James Stewart

I don’t know why it took me a year and a half to find this post on Seth Godin’s Blog, but I found it this morning (thanks to Artist House Music’s Twitter Feed) and man, he is spot on.

I know tons of independent artists that have spent fortunes to make the perfect album only to realize that they now have to scrape together cash to do all the back-end work like marketing, web presence, touring, distribution, and everything else. I also know artist that are scared of digital technology when it comes to their music. These artists are afraid that their music will be pirated and they’ll never make any money once it goes digital. Wrong! Either embrace digital distribution, or watch your business go the way of the dinosaurs.

Seth makes some brilliant points about the decline of the music industry in general, and they offer a good insight to what the independent artist needs to be focusing (or not focusing) on in today’s market. Go read the full post on his blog, and make sure you grab a feed from it because it is one of the best educational resources on the internet.

Here are my favorite two:

10. Don’t abandon the Long Tail
Everyone in the hit business thinks they understand the secret: just make hits. After all, if you do the math, it shows that if you just made hits, you’d be in fat city.

Of course, the harder you try to just make hits, the less likely you are to make any hits at all. Movies, records, books… the blockbusters always seem to be surprises. Surprise hit cookbooks, even.

Instead, in an age when it’s cheaper than ever to design something, to make something, to bring something to market, the smart strategy is to have a dumb strategy. Keep your costs low and go with your instincts, even when everyone says you’re wrong. Do a great job, not a perfect one. Bring things to market, the right market, and let them find their audience.

Stick to the knitting has never been more wrong. Instead, find products your customers want. Don’t underestimate them. They’re more catholic in their tastes than you give them credit for.

11. Understand the power of  digital
Try to imagine something like this happening ten years ago: An eleven-year-old kid wakes up on a Saturday morning, gets his allowance, then, standing in his pajamas, buys a Bon Jovi song for a buck.

Compare this to hassling for a ride, driving to the mall, finding the album in question, finding the $14 to pay for it and then driving home.

You may believe that your business doesn’t lend itself to digital transactions. Many do. If you’ve got a business that doesn’t thrive on digital, it might not grow as fast as you like… Maybe you need to find a business that does thrive on digital.