Marketing Advice for Struggling and Marginally-Talented Musicians

Some years ago, when I was struggling to rediscover my sense of humour, as well as re-learning to play the guitar for the 11th time, the thought occurred that it might be a good idea to write some humourous songs. Now the passing years would demonstrate this to be an error on my part, but at the time it seemed like a useful usage of time. In my own defense, no-one warned me that this might be a pointless undertaking. In their defense, I am forced to admit that no-one knew what was up to until the tracks were written and recorded. I suppose I’m something of an internal person, which is a polite way of saying I’m deceptive, secretive, and deceitful. I know where the bodies are buried, because naturally I killed those tourists myself, and told no-one. And all for what? Some clothes that didn’t fit, an assortment of personal hygiene items, and a few travelers cheques. Hardly worth it, considering the investigation I had to endure.

Ah, but I seem to have wandered a bit in my narrative. Let’s condense, shall we?

I uploaded a few songs to the Internet, which have apparently made the rounds, because I they register plays through last.fm. But I don’t think I started seeing real interest in those songs until I uploaded a torrent file of them to The Pirate Bay using some random username. Then, I began seeing some quality distribution; better than money can buy. Well, at least better than my personal income could buy.

So the moral of my story: Never try to give away anything for free that you can instead pretend is stolen. As an avid Linux user, I should have been well aware that things without a price are usually considered to be worth nothing. But if you pretend that something is valuable, vultures will fly in by the dozen to feast upon your illicit buffet.

If they like it, maybe — just maybe — you’ll start to acquire some underground buzz which maybe, just maybe, will result in a recording contract, allowing you to record your very own bona fide album. Naturally, this will subsequently be distributed via The Pirate Bay (or some other torrent tracker), leaving you with vastly reduced album sales. But just think of the fame.

Everyone knows that musicians make their money from concert tickets and T-shirt sales anyway.