Walk Before You Run
Beautiful Idiots Proverb #3: “Walk before you run… Unless you gotta poop.”
As I’ve said before, this company is essentially an independent record label, with a roster of four artists and an ultimate goal of becoming a multimedia production company that can compete with major labels and produce feature length films. Remember what I said about reaching a couple days ago?
Well, without giving away too many details prematurely, we have an album by an artist that is ready to go. This album also boasts multiple songs featured in a television show that premieres next month on a major streaming service. My responsibility to the project is to capitalize on this opportunity, by making sure as many people as possible are aware of and hear this music. The problem is, we don’t have an audience.
I don’t mean any disrespect to any of you taking the time to read this or any of our thoughts, and especially to those of you who also listen to our music and share it with your friends and family. You’re doing the lord’s work and I’m very grateful you take the time to check in on us. I just mean we don’t currently have a large enough audience to support ourselves. We’re working really hard on it, but this mission can take a very long time, not to mention there’s a very small chance of success. Nevertheless, we’re going along on our path, growing organically. We’re like that guy in that movie: “We’re walking here!”
There are other options, though. We could run. There are lots of ways to get where we want to go quicker. Now I’m tasked with figuring out what those options are and which of those are actually viable paths for us at this point in our existence.
For instance, we could try to leverage our sync as reason for a larger label to offer distribution and services at a fee. In this case I have to sell our one major achievement as a sign of what’s to come. Again, tough when we have no proven audience. Seems a little backwards to me, but that’s how it works these days.
I could give away our ownership of the music (yikes) if a label is willing to take a risk on us. Same issue occurs though. Not enough people are listening now to warrant that kind of consideration from a larger company.
I could try to use all the connections I have to anyone who might be able to help independently, and pay them their rates and hope that we can generate enough buzz to then get a bigger system to sit down at the table with us. Expensive and risky, and in this case we’re paying for it. Not to mention I’m now asking people I love to extend themselves on our behalf which, at the end of the day, I’d rather not do if I didn’t have to.
Who’s to say which is the right choice? It’s different for everyone. Who’s to say I can even convince anyone else to get on board? It’s going to take a really good sales pitch.
If I had all the time in the world, I’d walk everywhere. You can go at your own pace and appreciate all the beauty you encounter along the journey. Sometimes though, you feel something coming, and you have to get it out. When that happens you have no time to walk; you have to run. And right now, I really gotta poop.
-J.P.
