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. 

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 chearleaders.
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 because what I currently have is a product and no audience."

 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. 

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

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.

My six month and twelve month goals.

My 6 month and 12 month goals for my music business

The first chapter of the challenge was on setting goals. Sounds simple right?

I kept writing out lists of things I needed to do: Write a blog post, Contact so and so, Stop looking at tech blogs and write a new song already etc. These are all things I need to do but they aren't places I need to be. They aren't final desitnation kind of things. 

I just kept writing and I wound up with a couple pages of tasks I needed to do. Then I started grouping them into common buckets and labeling them with what they pertained to: Grow Audience, Sell CDs, Sell Kids Book etc.

I still had a million things to do but they all fit into less than ten buckets. They felt way easier to deal with because the were working towards something (not just doing work).

I looked at my big buckets and asked myself “What do you think you can do with all of this in 6 months? In a year?” Then I wrote those down. If they didn't really fit with my bigger buckets I wrote it on my 'more than a year' list to be visited later. As an example I wrote down ‘Make a full length CD’. Since I’ve only just put out my EP it’s not really feasible for me to be writing or funding a new album project. 

Once I had my big goals I wrote them out pretty and hung them on my wall. Now every task I do, will be in support of those goals. 

Tasks: What you do to get to your goals. Goals: What you say you'll finally get done one day. 

If you'd like to know more about how I got to my goals just get in touch. Or if you'd just like keep up with how I'm doing with the challenge you can follow me on twitter, @SH_Tucker, or you can come join me at Facebook.com/SongsTuckerWrote

These five articles are the mantras and phrases that have been helping me get to done: 

1. If you want to do something. You have to do something
2. Done is when you say you're done
3. Find the reason to say yes
4. Success is what you say it is
5. The story is as important as the song

I wanted to get better at networking and buildng an audience for my songs and stories. So, in the spirit of mantra #1, I have accepted the challenge set out by Ariel Hyatt and her book Music Success In Nine Weeks. The challenge is simple: Do each week's exercise and write about your experience each Monday. 

The first chapter is about setting goals so you can look forward to my retelling of the self torture I put myself through because goals I have some trouble with. Tasks I can list out for days. But goals? That's a different story. 

To keep up with how I'm doing with the challenge and meet some of the other artists taking part you can follow me on twitter, @SH_Tucker, or you can come join me at Facebook.com/SongsTuckerWrote 

I could have talked myself hoarse, with as much passion as the project creates in me. I could have waived my arms and sang the song. I could have filled them with excitement about the project and waited for them to offer their talents. I probably would have been waiting a while.

People are made to be chosen all the time - Wait to be chosen in line at the bank. Wait to be chosen for a record label. Wait to be chosen to for the Red Rover game. It's the greatest playground fear to be chosen last. But who likes to put their hand up? We love to be acknowledged with being chosen but hate to look show-offy by volunteering.

I waited quite a while to be chosen. To have someone say my music was good enough to be put in an album. To say my story ideas were good enough to be made into kids books. Once I decided to complete those projects I guaranteed I would never be chosen last. I put myself in the position of the chooser and as such I have to ask who wants to be on my team. I can't simply wait for people to volunteer, they are probably on the other side of the playground waiting to be asked. Or they are hoping I don't ask 'cause then they'd have to say 'no'.

I'd rather they said no to me when I asked than have them not volunteer when they did want to take part. That being said if you'd like to join us contact me, we'll be glad to have more friends in the project. 

Is there a project you need help with? Choose yourself first then ask someone to help, if you're passionate enough, they'll probably say yes.

Part of my hopes for my songs is that they allow other people to tell their own story. Something in the song clicks with the listener and they feel like they can share their story as well. I hope that this song, and the jar project, might inspire people to start acting on their dreams. A jar is a terrible place for a dream.

I had the idea about a year ago and asked an artist friend of mine, Spencer over at Monkeyslunch, if he'd be interested. He was and has been waiting patiently1 for me to get my shit together and start the project. Since I recorded the song for my EP I thought this was a perfect time and got to preparing.

One thing I've learned over time is that people like to help. They like to take part. They like to support people and projects they like. All you have to do is ask. Sometimes people are too busy and can't take part and sometimes the project just isn't something they're interested in. You will never know, either way, if you don't ask. So, the first step to me getting this project underway is asking people if they'd be interested in joining me.

Learn more about the jar project here and if you are interested in joining me I'd love to have you along. Or if you know of someone who might be interested feel free to forward this article on to them.

1 By patiently I mean asking me, every few weeks or so, if the project was ready because he'd already bought the damn jars. 

Although I have added the feature that allows you to download the title track to my upcoming 'Born To The World' EP. Just leave your name and email on the right and you'll get the MP3 version of my song to tide you over until the CDs are pressed. 

You can also subscribe to the RSS feed or follow me on twitter. I've also updated the About Me section a bit and in the Store1 I've added a link to where you can buy my book. 

You'll also notice my shining face on the banner, that was a photo taken by the same photographer who did the shot on the cover of my CD. You can see his stuff at ChrisRatzlaff.com. 

For the longest time I didn't have a picture of me on my site and always used cartoons as social media avatars. It took me a while to be myself on the internet. I thought I could/should be anonymous but I've come to realize that who I am when I'm walking around is the same person I am when I'm surfing around. The internet is no longer this other place where websites are and where chatrooms live. It's such a part of daily life it's just like a phone line or the postal service, it only facilitates communication. I'm always me on the phone I should be me on the internet. 

To get a little more philisophical in my ramblings: Just like it's no longer 'Cyberspace' or 'The Information Superhighway', soon there will be a day when it's no longer 'online' or 'on the internet' because it'll just be as prevelant as telephones and light switches. 

Wow, that was a bit different than what I set out to write.

In short:

• I've updated my website with a picture of myself
• One day the internet won't have a name

1 It's not really a store it's more like a table at a church bazaar or a garage sale or something.