Are fans telling friends? If not, don’t promote.

Should you spend more time promoting right now?

Or should you spend more time creating and improving?

It’s a tough question. Lucky for you, I’ve got the answer.

It comes down to one observation: Are your fans telling their friends?

If not, then don’t waste time promoting it yet. Keep working, improving, and creating, until your fans are telling their friends about you.

To be clear, I don’t mean fans told friends because you asked them to! They can’t do it just to help you, like a favor. They have to do it just because they love your music so much that they’re doing their friends a favor by turning them on to you.

Your music needs to be remarkable — so surprisingly good that others remark about it, like this.

Until that point, you’re better off just improving and creating as much as you can.

For more thoughts on this, read Seth Godin’s book, “Purple Cow”.