Bebo

I know you've been unable to sleep for the last few months, wondering what became of Jesta in the final weeks of the Music Success In 9 Weeks challenge! Well, worry no more for here in all their brutal honesty are the answers you've been seeking...

I never got around to blogging the final week of the course and giving my overall view on the book, but it doesn't mean that I wasn't putting into practice some of the things I had learned. It was simply a case of being far too busy. The main event that put my blogging (in particular) on hold was the release of my album "Previously..." which wouldn't have happened anyway without the inspiration given to me by Ariel Hyatt's book. It was one of my goals to get the album project done and once started it took up a lot of my already limited spare time. I'm very glad I've done it though - after all it makes more sense to try to build fan lists and buzz once there's an actual product to market. Having an album of material out of my head also gets me excited for new songs which I hope to get done in a much shorter time frame.

I also had a personal life change which meant that I am spending considerably more time looking after my two sons. Yes, I love them to bits and enjoy the time with them but it's frustrating to have so few available working hours in a week. The days really need to be much longer to fit everything in! It's tiring running around after kids as I'm sure a lot of you know, so my attempts to stay up really late at night to catch up have generally failed.

These are not just excuses I'm making and no, I didn't "give up" on the challenge. The course brings up so many points that I think it would be really hard to properly implement the things taught in a chapter in just a week. As the weeks go on, more and more ideas build up and inspire your own independent thinking resulting in a time management bottleneck. So perhaps the number one thing I've learned indirectly from the book is that to create real music success you need plenty of free time! With other work that needs doing and a family to look after it's incredibly difficult to build on the things I've been taught. I'd love to be able to rely totally on my own music to pay the bills, giving me more time to spend on marketing, promotion, building a fan base and of course creating more music. I guess that's something I have to work towards this year.

Chapter nine itself is all about leveraging your fan list to generate additional continual income opportunities targeted at specific levels of your audience. This is partly through a system that could be seen as "membership levels" and is something that I have already looked at when investigating some of the fan funding systems on the internet. It's a great idea, but I don't think I'm quite ready for it yet as I still need to work on the earlier chapters of the book. So I'll keep it on the back-burner for now and jot down any ideas I have about it for future reference.

As for the book - I'm certainly not abandoning the ideas within. It's a very useful tool with many things that I already knew but that needed hammering into my brain and other things that I would never have thought of. It does however demand constant review and re-reading to make sure that you're sticking to the correct path. At the end of the day the ideas are no good unless you actually get off your backside and DO THEM. I'll be reading it again very soon and I'm certain the next time around more of it will make sense, more of it will sink in and more of it will get done to make me into a megastar (in my own household at least!)

Another week of Music Success in Nine Weeks and we finally come to something I'm admittedly pretty bad at - networking in real life.

One of the strengths I've developed over the last few years is socializing online - working from home has helped that along, but at the detriment of my "real" social skills. Some days I don't talk to anyone other than my family at home and most of my conversation is with myself - I have to say I'm pretty good company! Why, thanks Me - you're not so bad yourself!

So this chapter offers advice on talking to people, and most importantly being memorable. Ironically the best way to do this is to let other people talk about themselves - something I try to do if possible. I have a very good memory for some things, but remembering people's names has always been tricky for me. I need to start to use their names directly when I talk to them - I think it's a habit that will develop and get easier.

I use technology to help me develop a relationship with somebody - my computer/iPhone address book not only contains the information you'd expect (Name, phone number, email) but also any information I pick up on them. For example: their anniversary; names of their kids and partner; hobbies and interests... it gives me something I can always take a quick peek at in order to get a conversation started.

Just like the book says, I've found it's often best to try to start up a conversation with somebody who isn't directly related to the music industry or your career. That lady picking her kids up from school might be married to a record producer. The guy sitting alone at a bar might have a son who is a fantastic drummer. The butcher's best friend might be the owner of the hottest music venue in town.

I have one saving grace in my networking skill set - I am a pretty good listener. I have to try to avoid getting caught in the trap of talking to other good listeners who feed questions that result in me talking about myself too much, but if I can do that I find listening and looking interested very easy!

I'm a bit late this week blogging about chapter 7 of Music Success in Nine Weeks because I've needed to let this one sink in a bit and try to let my mind do it's own thinking outside of the box.

The aim is to build my email newsletter list. Making sure family and friends are included was the first step and was simple enough – nobody has asked not to be on the list... yet! The next step is to approach other more casual acquaintances and I'm in the process of doing that now.

The web site is already set up to try to persuade people to part with their email address in exchange for free downloads. However I've not found this to be particularly effective – I think people still have a sense of insecurity in giving away their details. I'm going to try putting a prominent notice alongside the signup form to try to reassure potential subscribers that their information is safe. Hopefully that will catch some of those people who have hesitated and changed their minds.

I have a number of ideas for getting new subscribers at live concerts, but at the moment I'm not gigging so I'm going to keep some of these private for the time being (I want to be the first!). Ideas revolving around raffles, competitions and giveaways do sound like they could be very effective though so I'm excited about trying them out.

There's another idea I may try – aiming for the local market. I've got a huge pile of business cards that I've never used. I'm thinking about writing on the back of them – something like "Local area musician seeks your support - free download on the web site" and then getting rid of them by posting them through letterboxes, leaving them in cafes, on the bus etc. Also, I've got an idea for approaching local newspapers that could gain some interest.

Ariel suggests putting time aside each week to concentrate on building your newsletter list – a great idea because it's something that would otherwise be put on the "I'll do that when I've got more time" list and would never get any attention.

So, that's this week – anyone reading who wants to join the newsletter list can do so simply by using the signup form, or the "free downloads" button at http://jestamusic.com – and I'd be very glad to have you!!