming up soon. 

What I've realized is that even though I didn't have a 'product', like an EP or album, it really didn't matter. I could have still cultivated an audience through some youtube videos. I could have shared my stories through my blog. I could have talked about travel and heartache and songwriting on twitter. Then when I had an audience that liked my content, that new me as a person and an artist, then I had a built in audience when I did do something more substantial. I also had a group of people who would most likely be willing to pre purchase my album. A group of people who are ready to support me with 20 or 50 dollars each before I even got to the studio. 

The best part is that they are now a part of the story of the creation of the recording. They are excited for you when you post pictures of you in the studio. They are excited when you tell stories of how exciting it is to be finally creating your vision of your songs. They are your external collaborators and cheerleaders.

Once you're done in the studio and you have a CD release party or launch on your website you now have a tribe of people who are excitedly spreading the news of the art that they help create through financial and moral support. When you bring them along on that ride they can't wait for the next ride 'cause they know it'll be bigger and better. 

To summarize my little rant:

I'd rather have an audience and no product than a product and no audience ..."

If you agree or disagree with any of the points in the letter please let me know in the comments, I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts. 

1This is a social media challenge so I didn't mention live opportunities for audience connection like house concerts or open stages.

Tucker, PayPal buttons? Really?

I have a store where I sell my CD and my book. I have spynoh.bigcartel.com as a shopping cart and it has a Facebook app that allows people to shop in my fan page. Then on my site, my home base, the place where I can embrace my visitors and give them the full Tucker1 I had a link away to those other places. I sent people away from my blog. My music. My newsletter sign up. I sent them away. In my quest to give my potential customers a nice shopping cart experience I, instead, gave them the run around.

 I thought of my goal for the store

• sell my book and CD

I thought of my visitors goal for the store

• buy my book and CD

Noticing how neither of them include the phrase "really nice shopping cart experience" I went for the simple approach. I went to PayPal.com and mad some 'buy now' buttons. It wasn't to difficult to put them together because I only have two items at the moment (three if you include a bundle of the book and the CD).

Once I start putting out more products to buy I may need to look at a bigger shopping cart system. But at the moment what I have is just fine. It matches the design of the site, it's easy for a fan to use (a one click purchase path) and it runs on PayPal so it's basically free me. 

I thought I needed to be fancy but I made it complicated. These buttons are good enough and sometimes good enough is good enough.

Leave me a comment if you liked, or disagreed with, anything I talked about in today's article. 

1 I didn't mean for that to sound dirty. Sorry. 

Tucker, The Book Is On The Table. (How I became a twitter spam threat to Brazil)

I'm a songwriter and I'm trying to use the social media channels to try and cultivate an audience. To learn about social engagement and music marketing in this new economy I read blogs, and subscribe to newsletters, by respected authorities like Thorny Bleeder, Gary Vaynerchuk, Ariel Hyatt. 

The advice I get from all of them is:

• Be yourself
• Put out compelling content.
• Don't spam people

In a market teaming with incredibly talented indie artists, all vying for the ears and hearts of the internet, I wanted some compelling content, that I coulld publish on a regular basis, to put alongside my music. I came up with 'Deep Readings' where I embrace the time tested gag of reading pop lyrics without the music. The difference being I would do it with equal parts irony and drama and put a twist on the classic. And in a really deep voice.

Don't Stop Believing by Journey was my first Deep Reading.

I posted it on a Tumblr blog and shared it with my normal social media channels like my Facebook page and twitter. Then came the slippery slope to accidental spammerdom. 

I used twitter search and looked for "Don't Stop Journey". I got quite a few results and responded to their comments in a friendly way by responding to the actual tweet and not just sending a link. For example one tweet said their favorite part of singing along with the song was doing the guitar solo. I replyed that there were no guitars in my version. They responded back with a follow and a compliment that it sounded awesome. Super fun, I had achieved engagement. Someone else responded that it was cool and reminded them of Leonard Cohen. High praise! Let's keep this twitter train going ...

Someone else has a hashtag #Nowplaying Don't Stop Believing - Journey and I respond with "When you're done check out my version and tell me how they compare." Their response? They retweeted me and added "THE BOOK IS ON THE TABLE". I Googled the phrase and found this song:

It was my first request! I was so excited I immediately got the lyrics did a deep reading and sent it back to him with expectations of him retweeting it to his 31,000 followers and experiencing immediate and overwhelming web fame. I then twitter searched the phrase and responded to the several others who were using it in their tweets assuming they were talking about this crazy Brazilian dance song.

Nothing. No response. 

Getting a bit of a sinking feeling I dug a bit deeper into Google and found this video where the government of Brazil is trying to explain why it's important to learn english. The punch line of the video is when the Portuguese woman says the only english phrase she knows. You guessed it ... The Book Is On The Table.

I use Google to translate a few of the tweets I had responded to. None of them were talking about the song. In my overzealous attempt to engage people with my silly pop song readings I wound up spamming a bunch of friendly Brazilians with complete nonsense.  

Lesson?

Social rules are social rules. Online or off. People are having conversations with friends and family out here. You can't just walk up and start selling something or blasting your song out the window thinking they'll love it enough to run up and buy your stuff.

So remember:

• Be yourself
• Put out compelling content
• Say hello
• Answer questions
• Be approachable
• Say please and thank-you
• Learn a bit about who you're talking to
• Don't spam friendly Brazilians with nonsense they won't care about

Tucker, can you describe your sound in a tweet?

When I finished my EP I asked a group of friends and fans to listen to the songs and fill out a 5 question survey (Feel free to take the survey if you wish). I was given artists as diverse as Chris Isaak and The Wallflowers to Blue October. I was offered genres of Country and Folk. People pulled out Girl All Alone from the group more often than the songs I was expecting to resonate. I talk about my surprise at the responses in a previous post.

Taking all this into consideration I put together my 'Elevator Pitch', the phrase that intrigues enough to elicite the action of checking out your music. I took pieces of everything and put together a few:

"Imagine Danial Lanois produced The Wallflowers making a folk rock album for dreamers"

"I’m a rock-infused-folk-pop singer-songwriter with songs from love soaked ballads to dreamy lullabies."

"Poppy-folk-rock delivering dreamy lullabies, songs of wanderlust and love soaked heartache."

"Imagine The Wallflowers and Fastball had a fight on Daniel Lanois' front lawn."

All pretty good1 but the advice given by Ariel Hyatt is you have to live with it because it's going to go everywhere your music goes. Everywhere your brand goes. Everywhere you go. So I landed on what my biggest fan (Hi Mom!) is tweeting in the side graphic.  

"Singer-songwriter sharing folk-pop songs of wanderlust, dreamy lullabies and love soaked heartache."

So there you have it, me in less than a tweet. And it only took a survey, a trip through my iTunes library, advice from a few of the other blog challenge participants, rereading Ariel Hyatts 'elevator pitch' chapter a couple times and 10 revisions.

I hope you like it 'cause it's going to be on my site, my Facebook page, my Twitter, My Soundcloud etc...

If you have your own pitch feel free to share it in the comments I'd love to hear it.  

1Although I kinda like the visual of Daniel Lanois in his underwear pulling Jacob Dylan off Tony Scalzo in the middle of the night.