The laws of supply and demand. They are important concerning any supply and any demand. Applied to my music, the laws suggest I should cease to produce music. There is no demand for it even when the price is zero.
All these facts are particularly discouraging, and I will go to sleep with hurt feelings tonight. It seems that I will have to fight, tooth and nail, for every view on YouTube and every listen on SoundCloud, and if I want valuable feedback, I'll have to be prepared to fight Armageddon. I just don't understand why I have to fight so hard to get what I want, even when I tell people exactly what I want. I have even admitted that I am weak when it comes to this, that I actually seek validation when I post my art. I refuse to believe that many people would actively want to keep that away from me, yet the low view/play counts say otherwise. I just don't understand how I am failing to build a fan base. All of my friends know I play guitar, most of my friends know I post videos. They somehow have still not keyed into the fact that I need their immediate support, otherwise I suffer. I suppose this will seem a bit silly in the morning when I wake up to a few extra views that YouTube was slow to count, but it doesn't change that they did not instantaneously pounce on the opportunity to keep my ego intact.
Now that I am thoroughly convinced that this will be a commercial failure and will not develop the grass roots fan base I desire, I have to decide if I should continue in the process. How bad do I really want to produce this EP, especially when I know it won't produce the results I wanted? At times, I feel my will to complete this project decreasing, as one would expect. Then at other times I feel a growing obligation to finish it, just to say I did it. I have lately been noticing that most people drive themselves because someone said they couldn't. At no point in my life have I had anyone tell me I couldn't achieve. Except economics. Economics is telling me I should quit, I am supplying a product that has no demand. Well, I guess this is where I finally get a chance to rebel. Fuck you, Economics. I do what I want.
50 for reading. No extras. I'm mad.
JOSH, THE SHERM
This is an issue anyone seeking to get their content out faces, and while there isn't necessarily a surefire solution to the problem, you can take assurance in the fact that you aren't the only one.
ReplyDeleteMost people who produce content of any kind will have the issue of exposure. How do we spread our content around? How can I get people to see what I've done? Along with that, there's the sort of narcissistic aspect of, "I think I've made something great. I want someone to tell me I've done that." And there's nothing wrong with thinking that. Everyone seeks validation to an extent. However, those who revel entirely in their need for attention are those who (generally) do not succeed. So in that regard, success comes from the following:
Consistency: You WILL get very few views on your videos and very few listens to your songs. That's to be expected, and it happens to everyone at the beginning. What's important is that you don't let that discourage you. Be consistent and continue to produce content - and this is important - FREQUENTLY. Your view count will likely stay around the same per video, but that's to be expected. If someone comes to your channel and sees you haven't posted a video in 3 months, or that your videos are spaces heavily apart, they will assume 2 things: The content producer is an amateur and there probably won't be any more videos. Once you've gained a following, frequency is less of a blow on your subscriber count and more of a blow to your credibility as an content producer.
One good thing: That's all it takes. You only need a one-off popular video or song to obtain a following. Even if you have 100 pretty good videos, no one will think you're anything special compared to the millions of other people trying to get noticed doing the exact same thing you are. But if you have one popular video, you then have people checking for other content by you in hopes that there's something as good. Your other content automatically now gets a sort of upfront respect because it's made by the "guy who made that one thing." "Pretty good" then becomes much more acceptable.
So how do you make that popular one-off video? It's actually not that hard. I haven't seen your music, so I can't make any statements about your talent, but let's go with the assumption that you're good, but not extremely talented. What you need to do is to appeal to some sort of niche audience. No one scours the deep corners of the Internet for covers of "Wonderwall." The reason being that people who like certain artists don't look for content related to the artist, they look for content BY the artist. You need to appeal to a very specific audience who looks for content outside of the source material. Take someone like Miracle of Sound, for instance. He got popular making music based on video games. His original songs were good, but nothing exceptional. But they didn't need to be because they appealed to a specific audience that was looking for material like that. Most people like you are doing covers of other people's songs. You're attempting to build your fanbase off the work of another PERSON. What you need to do is build your fanbase off another person's WORK. This is because fans of a PERSON will only look for content created by the person they're a fan of. Fans of a particular WORK will look for all content relating to that work, rather than what is only produced by the original creator of the content. That's why people obsess so much over things like Doctor Who merchandise, even if they've never heard of Steven Moffat.
So there's my advice. Don't just do covers, but you don't have to be totally original. Find something you love and create a song based on that. Post it somewhere those people aggregate. You'll gain a following fairly quickly as long as your content is decent.