Recently I asked the howmteam musicians to create profiles on Audius and upload their music.
Getting in early will have a lot of benefits. Audius won’t always be giving away money like they are now. Being discovered on a platform is easiest in the early years. Early adopters are disproportionately rewarded.
After you read further you may think, “this sounds great!” However, please expect this to take over 2-3 years to catch on. I believe in Audius’ vision, but only time will tell if this is the right bet.
In the meantime, I’ll try to explain why I believe Audius has a bright future.
Audius, the service, will be spread all over the world on independent computers and servers. No one person or group will have complete control over the platform.
The people who get a voice in what happens to Audius moving forward are those that participate the most in it. They will be holding AUDIO, the cryptocurrency that runs Audius. AUDIO allows holders to vote in governance, as well as be a monetary reward for adding value to Audius.
AUDIO has a solid structure of toke economics.
Audius is backward compatible with distribution platforms like CDBaby and DistroKid. Both of these platforms give you a product ID numbers called ISRC and ISWC. If you registered a song through one of these services, you can plug in your numbers when you upload a track on Audius.
This feature convinced me the most of Audius’ bright future. Instead of attempting to be a completely new thing, Audius has smartly compromised in the right way to let established musicians move everything onto the new platform with ease and legitimacy.
Audius makes licensing stupid simple. With a few clicks in the advanced section you can tell others exactly what they can and can’t do with your music.
Everything that happens on Audius will be recorded on the energy-light blockchain, Solana. This means Audius will gain all the benefits of crypto, like immutability, but without the expensive energy costs of blockchains like Ethereum. This can keep your conscience clean.
We can keep talk more about this on Reddit r/howm.
Phases 0 and 1 are covered in more depth in this entry—template for starting online.
Sign-up for Patreon and Convert Kit
Choose a Charity you’ll be promoting and contributing to through your Patreon
Through ConvertKit create a landing-page for email sign-ups.
Send an Invitation to join your email-list to your Existing Contacts.
For musicians with howmcast episodes Share to your new email-list the link to your Podcast Episode. (Could even automate this for any one new joining your email-list.)
Here’s what you’ll do with your podcast episode if you didn’t follow Phase 0.
Share the link to your Podcast Episode with your Existing Contacts (email or text 15-20 people).
Share the link to your Social Medias.
While sharing your podcast episode will benefit you and howm, if you haven’t set up a Patreon you’ll miss out on monthly money.
Here’s where you refine your ability to provide consistently valuable posts across the internet.
Bring patrons into your process, by sharing something you already need to do for your craft.
Offer valuable info to your Email-list, with occasional Patreon invites.
Post possibly valuable info to Socials. Test for what works.
Reach out to others who are just ahead of you in your career and offer collaboration or cross posting material.
Invest your Patreon money back into the whole thing.
These accounts allow you to accept paypal payments and credit/debit card payments online.
Produce merchandise and/or an album. Add value to your existing fanbase and allow them to reward you.
Start Tracking your progress with Google Analytics, Buffer and bit.ly.
Make predictions and test your efforts against the data.
Grow beyond the people you already know.
Determine your highest ranked post by studying what you’ve been tracking.
Welcome to the professional level. Now you have the know-how people want.
Calendly can automate the process of scheduling these consultation meetings, as well as handle the payment upfront.
Take the thing people most ask you about and offer a webinar of you presentating on the topic. Record the session and offer the recording for email sign-ups or even payment.
There is more ways to grow from here, but at this point you should probably be paying others for consultations and webinars to learn what your next phase is. Funny how that works.
]]>Here’s a little secret about the podcast. The podcast doesn’t have to be a big popular thing to be successful. What follows is how to make your howmcast episode a success!
By success, I mean, directing folks toward someway to support your music, like Patreon.
With your episode you have a solid piece of long-form content. Who wants long-form content from you? People who already know and like you.
Family, friends, co-workers, and alumni all come to mind.
How do you send them your episode so they can listen? You’ll have a bit.ly link of your podcast episode. Usually the format is bit.ly/howmcast-{your first name}
ex: bit.ly/howmcast-levi
This link sends potential listeners to your podcast episode on howmbase.com. On that page there are links out to the major podcast services and it lays out the links and description in a nice way.
This is obvious and the least you can do.
The better option, the option that will get much higher rates of people checking it out is sending your bit.ly link directly. Just like a person.
Email or text your podcast link to at least 15 to 20 people. Put a few people in there that make you nervous. Be brave.
“Hey! I didn’t want you to feel left out. Hang out with musicians interviewed me on their podcast. We had a great time. You’ll enjoy it. bit.ly/howmcast-name”
Because you’ll be sending this long-form content to the people who want to hear it, these people are only one step away from becoming patrons. The whole point of the howmcast and howmbase is to eventually bring folks to your Patreon.
Now is a great opportunity to say,
“And if you missed it. I started a Patreon for my music. A portion of what I’m given goes to my favorite charity. Join Me!”
If someone clicks on your Patreon link and not the podcast, I’d consider that a success. Turning folks into patrons is the ultmate goal.
]]>Here’s a template for starting your online music career quickly. Using the power of Patreon + a Charity + ConverKit you could setup a system that pays for itself in two weeks.
For your purposes ConvertKit will end up being $9/mo, but if you work fast you could have that paid for by patrons before the end of the two week free trial. If you miss that deadline you can still operate decently under the free version.
Sign-up for Patreon Lite. If they give you default tiers just roll with them. Otherwise setup a $3 and $9 tier.
Add images and info, wherever you can. Make the payments scheme “per month”.
Now’s a good time to choose a charity. Pick something that aligns well with your music and your personal convictions. Having a charity will help inform your message.
My charity is GiveDirectly. GiveDirectly simply hands the poorest in the world cash, so they can solve their own money problems. This charity works well for me, because my message is how fans should support musicians by giving them money directly.
Craft your message. Start with why and make it clear what the goal for your music careeer is. Articulate how the patrons benefits from joining and how you benefit from their support. That will help you know what to say in your tiers, the description and the intro video.
To complete this one-two combo of a music career kickstart. Sign-up for ConvertKit. There are tons of reasons to do this. Convertkit helps you collect and manage emails. They allow you to set up automated email sequences and makes it easy to sell online products.
You can think of it as a pseaudo website and CRM. Don’t worry about those terms now. Most importantly, you can create a landing-page with ConvertKit.
Create a landing-page for email sign-ups. This acts like a page on a website you can link out to, for requesting and collecting emails.
How do you get people onto your new email list?
You’ve gotta ask them.
Write a 3-line, 1-link email to send down your personal contacts list.
You can read much more complete instructions in the essentials collection.
Before you send out your initial email, create an automated welcome email and thank your new emailee for joining the list.
A great choice here would be to surprise them with a free download of a song or something like that.
Then mention your Patreon lightly.
“If you’d like to be more involved in my music. Join me on Patreon! A portion of what I’m given goes to…my charity.”
Whoever you reach out to will have an experience like this:
1) Initial Email > 2) Landing Page > 3) Auto Email > 4) Patreon > 5) New Patron
Steps 2 and 3 are made possible by ConvertKit.
I’ll dramatize it for you.
Hello I’m Trevor, your friend from high school that you haven’t talked to in a few years. I’ve done well as a coder. One day I, Trevor, receive a random initial email from you quickly informing me of your message as an artist and asking for my email to stay informed. I’m not annoyed and a little interested in getting back in touch, so I click on the link and enter my email. Instantly an automatic welcome email pops up in my inbox, thanking me for joining. Unexpectedly I’m given a free download as a nice gesture along with a light invitation to be more involved through Patreon.
I’m feeling good about this interaction so far, so I follow the link. There I, Trevor, look over your message and tiers on Patreon. I choose the tier that seems most reasonable and begin supporting you. Now I’m a partial and interested patron, hoping something interesting comes out of this. At the very least I don’t feel bad some of my money is going to your favorite charity; you must have a good reason for supporting it so strongly.