There is a service that’s great for content creators where their supporters can sign up to pay an amount every time you release content (a song, video, etc). This can be any amount. You can then come up with rewards for people who pledge larger amounts. Think of it as an ongoing kick start program. The bonus is as you only get paid when you produce, there is no pressure (like when you have a membership site). If you produce a large amount of content, you might consider having your patrons support you on a monthly basis. If you have a per item system, your patrons can limit their amount they support (put a cap on it) so this way if you are visited by a muse they don’t go broke. The system is at www.patreon.com and you can watch my video with Anthony Privitelli is the head of Creator Relations at Patreon. 

Writing Songs That Will Connect With Your Audience

I watched a video on Netflix called “Stevie Nicks in Your Dreams,” which documents the making of the album. In the movie you see Stevie write a song about New Orleans, then she writes a song for soldiers, and lastly a song about Italy. Now I know you can’t often pick what you write about, but it appeared to me she was trying to write to an audience so she could connect. Not so much, writing a song that happened  to connect with a specific type of people.  According to Wikipedia, The album debuted at #6 on the Billboard 200 giving Nicks her fifth top ten album on that chart,[61] with 52,000 copies sold in the first week. Elsewhere, the album has made numerous Top 50 debuts, including #24 on the Australian ARIA Chart and #22 in Canada.

You may want to try find songs that fit your audience. Think of Taylor swift. Here is someone who knows her audience (young girls who apparently get dumped a lot). If you feel moved to write a song for them, it may be something to consider. 

I was a Tori Amos fan when she first came out. It was a fun game trying to figure out exactly what she was talking about. After about 4 albums into her career, I was frustrated trying to figure out what the heck she was talking about and quit listening. I love her voice, and I love when it is just her and a piano. However, she is so “out there” that I have no hope of connecting with her. When I listened to a “behind the scenes” explanation of some of her songs, they STILL didn’t make any sense (courtesy of spotify.com) 

While I understand that you write what moves you, but if you want to connect with people do not get upset if your lyrics are so vague that nobody can connect. 

Your First Gig

In this snippet of my book Get Your Band Out of the Basement, I share how knowing the other musicians in the area, and knowing all of the club owners (even the one that didn’t book my band) allowed me to land a gig when a drummer in another band broke his arm. My band was able to step in and grab the gig. By keeping a positive attitude (and avoid being negative when you get told “No”) I was able to help out a club owner who found himself without a band (while helping a band who was going to look bad by cancelling a gig). You can find the music marketing book here.