Totaly true!

@ Fuad – My pleasure, thank you!

It’s extremely difficult to answer your question without being you.

i.e. I’m afraid I can’t give you a surefire recipe for success. But three key ingredients are going to be:

1. Making amazing music.

2. Finding an audience and engaging with them, via what Seth Godin calls a ‘permission asset’. I.e. getting their permission to keep feeding them information about what you’re doing and selling. This could be a mailing list, blog, forum etc

3. A business model that generates cash from the relationship between 1. and 2. The music industry is particularly volatile in this respect at the moment — there used to be an agreed way of doing things, i.e. sign to a record label, get them to promote you, etc. But that’s all changing now. Nobody really knows ‘the answer’ any more, and there are lots of new models and routes to success for aspiring rock stars. Which is either bewildering or exciting, depending on your point of view.

For specific information and advice about the changing face of the music industry, I recommend Andrew Dubber’s excellent blog http://www.newmusicstrategies.com

As a bottom line, I would encourage you to look at the business challenges you face as creative challenges — it’s a different kind of creativity to your music, but it can be just as rewarding in its own way.

We’ll have plenty more to say about 1, 2 and 3 on Lateral Action – I hope you’ll consider subscribing to our own permission asset to hear what we have to say!

I love your posts. All very in-depth, informative, and to the point. Made me think, thanks!