November Challenge

Each week in November, starting on Halloween, I’m going to run 30 miles.
Each week I don’t, I owe my sister an ice cream sundae, payable via gift card to a local place in her area.

If I complete all four weeks, she’ll get me a $20 gift card to a local food place.

As we got talking about accountability and habits, we somehow started about books, and how she has so many and doesn’t read them.

So now my challenge to her is to read five chapters a week, starting on Halloween.

Yeah, shouting to the internet that I’m going to do something is one thing. Posting it on social media is one thing, sure, seen by 30% of my followers because of algrorithims and such.

But a person to person accountability… I don’t know. Something feels more solid about that to me.

Like texting or a calling a friend, instead of just posting something to the internet.

Saving my cute joke, or cat photo with someone whose number I have in my phone.

Anyways – that’s my challenge for next month, I guess. And the biggest part of it will now be daily check ins with my sister. I’m going to run more. She’s going to read more.

I like this.

Just Starting with The Copy Workshop

I signed up for the Copy Workshop, sort of at the last minute. It’s a “cohort based learning” set up, meaning most of the magic comes from the other people involved in the class. My first foray into this was the Freelancers Workshop, back in 2019, and that seriously changed everything for me (and continues to have an impact two years later).

It’s a nice mix of message board back and forth, with the guide posts being a weekly lesson which is mostly text, some videos, and som links for reference. Then it’s sort of like, okay, GO. And everyone runs off and writes their answers for everyone to see, and then a bunch of people chime in and offer suggestions, make comments. It’s very chill, but puts some focus on really writing in a space where that takes place.

If you sometimes feel like you’re hitting your head against the wall, you should check it out.

Keep Taking Shots

From @fortelabs:

My advice to almost every creator: you’re being way, WAY too strategic

Until you’re making a million dollars on the internet you’re in beta

Take all the time & energy you’re spending strategizing and iterate as fast as you possibly can

Every piece of content is a shot on goal

You can practice your jump shot everyday, but until you get into some pick up games every day, you’re missing out on valuable lessons.

That’s something I’m going to stress in my HEAVY METAL EMAIL community – make a plan, and send an email every week to your fans.

Ship something every month. Send that newsletter. If you want to write music, you don’t pick up your guitar once a month. You spend time with it everyday. You don’t get better at taking photographs by spending all your time on camera sites and forums – you’ve got to get out there and make some photos!

There’s a time for book learning, but there’s also a time for rolling up the sleeves and getting your hands dirty.

Giving Yourself a Chance

Found this from Twitter today, from @djboothEIC:

At random, I picked 10 artists who released a song last week, and I checked their Twitter accounts to see who promoted their release and how often.

• 4 of the 10 didn’t share at all
• Of the 6 who did share, 5 have posted only once

Why are you afraid to promote your work?

As someone who works with a lot of bands and creative individuals, I can say I see the same thing, week after week, year after year.

Most sad is when a band releases a music video. They’ll tweet about it once, maybe again a day later, then never again. As if it no longer exists.

You don’t need to post a link 18 times a day, but set a reminder to post about it every few days. Like, tell your phone to remind you, or set a recurring task in Google Calendar, to repeat every five or six days: post about video.

It’s not spammy when social media algorithms limit your reach anyhow! Each Tweet is probably only being seen by 20-30% of your followers – think of everyone else! And some people don’t check socials every day, either.

So post about your stuff often. Remind people about your work, your art, your magic. And if they’re tired of it? Oh well, this is your life. Don’t hold back. If you’re really cluttering up their “feed” that bad, they’ll unfollow.

Asking Questions is Art

So simple, yet so right:

In an expert-run industrialized economy, there’s a lot of pressure to be the one who’s sure, the person with all the answers.

Far more valuable is someone who has all the questions. The ability to figure out what hasn’t been figured out and see what hasn’t been seen is a significant advantage.

Seth Godin

I know this only because I’ve been on the planet for 45 years, been in a couple of conference rooms, with smart people who kept me on my toes.

Yes, having an answer is fun. Makes you look good. Sure.

But when you ask a question that no one thought to ask, that brings the meeting to a halt, that sets fire to the agenda – that’s way more fun.

Getting there, though, is the long road. The journey. The million mistakes, the trials and errors, the blood, sweat, and tears.

The gold isn’t found in offering up the answers. It’s asking your friend the right question when they’re going through a hard time. The one thing that pulls them up, because the answer was inside them the whole time.

Use Your Face and Your Voice

ABOVE: the TLDR version of the text below

I’ve been following Loom for awhile, and using their super easy video making software for my Close Mondays operation for awhile now. I didn’t even realize it, but I made 36 videos with their software, dating back to November 2019.

For business, it’s sometimes nice to send a video to someone you work with instead of just a plain text email, especially when you want to show a workflow process.

I’ve also used this for not-business, too. Like this:

I made that video for Metal Bandcamp Gift Club. I link to it from newsletters that we send out, and also put on social media every now and again, too.

The point is this: All text looks like… text. But FACES. VOICES. SMILES. That’s the stuff, right there. Bands could use something like Loom to announce new songs, or shirts, or tours with images of the very things they’re working so hard to promote.

Like, love them or hate them, reaction videos work because they’ve ALWAYS worked. Ask any older music nerd, and they will fondly remember the MTV NEWS breaks… zip zap, here’s Kurt Loder talking about something. Outro music. Done. PEOPLE. VOICES. FACES.

So with the stuff Loom lets you do, you can do just a bit more than point the camera at yourself and upload it.

Add album artwork. Or merchandise photos. Tour dates. Tons of stuff. And the “big scary” part – YOUR FACE. But people like your face, they like YOU.

Again, text is great. Add an image to a Tweet. Cool. But they put faces on billboards and magazine ads and pre-roll videos. Imagine if the was just all text? BORING.

Anyways, go check out Loom.

Copy What Everyone Else is Doing for Your Own Website

Fuck the idea that “no one visits websites anymore.” People visit websites everyday – to buy records, read interviews and articles, watch videos (on YouTube, a website).

But you can’t just “have a website” and expect traffic.

That’s why all these sites are posting on socials everyday trying to get you to click to their website! It’s work, and it works. But those sites have something to sell. What about you? How do you “promote” without being “spammy?”

Copy what other sites do!

Halloween is coming up. You’re about to see a bunch of “JOE FROM CRAZY DEATHMETAL BAND LISTS HIS FAVE HORROR FILMS.”

Yeah. You can do that, too. A billion other sites already do. Replace “band” with whatever, and “horror film” and you have 7383 post ideas.

“But that’s so much extra work.”

Look, this is “content” you’re probably already posting on socials. Take what you’re uploading to social sites for “the likes,” and save some for your own website. Get people to your site with the stuff you’re already posting on socials.

Even if you just “riff” on stuff, current events, happenings, upcoming TV shows, whatever – make that your thing. Do your Twitter rants, then copy and paste them on your site. People can find that from search results (yes, people still search). More people, more fans.

Then at a certain point it’s math: drive X people to your site, maybe sell Y amount of things. You (thankfully) don’t have to sell ads. You might only need to get 20 people to your site to sell one record, or print, or zine.

All because just posting “buy my thing” gets old. And a million other bands are already doing just that.

Tell your story, post more photos, give behind the scenes looks on your own website. Don’t leave it up to random media outlets to do it for you and sell ads against.

You don’t need to plaster your site with BUY NOW links. But get enough people on the site, you’ll make a sale or two.

Your Live Show Can Keep Making You Money Long After You Leave Town

A live show is the culmination of years of practice, grind, networking, and connecting with fans. It’s… a big deal. Now imagine posting photos from every show on your website. Photos of playing, with fans, load in, sound check. Then post the link on all your socials.

Remember – your website can have links to… your store. Where you have things for sale.

Imagine driving 1000+ people to your site every night, and then selling a few shirts. Or a record or two?

You do realize all the websites that cover shows are making money off you, right? They get on social media, “hey, check out our photos of so and so from last nights show in NYC!” They drive traffic to their website where they have banner ads, and prominent links to their Patreon site.

That could be you. You could be getting those eyeballs, turning casual listeners into rabid fans. Rabid fans buy merch.

The “content” you’re making sits on your socials. Yes, it looks pretty, but it could be working for you long after you leave the 3rd stop on your tour. Sell $100 per night through your website over 20 nights, thats $2000. Instead of just getting 2000 likes.

And here’s the thing – you don’t even have to do this yourself.

Since you’ll still be posting your thoughts and photos and all that to socials, you could have someone build those posts every night, without a lot of input. Let them curate the band’s photos, and maybe some social media posts from those in attendance.

Post the link on socials the next day, and drive a few hundred people to your site.

Hire someone (like me) to manage and build that. Make some money. Or, fuck, take this idea and do it yourself!

Just stop shoveling all of your life work onto social media for the likes, and the engagement, thinking the algorithm will magically make you go viral and somehow you’ll sell a shirt.

Note: this post started off as an off the cuff Twitter rant (here), which I then copied and pasted into WordPress. This post can now be updated, linked to, and read for years to come. Turn your social media posts into evergreen bits of magic on your own site!