How to Play the Odds with Your Music
This past weekend, Alli and I went over to a friends’ place for a board game night, and the group decided to play this dumb party game called “Beat That.” The premise: The game includes chopsticks, dice, plastic cups, a tape measure, and ping pong balls, and you take turns drawing from a deck of […]
Lessons from Pete Sampras’ Surprising Twitter Strategy
Pete Sampras has 17,000 followers on Twitter. I know this because I read a charming, where-are-they-now Sports Illustrated piece on Sampras that mentioned this fact. If you’ve ever wondered, “What happened to Pete Sampras?” the piece is worth a read; it’s an interesting look into the life of the man who was, for a few […]
The Value of Time
I’m a chronic under-estimator of time. This plays out in a ton of ways, most of them unfortunate for the people around me. Like, the other weekend at church, my friend asked me if I’d be up for grabbing a beer on Tuesday night. “Definitely!” I replied with enthusiasm. “Let’s do it!” We did a […]
5 Tips to Build Your Email List
Welcome to this week’s email! …It’s going to be about email. Because I’ve been talking with a bunch of artists about email lists lately. And because I’ve shared a bunch of random personal things over the past month, and I figure it’s time to write about something practical. I think email is very practical. Okay, […]
Why You Should Work with Other People
So this is my most-streamed track on Spotify: Unimpressive, I know. And get this: It’s even less impressive than you think, because I didn’t even write it. And I’m not the primary performer on it, either. My brother, Tom (tall-ish, glasses, writes mostly-weekly newsletters, definitely going to lose our annual kickboxing match – that guy) wrote it and […]
We Should Probably Look at the Big Picture More Often
Well, last week was my first in 6.5 years not working full-time at a marketing agency. To celebrate, I took it off – meaning I did zero “actual” work on Two Story stuff. Some people (my wife and my mom) said this would be a wise way to rest. Some people (the slightly fit business-y guy I talked to […]
The Musician Income Survey
So I’ve got kind of an awkward question for you… How much money do you make? (With music.) If you trust me enough to share the answer to that, take this quick two-minute survey. It’s only seven questions and your answers will be totally anonymous (no email / name). I’ll be sharing the cumulative data from this […]
How to Stand Out When You Email Music Blogs
Today, I want to give you a look behind-the-scenes at my life as the founder and Bad-Emailer-in-Chief of a mid-level indie music blog. You’ll probably find this a little depressing. With personal email filtered out, here’s a picture of my inbox at around 2pm this past Friday: That image might be a little blurry (I […]
How to Release Your First Song
All right, we’re going to the mailbag. Last week, I asked for your music marketing questions, and the most common one you sent me was this: “How should I approach a release if it’s my first one?” Great question. We’ve all been there. The first time I released music, I submitted it to two music […]
I Quit My Job
Freaking out a little this week because I actually did it… I actually quit my job. Frick. If you’ve been reading for a while, you know this has been kind of a long time coming. I’ve run Two Story since 2016; it’s gained enough traction over that time to make quitting feel more like a “next […]