The best thank you note I got this year was a 16-word email. But before we unpack what made it special, we need to talk…

Fellow perfectionists, I invite you to imagine the following scenario: you just printed a huge, adhesive sticker. It’s the height of a fully grown hobbit, and feels like a perfect, two-dimensional newborn (“they have your eyes!”). Now, imagine slowly unpeeling it, heart pounding, painfully aware that you have one chance to get it right. To your horror, the sticker begins clinging desperately to every surface it can find, including your skin, your clothes, and itself.

I’ll never forget the first time I took myself on an artist date. Okay, to be honest, I forget most of the details. But I’ll never forget how it felt. The clarity! The creative freedom! The subversive undertones. It was my first taste of anti-productivity.

A high stakes barter exchange takes place in my apartment every morning. My cat, Zart, has determined that the fair market value of one (1) hour of additional sleep in the morning is equivalent to ¼ cup of dry food. Most recently, he has stipulated that ½ can of wet food can be exchanged for two (2) hours of additional sleep. If neither of these goods appear in his bowl at 6AM, I will not receive any additional sleep.

My measuring stick for rising inflation is the cost of an iced oat milk vanilla matcha latte. It used to be $5, then $6, now a harrowing $7. Every time I reach the checkout screen, a familiar, condescending voice comes blaring through my head:

Being transparent with your followers, friends, and family is scary. I’ll go first:

Social media is important for artists because it helps connect you to a larger community of audience members and supporters. On the other hand, managing social media can be a big drain of your time and energy, especially when we’re already looking at screens for a large part of the day. It can also make you feel guilty – you may feel like you should actually be spending more time in rehearsal or in the studio, working on your practice, instead of being on social media.

In the ever expanding digital world where it can be challenging to understand how you can let others know about your work, cross promotion can be an important mindset and tool. Cross promotion is when you work with another person or group to mutually expand your networks by sharing their work with your audience and vice versa.

A social media presence is one important method by which your audience can engage with your art. However, it can be tough to grow that follower list. There are so many social media platforms and so many tactics that you can take to increase your reach. At times it can feel like you are just throwing spaghetti into the void trying to increase that list. Here, we’ll cover the challenges you may face while trying to grow your followers and what you can do to overcome them.

For years, as an indie music artist I have researched and practiced building my own brand. Workshops, books, influencers in the world of indie music, and even academic courses teach the components of branding in terms of look, sound, story, message, etc. As it's known, even though it can sometimes be grouped into unappealing thoughts associated with “marketing”, “branding” is a necessary and powerful component to be able to share our art with the world.