I've had this website for just under 4 months and it's been a struggle, let me assure you. It's noble to chart your own course and sounds great to be a FULLY independent artist, but maaaan...it's really not easy! One of the good things about Bandcamp was that it was basically turn-key and they had their own staff to constantly do marketing, and SEO stuff, and their own app, and promos, and all of that, and all the artist had to do was just make music and post it when ready. Granted, having your own website is definitely freedom, and it's especially nice that when I make sales that I get 100% of it (compared to only 80% with BC), but it comes with the extra labor of having to do all of the other stuff that BC or other sites throw in so that you can focus on just the music...
BUT...
I have to remind myself why I left in the first place, which amounted to how I was rudely treated and temporarily censored by them, which made me feel at their mercy (which, in truth, I was), and so I would rather struggle again, lose about 10-15 followers with each email newsletter I send (and I've hardly sent that many) since started this site back in late November 2020. Sales have also been super slow (without the algorithmic power of BC), but I can also attribute that to not having released a single, EP, or album as yet...well, I have knocked out two remixes, but they were for other artists who hired me, so I couldn't release them on my site lol
Look, I'm not complaining at all, and I'm blessed to still have people still following me on here, even though it's not as convenient as BC was, and I know a lot of you lost the music that was easily accessible in BC collections ALTHOUGH I did address that and replace the music for anyone who lost it, because good customer service is a big thing for me and I want everyone who supported me to continue to have access to my work which you graciously invested in. The paid subscriber feature was also a thing I have to rectify here because Stripe, who handles those transactions, was going to arbitrarily delay them on my site, yet there was no issue when they were handling them on BC, so I temporarily suspended it here, even at the cost of losing residual monthly income...
BUT...
I know that EVERYTHING IS FOR A REASON...and I am THANKFUL for my die-hard supporters, and even grateful for those who drop off, because I can at least distinguish between the real ones vs the bandwagoners. I know that anything great never came easy and so I'll take the less popular path, just as I did 10 years ago when I created my debut project...an instrumental-only, slow, non-mainstream radio friendly 6-track EP I called...
The
AftEr
2Am
SesSions
EP
which I will now reveal that I named, in part, not just because it was a slow, instrumental project of compositions I made usually late at night, but also to create the word "tease" within the title lol Thus began my game of double entendres with many of my releases, just to make things interesting and make people think (plus, being born on a numerically-interesting bday like 02/22/77, I couldn't resist playing with the concept of double meanings)...but never playing with second-guessing the quality of whatever I created.
Anyway, I'm just writing, venting...whatever you want to call it. I want to make this more of a habit of keeping you all engaged while on this website, but I'll also work on writing and showcasing way more fun and engaging things, because dialogue is way more fun than monologuing.
And please do support the recent remixes I've put out, on the platforms that the labels I did them for put them on, even though I don't see that money until further down the line through royalties that take a while to add up...but it's about the consistency of releasing quality music, and I'm thankful to be sought after to create such work for others. And I'm looking forward to finally releasing my first self-produced tracks on here to finally share and get some activity going on here, because that's the whole point of having the freedom of this online space, right?
Okay, let me get back to it. Actually...let me also include content I normally upload on Instagram as well! Can't just post all the good stuff there! lol
–AS