Every so often I go through my bookmarks. Like maybe once every 2 years. And I rediscover some page or site that is magical. Such was the case the other day with a page I’d bookmarked from Seth Godin’s blog. Seth is one of these guys that writes business books using common sense. He’s a great writer and very successful, and he has a daily blog that is sometimes amazing.
Here are a couple of things from the page I’d bookmarked:
Further in the post he states:
He also says that if you keep your art pure, ironically, you might end up with something that is able to generate income. I’m paraphrasing.
I love Seth’s take. Make your music. If you try to write pop hits, news flash – the world doesn’t need your pop hits. What the world does need is your originality and your creativity. Every so often I’ll get an email from someone who really connected with one of my songs, and it’s such an amazing thing. Because I write what I want to write. I’d love to get a call from Pixar saying they want to license one of my songs for a movie. But if I try to write a song for Pixar and attach my sense of self worth to that song, I’m gonna be really bumming when they don’t buy it. This is just one perspective – I totally get the “all in” mindset of “not having a backup plan.” I think it’s brave. But I do think that in order to make a living writing songs, you’re not going to get to have a ton of say. When you make a product to sell, you need to meet the needs of the buyer. When you make a product for yourself, to express yourself, you need to meet your own expectations and standards. I personally agree with Seth, but I also put my music online and everywhere via CDBaby, because if my music does make any money, hey, I’ll take it. And I do get checks in the mail from time to time. Small checks, but still. It’s kinda neat.