Money earned this week: $529, but I also have $384 in client income due that I totally want, please pay up.

Shows played this week: None

Next show: Tomorrow (Friday) in Phoenix! I will barely be in Phoenix for 24 hours, but I will be playing the Phoenix Comicon Captain’s Cantina at 9 p.m.

Next show after that: Wednesday May 29 in Portland at Shaker and Vine. 8 p.m.

Next show after that: None for two whole weeks (not until Victory Tour), and I am kind of glad of it.

What else am I doing? Copywriting, copyediting, trying to put together a talk that I’m giving on Sunday, and figuring out how to get Giant Robot Album into your arms.

What’s the talk? Can I go? Wish you could, but it’s invite-only. I’ll probably put my notes online.

Okay, where is Giant Robot Album? Giant Robot Album is continuing to slip behind schedule in a way that makes my project management heart gently weep. I am at the “no seriously these are the LAST EDITS we can make” stage. It doesn’t help that I am traveling way too much; often, I am the literal roadblock in the project timeline.

But doesn’t The Internet mean you can just make the album online or something? With… like… version control? Not exactly. It helps if people are in the same room.

So how much are you traveling? More than I would like, right now. I wrote a song two years ago about how I wanted to go on tour every other month, and I have somehow made that dream come true.

But isn’t that the goal of independent musicianry? I think it is one of the goals. Traveling and musicianry go hand-in-hand. But I am starting to get that Bilbo-stretched feeling. I am also beginning to wonder if perpetual travel perhaps shouldn’t be the goal of my independent musicianry.

Okay, so if travel isn’t the goal, what is? Well, “travel” was never the goal. “Connecting with music” is the goal, but since it happens on a one-to-one, human-to-human basis, travel is inevitable.

What about a residency in a city, so you didn’t have to travel so much? Been there, did that for a year. The first month I had a full house. The last month I had zero people. Turns out when you play the same city every month, it gets dull.

What about making good music and selling it online? Wait, people pay for music online???? Because I am a storyteller and a comedian, I always sell more in person than I do online. (Also because people don’t like to pay for music online but they do like to buy CDs if they enjoyed your show. Usually they’re not actually doing it for the CDs; it’s more like a way to thank you for your work.)

So is there a way to be an indie musician without continuous travel? This seems to be one of the larger questions in my brain right now.

Does that mean that when you travel to see us, you’re all secretly resentful and everything? Nope. When the show starts, all that’s there is me and you. And I love that part; the music, you singing along, and the thing that we create together. And then afterwards I go to the airport and THEN I’m secretly resentful. But it’s not of you. It’s of the airport.

What else are you thinking about? I think I have three major questions right now:

1. How to tell bigger stories

2. How to perform without constant travel

3. How to write and perform music and be something else

Wait, you mean something else like a day job? Um… I’ve had a freelance day job since last November. What I mean is I thought I wanted to hang my entire identity on being the voice of Hello, The Future!

And that’s kind of hollow, in the end.

But the catch, at least in my brain, is that if I start rounding out the other parts of my life I’ll have less time to spend traveling the country and sharing music with you.

It sounds like you want to quit. Are you going to quit? Because I already invested in your Kickstarter and you promised me a Firefly EP this fall. I don’t want to quit. (And you’re going to get your Firefly EP.) But I do want to step away from the travel cycle for a minute, to gain a freshness in the same way that you suddenly understand a problem when you take five minutes to go outside and get some fresh air.

Anything else? Only that it’s late and I have to be on a plane early tomorrow morning. How about I say goodnight now and write more next week.

Money earned last week: $639

Shows played last week: BlasterCon

Next show: Phoenix Comicon, Fri May 24 at 9 p.m. in Captain’s Cantina

Giant Robot Album: mixed and tweaked

——

I don’t have much of anything to say this week, nor do I have any great insights for you.

I did think, a bit, after watching The Great Gatsby on Tuesday, that a good deal of my indie career angst has to do with what Past Me thought my current musicianry career would be like, and how that particular vision is fading away as I am finding something new.

(Also. How did Tobey Maguire get away with reading that final paragraph as if it were one sentence? It is NOT “And one fine morning so we beat on.”)

Giant Robot Album is so very close to being done, and then I have a Firefly EP to put together, and then we will see what happens next.

Money earned this week: $749

Shows played this week: Gaslight Gathering

Next show: Blastercon in Los Angeles, Friday May 10 at 9 p.m.

Is tonight the final mixing session for Giant Robot Album: I sure hope so

——

Yesterday I did a shop-talk Google Hangout with Nerds With Guitars and Debs and Errol. They asked me for advice on making music, making money, and growing audiences. Here is a summary of the best advice I have to give.

1. Make good work.

Nothing else matters. The first goal as a musician or as an artist or as a HUMAN is to make good work.

(The definition of what constitutes “good,” as well as the complicated intersection of “good” and “popular,” is not always clear. And yet “make good work” stands.)

2. Figure out the money thing.

This is different from “how to earn money as a musician,” which I am including last on my Advice For Musicians list because it ranks so far below everything else.

Independent musicianry is harder than other forms of freelance/indie work because it has so many associated overhead costs. You physically have to travel to perform shows. You also are responsible for 100% of the cost of your own merchandise in a way that other freelance artists (authors, I’m thinking of you) are not.

So you have to figure out the money thing. Often this means another flexible type of job. Sometimes it means savings. What it doesn’t mean is “do what you love and the money will follow.” Instead, figure out the money so you can do what you love.

3. The concentric circles model is back.

In Jonathan Coulton’s 2007 essay How I Did It, he explains that the standard audience growth model was to play in ever-widening concentric circles of fans, but the internet and sites like Eventful had made the concentric circle model obsolete.

Six years later, the concentric circles model is back.

Because there are so many talented musicians all using Twitter and Bandcamp and Eventful and all the other social networking sites, the fact that the internet exists no longer matters. Having an Eventful site is the equivalent of tacking a flyer to a coffee-shop bulletin board. You have to build your audience the old-fashioned way, by playing to small groups of people and using your talent combined with word of mouth to gradually increase the concentric circles.

(As with all things, YMMV. Some people hop out of the initial few circles very quickly due to luck or a high-profile promotion or something. And yet even getting BoingBoinged or Slashdotted isn’t enough to push you out of the noise anymore.)

4. Look for something no one else is doing.

The reason I started out writing songs about webcomics was because at the time nobody else was writing songs about webcomics. (This has since changed.)

That got me the initial attention from conventions and my initial group of fans. I then slowly increased my fan count, one show at a time, based on my talent and tenacity (the latter, in this case, just as important as the former).

There’s a balance between being gimmicky and finding something that hasn’t yet been done. Don’t be the nose-flute dude, because that just puts you in a box forever. Do look for topics, angles, instrument combinations, etc. that haven’t been tried before.

The other side of the coin, of course, is that people always seem to get mileage out of songs about Star Wars or Firefly, for whatever reason. (It is interesting that people are still writing songs about Firefly even though they’ve stopped writing songs about Harry Potter. I guess we know who won that round.)

5. Apply metrics and create reasonable goals.

I got this far in the conversation before actually addressing Nerds With Guitars and Debs and Errol’s questions about how to make money and build audiences.

So here we go.

First, start tracking your metrics. This includes inventory, money made every month, Twitter followers, Facebook likes, whatever feels important to you. (Facebook likes don’t feel all that important to me.)

Then set some reasonable goals.

For example: I suggested that both Nerds With Guitars and Debs and Errol should aim for 50 new Twitter followers by the end of June 2013. This will probably require a combination of tactics, including:

• Sending thoughtful, conversational @replies to people with whom they share common interests (that’s how I started following them, and please note that this is a one-by-one relationship building technique, not spammy spam spam)
• Creating cross-platform things like YouTube videos in which audiences are asked to follow on Twitter (this is a lot of work for little return, but then again everything is when you’re starting out in this field)
• Appearing on podcasts, blogs or otherwise showing up in other people’s work, which is what they’re doing with this post (so go ahead and follow @nerdswguitars and @debsanderrol)
• Writing new music about some type of creative content that isn’t completely oversaturated and then sending it to the creator of that content, who may or may not repromote it to all of his/her fans (Nathan Fillion is not going to care; The Oatmeal might, and right now there is no song about the Goddamn Tesla Museum)

I also suggested they figure out how to sell $100 in downloadable music by the end of June 2013. How are they going to do that? Probably the first step is to get started on that Tesla Museum song.

Anyway, those are my advices, and I am curious if you have anything else to offer Nerds With Guitars and Debs and Errol.

Money earned this week: $545.07

Shows played this week: four

Next show: Gaslight Gathering in San Diego, tomorrow (Saturday May 4) at 2:00

Giant Robot Album status: my mixing engineer told me last night “congratulations, your record is coming out this month.” Cross your fingers.

How tired am I? ALL THE TIRED

——

I am feeling either like online promotion is no longer working or I am Doing It Wrong. The engagement on my Facebook events has dropped considerably in the past six months. (Yes, I used the word “engagement,” whatevs.)

This is either a larger internet-cultural thing, in that we are finally collectively getting tired of Facebook events, or it is a Hello, The Future! oversaturation thing, in that we are finally getting tired of *my* Facebook events.

Holla back, team. Have you started to tune out The Facebook? Is there a better way for me to let you know that I have shows happening?

——

So I made it on German Wikipedia (for who knows what reason) and my entry focused entirely on this one choral composition I wrote OH GAWDS TEN YEARS AGO.

My publisher is after me to write more choral music. It is on the GTD list in the Someday/Maybe/No Really You Should Do This column.

The trouble is that writing for-serious choral music is a large time investment with a not-so-great payoff. I earn about $12 per year on the three different arrangements of I Wish You Peace that are available for sale. Sure, I could strike gold by accidentally writing the next Dirait-on, or I could continue writing music for which I earn around $4 per piece per year.

And yet when I think about The Future in which I want to continue writing music but maybe not tour with my dang guitar so dang much, choral writing is totally on the list of things to do.

Essentially Future Me with my gray hair and my Boob Taco sitting at a piano creating new arrangements of Psalm 121 (I Look to Mountains High). Because I’d like to do that, and I suspect I would be good at it. But I need to figure out how to earn more than $4 per piece per year before I go out and buy the piano.

——

I wish Jezebel had never told me about Boob Taco. Now, whenever I look in the mirror, all I see is Boob Taco.

——

I am now earning as much money each month as I did working my Real Job last year. The freelance writing thing is paying off (and actually the freelance editing thing is paying even more; I suspect there are fewer good editors than there are good writers).

——

I really really really need to buy new clothes. My shoes have a hole in the bottom and my pants have a hole in the back. But dang, I don’t think I have four hours free to go shopping until… checks calendar… May 18.

——

My next show is this Saturday at Gaslight Gathering in San Diego and my show after that is next Friday at Blastercon in Los Angeles. Are you going?

——

One particular set of thoughts that I am putting off have to do with how I am going to publicize Giant Robot Album. It probably needs a launch concert and a launch party and some kind of marketing attack. Ideally it needs some kind of tour.

I have been putting this off because thus far we haven’t had actual dates yet. But it looks like we’re going to have an album by the end of May. So this means we have the Internet Launch and then probably by the end of June have the IRL Launch Party and then maybe in the fall take this thing on tour?

I am terrified that the Giant Robot Album launch is going to flop or something and it will be my fault because I am not Doing All The Things, like contacting people to interview me or sending it to radio and podcast people or all of those things that you can’t actually do until you have an album in hand, so I haven’t done them, but that means maybe Future Me won’t do them either.

(I was actually kind of worried about the album for a while; it sounded fine but it didn’t sound great until last night, when my mixing engineer did a bunch of final-touch stuff to the mixes and I was all oh, that’s what you do to make things sound awesome.)

——

Anyway I need to get back to work and process my to-do list and edit a ridiculous number of words and pack for San Diego tomorrow. More news next week, and a large number of Tumbld cute-animal pictures in the meanwhile.

<3

Money earned this week: $596

Shows played this week: all of them

Upcoming shows: tonight at Temple University; this weekend at Twisted World: Divine Decadence

——

I need to figure out what to do with Mink Car Cover.

For the uninitiated: in 2011 I rallied a bunch of awesome musicians and we put together a full cover of They Might Be Giants’ album Mink Car to benefit the FDNY Foundation.

And in early 2012, we donated $5,161 to the FDNY Foundation.

But we didn’t stop selling the album.

After the initial launch, the album sales dropped considerably. At this point, we sell about two copies of Mink Car Cover per month.

Here’s where it gets tricky.

Because Mink Car Cover is an album made up of 17 cover songs, each album costs almost $10 to just legally exist (what with the rights and all). Factor in shipping, postage, Bandcamp’s percent, Paypal’s percent and all the rest of it, and Mink Car Cover just about pays for itself.

The official Mink Car Cover website indicates that all proceeds from the album go to the FDNY Foundation, but there haven’t been any actual proceeds from the album in over a year.

(In fact, even though we donated $5,161 to the FDNY Foundation in 2012, those were not proceeds or profits in any technical sense. They were the actual gross sales of the album up to that point, and I took all the costs of production/shipping/licenses/etc. as a loss.)

So now we have an album that people are still purchasing, but it feels disingenuous to imply that money is still going to the FDNY Foundation.

It also feels wrong to keep the occasional tiny bit of profit that we get from the album (like when someone pays “and more” on Bandcamp).

My best idea so far is to update the website and Bandcamp/iTunes with the text “in 2011, all sales from this album went to benefit the FDNY Foundation.”

This does not quite solve the problem of whether I should keep the occasional $5 in profit that this album actually generates, or share it with the other 18 musicians involved, but at least it no longer implies that we are actively sending money to the FDNY Foundation.

Internet, if you were me, what would you do?

Money earned this week: $1,152 (and yes, most of that is from writing/editing, not music sales)

Giant Robot Album status: we’re using the word “finished” an awful lot, and I suspect will wrap things up in the next two weeks

Shows played this week: 1, so far

Upcoming shows: Tonight at M Bar with a roster of Special Guests; tomorrow at Bar Pico; Wednesday at Cafe Fulya in Philadelphia; Thursday at Temple University; Friday and through the weekend at Divine Decadence in Somerset, NJ… here, I’ll just give you the full list

——

A few things.

First, yes it feels weird to be writing up some summary of my whatsit when half of y’all are glued to the news and the other half are chastising anyone who isn’t glued to the news.

But for most of us, today is both a news day and a work day.

——

I’ve been kinda coy about it, but if you read between the lines you should be able to tell that at this point I could just as easily call these weekly summaries “This Week in Freelance Writering” as I could call them “This Week in Independent Musicianry.”

Enough that the label “full-time independent musician” doesn’t exactly apply anymore, although I still use the words “full-time touring musician” when I send my EPK to booking agents because that, at least, is undoubtable.

Adding daily copywriting and editing assignments to my workload has changed the way I look at my music career, and I think it’s a change that was just about due.

Specifically: since I have at least six hours of writing/editing to complete every day, five days a week, I have to be judicious about the rest of my time. I can’t take on music gigs that aren’t worth their weight, or sign up for time-consuming free projects “for the exposure.” (And trust me, in Los Angeles, there are plenty of those.)

——

It is interesting that in order to move forward as a musician — and “as a person,” as cliched as it is — I had to quit my “real job.”

But taking on these writing assignments, which is essentially adding on another “real job,” also feels like a step forward.

Anyway. Come to my M Bar show tonight. We are calling it “Songs and Stories,” which are two of my favorite things.

And until then, I need to get back to work. <3

If you are in or around Los Angeles, make sure you come to at least one of these shows:

TONIGHT (Wed Apr 17), Native Foods Cafe, 8:00 p.m.

Native Foods in Culver City is having another community night, so come hear me sing about books and robots and stuff while you enjoy a Scorpion Burger or a glass of wine.

(Note: Native Foods is a vegan cafe; “Scorpion Burger” not made out of real scorpions.)

FRIDAY (Fri Apr 19), M Bar, 10:00 p.m.

This is an evening of “songs and stories” presented by a roster of musicians and comedians including Taylor Negron, Logan Heftel, Rick Overton, Carlie & Doni, Gary Stockdale, and Richard Green. I am so excited about this show.

$10 cover. Here’s the Facebook event.

SATURDAY (Sat Apr 20), Bar Pico, 8:00 p.m.

It’s that time again. I suspect I am going to graduate from this Bar Pico residency very soon, so come out to see me if you want to spend one more night rocking out with me, Clark Chimp, and Sacred Pools.

A $10 ticket gets you a bunch of SWAG (yes, both kinds of swag), including FREE COMICS which aren’t really free since you just paid $10 for them.

Hope to see you there. <3

Money earned this week: $759.00

Taxes paid: YES

Estimated taxes also paid: YOU BETCHA

Shows played this week: none

Upcoming shows: Native Foods Cafe on April 17, M Bar on April 19 (with Taylor Negron, Logan Heftel, Rick Overton, Carlie & Doni, Gary Stockdale, and Richard Green)

How close Giant Robot Album is to being done: probably around 80%

——

I am at a very strange position right now.

On the one hand, I have nine shows to play in April, in three different cities.

And four conventions in May.

On the other hand, I am getting really good at this freelance writing and editing business. Enough to make a decent income on that alone.

And Giant Robot Album is moving forward beautifully. I don’t know exactly when it will be done yet because I am learning about the album production process as we go through it, but we are getting very close.

So in many ways I have found a balance of working and creating and performing and producing that actually works.

Of course, like most balances, I don’t fully trust it.

The other part of the story that I am thinking about is the “but I’m not faaaaaamous” part.

Yes, it amuses me that in less than a year I quit my job, moved to a new city, ran a successful Kickstarter, recorded an album, became a full-time touring musician AND freelance writer/editor and I am still sitting here thinking “and when do I become Internet Famous?”

There’s a benchmark for success that I haven’t reached, and “internet famous” isn’t exactly the right word for it, but it is this belief I have, which is probably untrue, that at a certain point your authority becomes as valued as your output.

For “authority,” sub in “personality” if you prefer. I suspect you know what I mean.

Of course as soon as I write this – and this is why I write these essays for you, team – I realize how ridiculous it sounds. There is no legitimate way for me to have any kind of authority since I have just barely started doing this.

So the real question is: if I keep on chugging along, writing and performing and actually also living an interesting and fulfilling social life (surprising twist, that), is that enough?

In so many ways that is more than enough.

The problem is that I am also an ambitious person who doesn’t want to do a thing unless she can be The Very Best at that thing. Or at least at some quadrant above “ordinary.”

And it seems like the next question to puzzle through is how to manage balance and ambition, and when a modest success becomes success enough.

Money earned this week: $516.62

Total money earned since January 1, 2013: $6,978.13 (remember my goal was to make $25,000 as an independent musician this year, so I am technically on target)

Shows played this week: Soulfood Books, NorWesCon, Wayward Coffee

Upcoming shows: Here’s the list. Lots of shows in April and May. The big one is on April 19 at M Bar with Taylor Negron, Logan Heftel, Rick Overton, Carlie & Doni, Gary Stockdale, and Richard Green.

Giant Robot Album status: Still mixing.

Scene I wish Game of Thrones would have included: Dany giving each of the Unsullied a puppy.

What I need to be working on this week: Cramming five days of work into three before I aim myself back to Vancouver on Saturday.

——

The first show was at Soulfood Books. There were no seats left over. I was given a necklace, and a pound of popcorn-flavored Jelly Bellys. We all sang together, and afterwards someone told me that I was the best person to have ever performed at Soulfood, and someone else told me that I really knew how to “bring the audience into a shared world.”

I left that show knowing that I knew exactly what I was doing.

The second show was at NorWesCon. There were plenty of people there. Most of them had come just to see me. They already knew all the words. We sang the Hunger Games song together and I told them they were my army. I sold nearly as much merch as I had sold at Soulfood.

I left that show satisfied that I could make this independent musicianry thing work.

The third show was at Wayward. There were five people there. They didn’t have a DI cable, so I pushed the mic back and sang really loudly. I should have brought my own DI cable. I should probably own a DI cable. I should be a better musician and publicist so more than five people will come to my shows. I put Monkeys and Robots in the wrong place in the setlist. I sold one thing. I didn’t know all the words to Hero of Canton because I assumed there would be lots of people there who knew them. I felt badly because I was singing while some teenagers were trying to study. I felt like most of the people there were waiting for the show to be over, even the people who showed up specifically to hear me play.

I left that show wanting to crawl into a hole and apologize for existing and asking for people’s attention.

Except for two songs.

There were two moments in the Wayward show that worked, even when the rest didn’t. The first was Big Damn Heroes, when everyone started singing, and the second was Giant Robot Song, when everyone started listening.

And the fact that I saw the audience’s faces lock on, that even for that little bit the six of us were all in this shared world together, was enough.

——

Even for all my flaws as a musician and singer and promoter and Level Four Rockstar, there are parts where I know that I know what I’m doing. I can tell a story and I can share a show with an audience and I can get everyone in a room to laugh when I ask them to add more pop-star scoopy voice to their singing.

And that part gets better and better.

And I need a new guitar, and probably a bass player and hand drum player, and definitely a DI cable, and a thousand other things.

And it seems more and more like the trick of this year is going to be figuring out how to race my own growth. How to stop playing venues I’ve outgrown running against how to get more than five people at a show. How to combine the new songs with the songs I already know work in the set. How to make more money without spending it all in the making of it (see: profit margin on LARP hoodies).

I don’t have an answer for this. But it is interesting that the three shows I just played represented three different potential outcomes for how this year could go.