Music Business Myth Busters - Episode 7: Your Music Career Is All About You Because You’re The Artist

Are you struggling to get people to buy your music or merch?

Are people ignoring your social media posts, or, even worse, unfollowing you?

Are people calling you a narcissist behind your back?

Any of these could be signs that you've been seduced by one of the subtler myths that keeps independent musicians from building a dedicated fanbase and making a sustainable living from their music: Your music career is all about you because you're the artist.

This myth is one of the more insidious ones because it's hiding in plain sight. It masquerades as passion and so most musicians don't recognise it. Too often we think we're entitled to something just because we create art. The world doesn't owe you something just because you're talented, because you can sing or write songs or play an instrument. So what? There are millions of people who can do that. Lose the sense of entitlement. No one cares about your art but you… until they do.

A lot of our communication as artists tends to be very self-centred, as opposed to reaching out to other people and asking what they need or what might interest them. One way this can present itself is in the way you portray yourself. You could be telling your story in a way that makes you sound like an egomaniac. Are you telling an interesting story as your career unfolds, as good things happen to you, as your audience expands, as funny or interesting things happen in your daily life... or are you just bragging about yourself? You've probably known people in your life who are always talking about themselves. That can be a real turnoff.

Another way this self-centred communication shows up is by focusing only on your needs and what you want. Have you ever had a friend or someone in your life who only shows up when they want something from you? How do you feel when that happens? Most musicians only post on social media when they want something or have something to sell. I'm sure you've seen these kinds of posts: “Buy my album. Come to my gig. Support my crowdfunding campaign.” We don't like people in our lives who only show up when they want something from us. Don't be that person to your fans. You want to be conscious of whether every social media post you do is promotional. Saying “go and do this because I need it” isn't going to motivate your fans.

The era of the self-absorbed rock star is over. Your music might be amazing, but if all of your communication is all “me, me, me,” people are going to get turned off and stop paying attention to you, and you're going to find it really hard to build a fan base. I think the problem is that we lose sight of the bigger picture. We get so passionate and so wrapped up in making our music that we forget about our fans, our audience. If you're just making music for yourself, you're not going to be able to build a fanbase and make a sustainable income from your music. As important as the act of creation is to us, I think most of us as artists want to go beyond the self-indulgent part of just making art for ourselves because it satisfies our innate need to be creative. Most of us want our music to connect, to resonate with other people.

If you stop talking about yourself and listen to your fans, they'll tell you exactly what they want and what you need to do to sell them. Stop making music for yourself, unless you plan on buying it all. If you're the only one feeling it, you're not going to have much of a music career. Find a hungry audience and feed them. Give first. Developing a relationship allows you to sell to those people later.

The fact that we're passionate about our music is irrelevant. If you want to be a professional musician and engage in the marketplace, to be able to transact with others, you need what Seth Godin calls “radical empathy.” You need to understand that they don't know what we know, they don't want what we want, they don't need what we need, they don't believe what we believe, and they don't spend what we want to spend. If all of those things are true, it's really difficult to say to someone, “No, I'm right. You have to do it my way because it's my passion. Buy it or leave.”

Ultimately, what everybody really wants is to be seen. But in the age of social media, there's more alienation and loneliness than ever before. One of the reasons we make music is because we like doing that work, but the bigger reason is that we want people to see us for who we are and who we want to be. If someone hears our music and loves it, by extension they're loving us. But that doesn't help us see the other person. When times get tough, we tend to default to how we're not seen and how people aren't respecting us or giving us a chance to do our thing. But everyone around us feels the same way. So we can try to solve the problem by feeling more injustice, or we can solve it by actively seeing other people. And if we begin to see other people and say to them, “Hey I made this for YOU. It's about YOU!” then we've built a bridge. And over time those bridges form a lattice, and then that lattice forms a culture.

It's not just about creating content. It's about creating value through a closer relationship and more personalisation. Think of your fanbase as a community, as your tribe. People aren't looking to be sold something. They're looking for belonging, meaning, and community. If you want to cut through the noise and get into people's hearts, make your music about these things. Reach people on that level.

Too often as artists, we fall into the trap of thinking it's all about the music. Your music shouldn't be the end game. It's a means to an end in the service of nurturing the relationship between you and your fans, your tribe, and building a culture and a community around your music. Your music is just the front door or the gateway drug that gets people to want to come to your gigs, book you for a house concert, buy your merch, and more broadly to be a part of your ecosystem and interact and connect with you.

Your fans connect with you when you're vulnerable. You don't have to always be perfect and polished. They want to relate to you on a human level, not as some aloof, superhuman rock star shrouded in mystery. It's so much more rewarding than putting yourself on a pedestal with your fan base. When you break down that barrier, you'll get more rewards than just money. You get closer engagement with your fans, you learn more about them, and you're able to serve them better and in the process create a more tight-knit community around your music. That means you sell more albums and merch, get more people to come to your gigs, and you can make a more sustainable living from your music.

A lot of the newer tools that we have available to make money from our music, like crowdfunding and Patreon, don't work unless you shift the focus away from yourself and build a community around your music. You can't crowdfund without a crowd.

If you want to build your tribe, you need to embody that principle of radical empathy and ask how you can best serve them. I can sum it up in one word: value. Start thinking about what value you can add to the lives of your fans instead of appealing to people to feed you because you're a starving artist. That's not going to advance your music career.

The biggest thing fans want from their artist is simple recognition for supporting them and liking them. You don't have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on elaborate promotional campaigns. Something as simple as liking their comments on your Facebook posts works wonders. Greet your fans and say hi. Fans are thrilled when you interact with them. We all want to belong to something. If you can create that feeling for them, they get social proof from your interaction. That makes it much more likely that they'll tell their networks about you.

The more you know and understand your fans, the more value you can create for them. Knowing your audience is more than just knowing their demographics – age, gender, location. That doesn't tell you about what they like or dislike. What do they talk about? What are they passionate about? You want to get inside the conversation they're already having in their head.

A lot of musicians forget what it's like to be a fan. Again, it comes down to empathy. Put yourself in their shoes. What would really blow you away if your favourite artist was to do it? Get your fans involved in the creative process from the beginning. The process is now the product. That could be inviting them to comment on a new song, getting their feedback on your t-shirt and merch designs, or giving them behind-the-scenes access when you're recording. This takes vulnerability because we don't want people to see what we're working on until it's perfect. It's OK to be vulnerable and invite fans into the process.

The last way you can give value is by being generous. For every withdrawal you want to make by asking your fans to do something for you or buy from you, make seven deposits. Give them something without expecting anything in return. Curate and share interesting content that isn't directly about your music. Your social media posts shouldn't all be about you or your music. That comes across as narcissistic.

When you are promoting your music, don't obsess about the features – how many songs, what type of technology was used to record it, which awards it's won. Those aren't the reasons people buy your music. Describe how your music and your live shows will make fans feel. When you're writing your marketing copy, write twice as many “you” statements that speak directly to them as ones about yourself and how cool you are. Focus on what they will experience; the feeling that they'll get.