Writer, musician, wizardly guide to platform independence
For some reason I just love the energy in this area. It’s maybe not the most sceneic, but I love it. There’s a four mile loop up along the side of the mountain here, and it’s a crusher, but I love it so much. Only a few hundred feet of single track, but it’s worth it to me.
From the @tittybats account on Instagram, and pretty much how I feel lately with everything.
These are so wonderful.
“If we don’t support old shops, they’ll be gone forever,” Shin says. “I tried to ‘preserve’ the old shops through this series […] I hope when people see it, it will remind them to go and support their small local businesses.”
From ‘Shin Oh “preserves” traditional Malaysian spaces and places with her 3D pixel room building,’ via Kottke.
How do I get more subscribers? More listens? More sales? More fans?
Are you kidding me?
The entire world of knowledge is in our pockets and you can’t figure out 10% of the answer?
Look at the top 100 marketing books on Amazon.
Search “marketing” on YouTube. There were probably 10,000 hours worth of wisdom upload in the last minute.
You could listen to one podcast every day about marketing for the rest of your life and never get caught up.
I’m paraphrasing Rick Rubin here, but “make cool things, show it to your friends.” Over and over again.
Complaining about social media is about as effective as complaining about the weather – it ain’t gonna change.
Make your art, write your novel, post your videos, play in front of four people… if there’s a shortcut, everyone already knows about it, which means you’re the nine billionth person in line with a tune and a poem.
This is a horrible sales pitch, but I’m offering coaching on this sort of thing now. Hire me for real, honest advice and ponderings from 20+ years of experience in the music world.
From today’s HEAVY METAL EMAIL, “FACTS ARE EASY AND BORING AND NO ONE CARES.”
Promoting your creative work should be art. It should spark curiosity, wonder, and delight.
That doesn’t mean spend 3 hours a week “engaging” on social media, or editing videos for TikTok.
Make stuff, then tell your friends.
Keep in touch with the creative, energetic, artistic people in your life.
Stop shouting it to “all” of your social media followers, especially when 80% of them won’t even see it.
Share the things you make directly with people who will appreciate it.
Since I’m done promoting things on social media, I should probably post about my new things here, right? Makes sense.
One of those things is a new HUNTERTHEN release, ‘ASCENDING TO THE DECOMPOSITIONAL TIMESCAPE.’
‘ASCENDING TO THE DECOMPOSITIONAL TIMESCAPE’ is a transport vessel to unknown, desolate worlds, destined for the monotonous hum of cold, futuristic data work lit by the glow of computer screens and datapads.
Since I’m spending less time on social media, I’ve put out a release in February, March, and April of this year (you can see them all here).
My last two sales on Bandcamp came from my Goodnight, Metal Friend mixes, not social media.
By putting out a mix every week this year, and also uploading them to YouTube, I’m getting more listens, all just because I’m putting things out consistently, and not spending so much time on social media.
And what about growing my HEAVY METAL EMAIL subscribers? How can I do that without social media? Well, that video interview I did with Laura Kidd led to my biggest rush of new subscribers ever.
While I did post that video a few times on socials, I wasn’t pushing for newsletter subscribers – I was sharing something big I did, without really asking for anything.
Do the big cool things, and maybe the subscribers and sales will come, maybe?
Loving the artwork of Andreea Dumuta / Galactixy Illustrations – order prints here. Always a sucker for the bright colors and rough, halftone vibes.
I’ve been on Twitter since 2006. One of the first 3000 users. I’ve spent a lot of time on there, and today I have 2,562 followers.
When I leave Twitter, I can’t take those 2,562 followers with me.
Now let’s say I spend more time on here with Substack Notes, and that leads to 100 new subscribers in April.
Then let’s say Substack becomes a dumpster fire in May.
I can export all my subscribers and go somewhere else. FAST.
The relationships I build are PORTABLE. I can export all my subscribers and open up shop anywhere in an afternoon.
That’s what makes Substack notes so remarkable; building relationships into subscribers, instead of posting on social media platforms for followers.
Running around Leaser Lake is not enjoyable. It’s a lot of soft grass, and there’s really only two nice single track sections, and the one just sorta.. stops. It’s weird.
But it’s sort of a mindless run, a healthy four mile jaunt, and the scenery really isn’t so bad. The loop is sometimes nice to run into some random people and their dogs, which is always fun.
Not pictured are the two road signs with Patriot Front stickers on ’em. Fuck off, white power assholes. This is exactly why trail running is political, because non-white people don’t get the luxury of “leaving politics out of it.”
Had a fun talk the other day with my “Social Media Escape Club,” where we hopped on a Zoom call and talked about… getting away from social media.
One of the things I mentioned was instead of Tweeting out some random thought, or in the case of the image above, my “favorite 3 album run by your favorite band,” why not text a friend? Send a photo. Call a pal. Write them an email.
Someone on the Zoom call said something along the lines of, “why should I give my best material to Twitter?”
Why put so much into a platform that limits my reach anyways, when I can message my friends directly and I don’t know… grow closer?!?!
So in the spirit of putting my best material on a platform that I control, you see my “favorite 3 album run by your favorite band,” which are Helmet‘s ‘Meantime,’ ‘Betty,’ and ‘Aftertaste.’
I remember driving around town in my Nissan Sentra Wagon XE trying to play air-drums to the Meantime album.
Betty wasn’t nearly as crushing. Had lots more melody and dynamics, but having come out my senior year of high school there’s no way I can listen to this album without thinking about my younger days.
‘Aftertaste’ came out in 1997, three years after graduation, and so did Limp Bizkit’s ‘Three Dollar Bill Y’all’ and Deftones ‘Around the Fur.’ Oh, the 90s were a magical time for heavy music.
