Strings Attached
host: Jenna Potter
musician resources, marketing strategies, networking tips, money management in music
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Transcript:
Jenna
Today I would love to talk about your book, “Your Music and People”. I have my copy here. Read this book many times, made lots of notes, come back to it all the time. So I’m very excited to have this time with you to talk about my favorite parts of the book and to share it with everyone else. So thank you so much for joining me.
Derek Sivers
Thanks, Jenna. Yeah, anything that’s by musicians, for musicians gets my attention. And so when I got your email, I checked out what you’re doing, and I really admire what you’re doing with no strings attached, and it’s such a different vibe, isn’t it? When you can tell things that are done by musicians have such a different feel than people that are coming in from the outside, like, “Well, you know, you little musicians were going to make a thing for you, little poor paupers to use.” You know, it has this kind of condescending feel to it when people come in like kind of trying to take advantage of musicians, like there’s some kind of pawns in a system, you know? So I love what you’re doing.
Jenna
Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And yeah, that’s why I created it, because I didn’t see any resources where we’re getting a variety of opinions. There’s a lot of like music educators where it’s one opinion. So I think musicians should learn from as many people as possible and just take what feels right for them. So that’s why I created it. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
And you know, in all fields, they say the best person to teach something is someone who has recently learned it themselves, instead of somebody who learned it 20 years ago. And that goes with with any field. So I think in music it’s the best thing where it’s like, if you’re out there making a living as a musician or doing what you can to like get attention to your music and you’ve found something that works, then you’re the best person to share it with somebody else to say, “Hey, musicians check this out, I did this, this is working, or check out this thing, or try this thought.” It’s so much better than somebody who did it like 30 years ago going, “Well, you know, in the 80s. Here’s how we did it.” You know.
Jenna
That’s true. And I think I’m also approaching it with very much a beginner’s mindset. I don’t know what I’m doing. And I think that helps me ask questions that I think a lot of other musicians have, because we’re coming from more of a clueless point of view. So that’s what my thought process was around this as well.
Derek Sivers
Smart. It’s smart to be clueless, for any of us and anything. You know, so many people stay dumb because they’re too embarrassed to ask the dumb questions.
Jenna
Yeah, that’s true, that’s true. And I hope I get to learn a lot from lots of different people and try it out and document that process and see how it goes as well. So my first question for you is why did you decide to write this book? Tell me about how you were feeling at the time, or what you were hearing from people that made you decide to write “Your Music and People” and specifically take this creative and considerate fame angle?
Derek Sivers
Ah, okay. Well, that’s two separate questions. You know what? I’ll do it in reverse order, because the subtitle of “Creative and Considerate Fame” is a funny story. I wasn’t sure what subtitle to have for the book. I knew I wanted the book to be called. Oh wait. No, sorry, sorry. I have it backwards. Creative and considerate fame is what I knew the book was actually about, but I didn’t know what to call it. I had many, many different ideas for titles, and so finally I just did a word count in the book. I said, “Show me the most popular words used in the book in order.” And after the obvious, you know, “a” and the “I” the next most popular words were “your”, “music” and “people”. I’m like, “Oh, well, there’s the title.” It was just a word count. So no creative and considerate fame is what the book is really about. And “Your Music and People” was the title chosen from the word count. Sorry that’s the tiny answer. The bigger question there is why I wrote it, it’s not about the book. While I was running CD Baby-- so sorry.Anybody listening long, long ago. A million years ago, in 1997, I was a musician in New York City selling my own CD, at a time when the world was different and there wasn’t even PayPal. At the time, Amazon was just a bookstore.
Derek Sivers
There were a couple online music stores, but they were basically just like the major label stuff only. Like you could get Madonna and Miles Davis there, but you could not get any independent musicians on these stores. It was just the big major label stuff that you would find in the record stores, and I was just a musician trying to sell my own CD, and I contacted these online record stores. They said, “No, kid, it doesn’t work that way. You have to go through a label that goes through a distributor and then you show up in our system.” I said, “Well, can’t I just mail you a box of CDs and you sell them and pay me?” They said, “No, it doesn’t work that way.” I thought, well, why not? So I made a little thing where somebody could just send me a box of CDs and I’d sell them and pay you. But I really just did it for my friends in New York City. I was living in New York City. I’d been a professional, full time musician for ten years, playing at gigs, doing tours, sessions. And I started this thing as a hobby for my friends, because my friends in New York also had no place to sell their music. So CD Baby was just a favor to friends at first. But then shortly after I started it. Lots of people were asking my advice on like, “How can I call attention to my music? How can I stay in contact with my fans? Or what do you recommend for this? Or how do I get the attention of music supervisors for film and TV?” And I kept answering people’s questions.
Derek Sivers
And at first I’d just answer them, maybe like over the phone or over an email. And then I thought, “Well, I’ve answered the same question twice, I should write it down.” And so I started keeping a collection of all of my advice for musicians, and I used to send it to every musician that signed up to CD Baby would just get this big, giant email, like 50 pages long of like, “Hi, thanks for joining CD Baby. Here’s all my advice for musicians. I hope it helps. I hope you sell well. Good luck. Let me know if I can help.” And that was many years ago, but it was never in a book. So then just a few years ago, I thought, you know that advice I gave to musicians years ago is still valid because it was meant to be timeless stuff. It wasn’t, you know, super timely, “Click here. Do this. Contact this guy.” It was more philosophical. So I went back through those old articles, removed references to the few little timely things that were in there and just tried to make it something that a musician could read 30 years from now, and it would still apply.
Jenna
Amazing. That’s an amazing story. And I’d love to start from the beginning of the book where you talk about marketing and business. Now, I know a lot of musicians hate doing marketing and business. They prefer the creative production side of things. But you say that business and marketing is just as creative. So I’m wondering what you can say to musicians to help them change that mindset from marketing and business being something they have to do but they don’t want to do versus something that they can be excited about?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, okay. This is such a great mindset shift to understand. Well, most people, when you think marketing, you think like this spammy kind of like, how can I blast people with my message and bother them to make them check out my music or come to my gig or something. But it’s not about that. Like if you feel a resistance to doing that, that’s a good thing because that’s spamming and that’s not what marketing is. Really marketing is all of the stuff we do to help people check us out. And that means thinking of an interesting way to describe your music so that people go, “Hmm.” Or an interesting image that goes with your music that again makes people go, “Hmm.” And get interested. You want to make people curious. That’s all you need to do. And that’s a creative challenge. So the bigger way to think about this is when you’re writing a song, you have a little idea for a melody, right? Or a lyric, you know or you have a phrase and you grow it into a song. But at first the song is just like words and music or just a beat and something you’re singing or just a beat in the groove, and then later you add a melody. It starts small, and then you keep making creative choices like, are you going to put a distorted guitar in there? Or are you going to make it all like twisted or is it going to be smooth? Is it going to be ambient and spacious? Is it going to be electronic? Is it going to be natural? You make these decisions, and then even the way that you present yourself, your image to the world, like the kind of photos you take, whether you’re all kind of dark and hidden in a corner or if you’re all kind of, ah, you know, in your face and bright, these are creative decisions you’re making along the way.
Derek Sivers
Because what you’re making is more than just the music. It’s the production of the music, it’s the arrangement, it’s the recording, it’s the image. And all marketing is, is just an extension of your art that keeps going. You keep making these creative decisions on how you want to be in the world, like who you want to be in the world. And these are creative choices. And by just doing that publicly, you’re signaling to people like, this is who I am. And I think this is who you are. And if you’re this kind of person, then I think we have something in common and you’ll be able to relate to my music. Yeah, it’s a public creation of your message and your image. More than just doing the same shit as everybody else and spamming the same way everybody else does. You should heed your resistance to doing things the normal way and find your unique way of putting your unique message out into the world.
Jenna
I love that. And you touched on it in your answer now and also in the book, how you should have this one line that really attracts people’s attention. I know a lot of times when musicians describe their music or their band, they tend to use more generic, broad descriptions that don’t really stand out. But you mentioned having this one line hook that will get people interested, whether it’s industry people or potential fans. Do you have any tips for how to come up with that hook? Where to draw? the points from?
Derek Sivers
Think of anything. Well, first, anything that made you laugh. Anything that made you go, “Ooh, that’s good.” Whether you came up with it. Whether you heard it from somebody else or whether, like, even a fan or a friend said, “Wow, Jenna, you know what that sounds like? It sounds like this.” And you go, “Ooh, that’s good. I’m going to use that.” So try to remember those little, ooh that’s good moments. This is why I say that marketing is considerate is because if you come up with an interesting little phrase or just a few words to describe your music. Even if it’s just some crazy mix of adjectives, you know, like runny, disgusting techno. Somebody will go like, “Runny, disgusting, what?” Those three words can make somebody curious to go. “Wait, what do you mean, runny? Okay, now I have to hear it.” If you just pick a unique adjective that makes people curious to hear more. It’s very considerate for them. You’ve helped them get interested in you in a way that they wouldn’t if you just said just genre name, you know, ambient techno. And that’s all you said they’d go, “All right, ambient techno, that’s a genre. So what? Why should I care?” But if you come up with a unique way to describe your music. You asked where it comes from. It could just come from your own silly creativity. Just brainstorm with friends. Ask some strangers, “What does this sound like to you? Or what movie does this remind you of? Or what is this the soundtrack for?” You can ask people questions like that, that will help evoke different phrases than you would ordinarily use.
Jenna
And going on this idea of coming up with marketing ideas or these descriptive ideas. I love how in the book, how giving yourself restrictions actually could help you be more creative, or at least help you move forward. Can you tell me about why this works? And maybe some examples where you’ve seen it work well for musicians?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Sorry, you’re talking about why, to use a phrase, to describe your music and-- is that what said??
Jenna
Yeah, you said like when you don’t know what to do next with marketing or you’re stuck with marketing ideas create some restrictions.
Derek Sivers
Sorry, the connection cut out for one second, that was the word I missed. Okay. The restrictions, yes. Oh, man. It’s tough to be a musician when there’s infinite things you could be doing. This actually goes for any freelancers. It’s tough to be a painter, it’s tough to be a writer. It’s tough when you don’t have a boss. It’s up to you to decide what you’re going to do. So the idea of restrictions will set you free actually comes from a musical challenge that if somebody were to say like, “All right, Jenna, write me a piece of music, anything, go.” You would have no idea where to start. You’d go, “Uh, I don’t know.” But if somebody said, “All right, Jenna, can you do this for me? Can you write a two minute long piece of music that starts loud, but then gets quiet and then grows and has this tempo and only does this and only uses these instruments?” Well, as soon as somebody says that, of course you can. Your creative mind kicks into action and go, “Oh yeah, okay, I can almost hear this as you’re describing it.” And then you can make it happen. So with that model, you can do the same with your marketing to say instead of just doing anything, let’s say I’m going to contact five new music industry people every week. Or maybe, let’s say three, three’s more reasonable. I’m going to contact three new music industry people every week. I don’t know how, but that’s my challenge. And I’m going to, once every three months, contact my existing fans through whatever channels you’ve got and suggest that we do a private fans only live streaming performance or something like that. And now you’ve just given yourself two challenges that are restricted instead of just wide open, you know, so the idea comes from music writing.
Jenna
Amazing. And speaking of setting a goal to contact, let’s say, three music industry people per week. In your book, you mentioned that persistence is polite, and I really love this piece of advice because it has worked for me in the past. I’ve sometimes had the best relationships or opportunities come from the fourth follow up, where the first three had a non response. So it does work, but it kind of has a bad rep for being spammy sometimes if you don’t approach it in the right way. So I’m just wondering if you have any advice for musicians on how to be persistent in a polite way, like, what do you do in that second, third, and fourth follow up to not be annoying and to keep adding value?
Derek Sivers
Well, first is just the mindset of being considerate, understanding that the person you’re trying to reach is just overwhelmed and that’s it. So if one of your friends, for example, has ever been in a situation where they’re completely overwhelmed but you’re still trying to reach your friend, you probably would do the same thing. You wouldn’t be suddenly mean to your friend because they didn’t get back to you immediately. Be like, “Hey, what’s up? Are you okay? I haven’t heard from you. I’m getting worried about you.” Okay, you wouldn’t say this to a music industry professional, but it’s the same kind of mindset. You’re not mad. You don’t want to actually say, hey, I’m still here, but the mindset is you’re not getting upset. You’re being considerate and understanding that they’re just overwhelmed. And I didn’t truly understand this until I was running CD Baby. And suddenly I was the guy that was overwhelmed and and a musician was trying to contact me. And they emailed once and they said, Hey, you know something--.” And I went, “Oh, right. I got to get to that.” And then just something came and distracted me and the email fell back into my inbox. And then like four days later, they emailed again like, “Hey Derek, I haven’t heard from you yet. I emailed a few days ago about this.” I went, “Oh, right, right. Oh my God, I didn’t get back to that person.” And I was just about to. But then the phone rings and then somebody says, “Dude, we have this lunch appointment.” And I’m out the door and it gets forgotten again. And then they tell me that somebody is on the phone and it’s that musician that’s emailed me twice.
Derek Sivers
I went, “Oh my God, that person that’s emailed twice. Yes. Okay, hold on, I’ll take the call.” And it’s not that I was deliberately not replying to those others. I just got overwhelmed and they got forgotten. And so I was really thankful that this person was persistent and kept trying without getting upset, and also tried different methods. You know, some people only text, they will never email, and some people only email, they don’t like texting and some people only use whatever. They only use their DMs and Twitter and they don’t use anything else. You got to just know that people use different mediums, try to reach them in different ways, just stay considerate and do not get upset at all. Like even internally. Just manage your emotions in some way so that you’re not getting upset about this. You’re not taking it personally and just politely saying, “Hey, you know, following up contacted you a few days ago. I know you’re looking for such and such. Let me know what’s a good time to reach you.” That’s it, just succinct. The shorter, the better. Shorter messages get answered way more than long one. Long messages, whether it’s a text or an email or whatever, if you get a long message, you go, “Uh, seriously? Later. I’ll read this later. I’m busy.” But if you just send like three sentences, five sentences tops. You’ll be much more likely to get a response. And it’s also much more human. Ones that are big and long, especially these days. It’s like, “Oh God, did they seriously use GPT to write this?” No, no, no, no, no. Like anybody needs longer messages. No, keep it short. Be polite. That’s all.
Jenna
It’s awesome. You’re a little bit glitchy, so sorry if it’s a little delayed but--
Derek Sivers
Yeah. That’s what I had earlier, too. That’s why I missed that word that you said earlier about restrictions. So it’s all right. We’ll get the good recording on both ends.
Jenna
Yeah. Perfect. And my dog has decided to show up. So, speaking of building these industry connections, I know you talked a lot in the book about how it’s so important to build your network, because that’s where a lot of opportunities come from. People like to help people that they like. But a lot of musicians probably don’t have a network to turn to, at least in the beginning. Do you have any advice for growing that from the start? Obviously, you’re not going to be meeting with the biggest industry executives at the beginning, but do you have advice for growing up until that point?
Derek Sivers
Yes, this was one of the biggest, most interesting lessons I’ve ever learned in my life. I was 20 years old. I grew up in Hinsdale, Illinois, in the middle of well, it’s not the middle of nowhere. Whatever. I mean, I grew up in Hinsdale, Illinois. I went off to music school in Boston. And suddenly I’m 20 years old, I’m living in New York City, and I’m in way over my head. I don’t know anybody. I have no connections and. I would just contact people that were doing anything in the industry. Friend of a friend works at a radio station, and I’d just call that guy or just email him or contact him saying like, “Hey, my name is Derek, musician in the city. You know, my friend Jeff said that you were at the station. Could I treat you to lunch? I have no idea what it’s like to work at a station.” You know, you’ll get two people will say no, and then a third one will say yes, and you’ll just meet up not in a transactional what can you do for me kind of way, but just making friends. This is the part that blew my mind, is that the people in the music industry, we think of them as like, “Oh my God, this powerful person that can make or break my career.” And because of this, we accidentally put them up on a pedestal or we get nervous when talking to them, but they’re actually very similar to musicians.
Derek Sivers
They’re people that just love music. But maybe just didn’t spend enough time with their fingers on an instrument and so they don’t know how to play it. So instead they want to enable it. So they got into the music industry because they love music so much. They want to get music to people that’s how much they love it. And so they’re usually pretty open to meeting with a fellow music fan. But I highly recommend just approaching it as just friends, just getting to know them. Asking more questions instead of promoting yourself. Don’t really promote yourself at all. You can low key mention what you do, but just getting to know them as friends was so much more rewarding to me. Because then later you find out that the person that was just a cool person you had lunch with because you were a cool person to hang out with or talk to. Then a week later, they’re suddenly sending some big opportunity your way because you seem like a good person. You know what I mean? It was really surprising how that works. It almost felt like, you know, the Tao of business that win by not trying to, you know. But it also was just much more rewarding instead of just going through the music industry in a really transactional way, just trying to use people and get what you can out of them. Making friends you get both friends and benefits.
Jenna
And this really reminds me of the story that you shared in your book how when you were a struggling musician and you attended a conference in Las Vegas, you were just hanging out by the pool and happened to meet someone who was really high up in the industry and then helped you out. Can you walk me through that story from from start to finish and where you ended up with that? Just as like a great example to share with my audience on how that can work out well for you.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Even though. I know the stuff that I just said. I still was intimidated by people that I knew were super VIPs, like record company presidents. I had them on a pedestal, even though I could meet with Jeff that works at a radio station. And Stacey, who works in marketing. The record label, presidents felt like, oh, you know, a different breed of superstars. They’re untouchables. And so I would attend industry conferences and I’d do things like sit in the front row and kind of like write down everybody’s name and write down things that they said. And I’d kind of imagine myself networking with them in the future and maybe getting them my music somehow. But it was always like this scary, intimidating thing. But then at this industry conference in Las Vegas. There was a break for lunch time, and I just went and stuck my feet in the pool and some dude sat down next to me or maybe I sat down next to him. I don’t remember, but he was just some nobody. And so we were just talking about whatever the funny girl over there and the cheesy food and how weird Las Vegas is. And we just talked about life for like half an hour, and he was just a cool dude.
Derek Sivers
And when he got up, he said, “Hey, keep in touch, man. Good talking with you. My name is Larry.” And he handed me his card, vice president of A&M records. I went, “Oh, shit.” Like, I’m so glad that I didn’t know that when we sat down. Otherwise I would have acted like an idiot, being nervous and stammering and trying to promote myself and not being natural and not being cool to hang out with. I would have been stupid and nerdy and nervous. And so it just taught me like, wow, you know it’s a great reminder that, for one, these people that we think are VIPs, they’re just regular people that just got some dumb job because their life stumbled them in that direction, and now they’re the president of a label or the VP of some industry thing, but they’re not different humans. And so you should really talk with them and get to know them the same way you would just get to know another bass player or any other musician or anybody. They’re not different and then by not treating them different, you might actually make a real friendship that could also benefit you. But even if it doesn’t, you’ve got a friend in this case with Larry Weintraub.
Derek Sivers
He and I stayed in touch after that. I started CDBaby a year or two after that happened. And I contacted him later to tell him. Actually, maybe he contacted me. He’s like Derek, “Larry Weintraub. I don’t know if you remember me from the pool in Las Vegas.” I went, “Oh my God, yes.” And he sent a musician who was unknown at that time named Jack Johnson to CD baby because he had met me in the pool and he trusted me. And so Jack Johnson was one of my biggest selling artists on CD Baby. And that came because Larry sent him my way because he trusted me. Because I was the cool dude he met in the swimming pool years earlier. And he ended up sending many other artists my way. Gary Jules, who had the hit song “Mad World”, came my way because of Larry, too. And yeah, as I was writing this chapter in the book, I contacted him to like to ask how he’s doing, and it was just sweet that we’ve known each other now for 25 years, because I wasn’t nervous when I met him that first day.
Jenna
That’s an amazing story and a good reminder to not put people on a pedestal because like you said, if you had known who he was, then all these opportunities might not have come your way later on. I would love to shift the focus now to talk a little bit about money, which is obviously a big struggle for a lot of musicians, especially now with the way the music industry is. So you said in the book that you need to be profitable to last. It’s just the reality of it. And you can impress people with how little you spend, which I found interesting. So can you tell me a little bit more about your thoughts on, like, spending $8,000 to produce a record versus being a little bit more bootstrapping and doing it for like $800? What’s the thought process behind that and why should you approach it differently?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. The idea started when a woman came up to me at a conference and tried to impress me by handing me her music. And saying, we spent $8,000 or it got maybe it was $80,000. I don’t know. You just said 8$,000. So now it’s messing with my head. I don’t know what number she said. Okay. Yeah, I think so too. I think she said something like, “We spent $80,000 recording this album. It’s really good.” And my first thought was, “Oh no, you poor thing. Like, that’s not sustainable. Like, that’s not resourceful. You’re being stupid. You spent $80,000 to record something that I’ll bet a friend of mine could have recorded for a 10th of the price. It shows to me you’re being wasteful, and that’s not sustainable.” The same as I feel about people who are paying full tuition to attend Berklee College of Music for four years now. Unless their parents are just paying completely and don’t mind. It’s not resourceful. There’s always an expensive way to do things and a cheap way to do things. And a smart way to do things, which is usually closer to the cheap way of doing things.
Derek Sivers
If you’re smart, you can be resourceful and do things for cheaper than most people can. And that’s just the smarter strategy, because it means you can go for longer. So in the case of the woman who spent $80,000 recording her album, my first thought was like, “You could make ten records for that much, and it would be better for your career to make ten albums at $8,000 each than one album at $80,000. Also, it’s just losing touch with reality. There’s not that much of an audible difference between an $80,000 recording versus an $8,000 recording.” Like, what are you getting into? Like some crazy kind of, you know, tube compressors or whatever some Neve console or, you know, trying to show off what equipment you use. Like 0.001% of the world can hear any difference between those. So it also just shows that you’ve lost touch with what matters. Yeah, sorry, I get kind of ranty on this subject. I just think it’s so much smarter to be resourceful, to find a way to do things for cheaper so that even if you’re only earning a few hundred dollars a month with your music.
Derek Sivers
That it’s profitable. It’s sustainable. You can keep doing this. You’re not going to go broke next year just doing your music. Same reason why I actually recommend to friends and anyone that they don’t quit their day job to go full time with music. Until music is actually paying all your bills. Well, unless there’s some resourceful way. Like, again, if you find, like, a family friend or somebody’s place where you can live for free, basically just paying for your food. Living for free is a way to work on your music only. But even the full time musicians I know really only spend about maybe four hours a day doing their actual music, and the rest of the time doing the other cluttery crap. And so in that case, you’d actually be better off having a 9 to 5 job that just pays all your life expenses, lets you save money. As long as it’s something that doesn’t suck your soul, you know. As long as it’s not like a 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. job, or one of those ones that, like, stresses you out and wrecks your life. But if it’s something that you can just show up 7 or 8 hours a day, punch out, and then go home and give your music your full attention. You can get in a few hours a day of working on your music and career without needing to quit your job, which then gives you this desperation of like, “Oh no, I’m going to be screwed if I don’t make a thousand bucks this month with my music.” Unless you sense that desperation would really work in your favor. But you need to know that for yourself. For some people, desperation helps them be who they really want to be, helps them take daring chances that they wouldn’t have taken otherwise. But for a lot of people, I think for most people, desperation makes them do stupid unstrategic things that would hurt them more than help them.
Jenna
Yes, it’s definitely helpful to keep your day job because then you also have that, like you said, the freedom and space to focus on creation instead of being stressed about all those bills that you have to pay, making ends meet, and maybe a agreeing to opportunities that aren’t fit for you right now because it is some cash in your pockets?
Derek Sivers
Yep.
Jenna
My next question for you is similar on the topic of money. So you mentioned being resourceful, but do you have any good practical tips for musicians to help them find different ways of making more money using what they’re already doing now? So, like, adding more income streams that feel good or a better way to sell what they’re currently selling?
Derek Sivers
I don’t these days. Sorry. That’s the point where I toss up my hands and I say that I sold CD Baby in 2008, and I’m out of touch with, like the 2024 ways of making money. I know it’s changed a lot since then, and so the only stuff I know anymore are the timeless, more philosophical side of calling attention to your music, focusing on the things that don’t change. I’m out of touch with ways to make money with music in 2024. I’m sorry.
Jenna
No worries. But what’s timeless? I know you mentioned the book reading about business and-- sorry, business and things that aren’t necessarily music related books, but that will help you grow your business or make it better.Making money. Do you have any book recommendations for musicians that aren’t necessarily music related but would be helpful?
Derek Sivers
Oh yeah. Oh my god, yeah. I got so much benefit from reading books that were straight up business books, even when I just wanted to be a full time musician, like straight out of music school. One of the best things a music teacher showed me was a marketing book called “Positioning” the authors names are Reis and Trout. It’s a practically ancient book at this point. I don’t know if it’s from the 1980s or something, but it uses so many wonderful examples of how to not try to be everything to everybody, but to pick one specific niche and dive in all the way into that niche. So that was the first business book I ever read, which at the time business to me was like the opposite of music. You know, all I wanted was to be a successful musician. What the hell would I have to do with a book that’s talking about medicine on supermarket shelves. But once you learn to read it metaphorically, you go, “Oh, this actually totally applies to me running a recording studio in New York City.” For example, instead of trying to be a generic recording studio that will record anyone doing anything. I made myself into a specific niche, running a recording studio that was just recording drums. It’s like you can go anywhere else for everything else. But when it comes to recording drums, this is the place to go.
Derek Sivers
And you pick a specific niche like that, and it’s extremely appealing. And in a way it’s considerate for somebody trying to figure out where to record their drums. You know, it’s a hundred recording studios to choose from, and only one of them says, we specialize in drums. Then for yourself as a freelance musician. You can read lessons from-- okay, here’s another great book, “The Art of Profitability” by Adrian Slywotzky. Adrian Slywotzky’s Art of Profitability is a fascinating little book where as a business consultant, he draws these quick diagrams. We’ll try to get the paper book if you can. But I think maybe even the Kindle book would show these diagrams he draws. Showing like, profit over time and different strategies for doing so. And, for example, he talked about the old Mattel Barbies, how there used to be only one Barbie, but then these Korean clones were coming in and undercutting them. So Mattel figured out they could make a cheaper Barbie, but also a much more expensive Barbie for the fanatical collectors. And suddenly, instead of just having one Barbie now they had three for different market needs. And you read something like that and you think, “Well, how could I apply that to my music?” Maybe say, if you’re a band that does live gigs, maybe you are able to split what you do into three different categories where you have your free gigs that you do for the fans, your regular price gigs that you do for paid venues, but then you really go upscale and you put together like I don’t know whether it’s weddings or corporate events version of what you do, because there are people that are looking for that.
Derek Sivers
I never would have thought of these things if it weren’t for reading regular business books metaphorically. So yeah, thanks for bringing that up, because that is kind of a timeless thing. It’s like every year the current how to get money this year may change, but the strategies don’t change. The strategies can be timeless. So “Art of Profitability” and basically any book about marketing even if it’s marketing in general. Seth Godin has a brilliant book called “This Is Marketing”. It’s a just brilliant, genius, timeless, classic book that just came out only maybe 4 or 5 years ago, so good. Seth Godin has such an artistic, holistic approach to marketing. That’s not clicky, spammy. It’s the opposite. In fact, it’s the antidote to clicky, spammy marketing. It is more the kind of stuff that I preach about, trying to be considerate and generous and finding ways to help people. As being the ultimate marketing. So yeah, that would be my top three recommendations. Go old with” Positioning” by Reis and Trout. Go in between with “The Art of Profitability” and recent with “This Is Marketing” by Seth Godin.
Jenna
All right. Awesome. I’m going to check those out. All right. And so the next topic I wanted to explore is in your book, you mentioned making two simultaneous plans. One is the independent route where you go at it alone and you build up your fan base on your own. And then one using the music industry, but doing them both at the same time. Do you have an examples or tips of how you can make this work by doing it both simultaneously?
Derek Sivers
In short, no. It’s going to be different for everyone.
Derek Sivers
It’s not a decision then to like, “Hey, I’m going to ignore the industry and just focus on gigs or I’m going to go all in and just try to make myself into a media superstar using the industry and ignore the gigs.” You really can do both simultaneously. And then whichever one hits first can work. I’ve known some musicians that straddled both that were, say, like a just a gigging musician for many years. And then just through some weird stroke of luck their song got placed into a movie because they lived in Los Angeles and they were constantly kind of in the industry pushing things around, even though they were really making their living doing session gigs or touring. Suddenly, after years of trying, one of their songs got picked up as like the theme song in a movie. And they made a bunch of money from that. But then kept doing the gigging on the side. But now you know the attendance at their gigs was much more. Yeah, I just think it’s wise to do as many different approaches as you can that you can sustain. Well, that you can sustainably sustain. Instead of trying to decide in advance that this way is the way.
Jenna
That’s really great advice. And obviously a big modern topic right now is AI, I know a lot of musicians are probably against using AI to help them in the creation of their music, but do you see any use cases for musicians to maybe help them with the marketing or business side, or any ways to make their time more efficient?
Derek Sivers
Picasso had a quote that I loved where he said, “Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” And I thought that was adorable. But now computers can give you questions. It was amazing just last night, as I’m working on this next book, I went into an AI. I think it was Claude AI, and I asked it, I said, “Give me a list of empowering questions.” And boom, it just instantly shoots out this list of just like, “What would you do if you knew you could not fail? If my fear was removed, what would I pursue? I went, “Whoa, these are really good.” This is the shit that people put into a book and sell thousands of copies about. You could just ask the AI to give you questions. Oh my God but then the key is you have to answer them. It’s not enough to go, “Oh, wow. Look, AI can give me 20 questions. Oh. All right, anyway.” The benefit comes from what you do with them. So I think it’s the same to answer your question, you could go ask any AI. And by the way, if you’ve only tried ChatGPT, go try some others. Go to the one I was doing last night, claude.ai and oh my God actually, just minutes before our phone call, I tried an AI search engine for the first time called Perplexity, and I think it’s com. Oh my God, perplexity. Somebody just said, “Oh, check this out.” I tried it and oh my God, it gave me like literally, you know, my jaw dropped and I was like shouting out loud. I was like, “Whoa, oh my God, that was way better than I was ever expecting.”
Derek Sivers
Like I’d given up on search engines as just being crap. And it was great. Sorry the point is, you can ask whether it’s a Perplexity type search engine AI or Claude AI, which is just, you know, generates LLM words like ChatGPT does. You can ask it for inspirations like name ten marketing counterintuitive marketing campaigns a musician could do. And it will probably-- actually, I wish I could just try that right now while we’re talking, but I’ll try it after we get off the phone. It’ll probably come up with nine dumb ideas and one that’s actually kind of interesting. But then the point is, you got to go do something with that. It’s not enough to just keep taking in more information. Anybody can take in information. You have to really, really apply it and do something with it. Which in itself is kind of funny. The definition of modern art or performance art. A lot of things that we call modern art or performance art, people look at it and they go, “I could do that. Why is that special? Anybody could do that. I could do that.” But yeah, but they didn’t. And that artist did. And that’s what makes all the difference. Is a lot of artists get successful doing things that anybody could have done, but they’re the one that did it. Instead of saying, “I could do that.” And so I think it’s the same with all of these things we’re talking about the marketing ideas. Go have an AI generate marketing ideas for you, one of them might be good. The whole point is you have to be the one that does it.
Jenna
Yes, I relate to your excitement about Perplexity. I discovered last week and I asked it. I asked it, “How did John Mayer get so good at guitar?” And it came up with all of these sources of like where he started, where he drew inspiration, the specific techniques he’s used, and just basically mapped out his process when we first started to where he’s at now. And it was mind blowing how it did that and obviously excited all its sources too. So that was helpful, Perplexity is amazing.
Derek Sivers
I’m glad you saw it. You’re the only other person I know who’s tried it. That’s cool.
Jenna
Yes. It’s amazing. All right. So I think that we’re coming to the end of our conversation now 50 minutes. So thank you so much for for joining me today. It was personally a massive pleasure because I’ve been such a fan of this book. I’ve had it for two years now and read it over and over. So it was amazing to talk to you about these stories and to get more context around them. Lots of great tips as well for anyone watching. So I really appreciate you coming on. So my last question for you, for anyone who wants to dive deeper into your work, where can they find you and what do you have coming up next?
Derek Sivers
Well, I don’t know. Let’s ask. Perplexity, “Hey, perplexity. Where can I find Derek Sivers?” Sive.rs yeah I don’t love social media, so I don’t make myself do social media. So really, the only place to find me is my website. Just go to Sive.rs. And as Jenna can tell you, I actually really enjoy getting emails from musicians. I like knowing musicians. I miss talking with more musicians. I miss when I was in CD Baby and I only talked to musicians, I was like in a sea of musicians. And it was wonderful because that’s what I loved. I was never into business. I was just trying to help musicians. I love talking music, and still most of my best friends are musicians. So I love hearing from musicians around the world. So anybody that listened to the end of Jenna’s interview or is a fan of No Strings Attached, please go send me an email and say hello. Introduce yourself, and please give me a link where I can hear your music. It frustrates me when people say, “Hey, I’m a musician.” And they don’t give me a way that I can click and listen, because it’s one of my favorite things to do is when somebody emails me, I immediately go click the link and I play their music in the background as I read their email and reply. So please give me a link where I can check out your music.
Jenna
Well that’s it. Thank you so much.
Derek Sivers
Thanks, Jenna.