by Alex Pham

If you're a musician, your magic number is 1,000.

That’s the number of “true fans” required to launch a band from being a night job to a day job, at least according to Kevin Kelly, who wrote a famous essay on the topic. The theory goes that if you can get 1,000 hard core fans to pay $100 a year to attend your concerts, purchase your songs and buy your T-shirts, you'd have a tidy $100,000 income. (Of course, there are minor details, such as expenses and the fact that there may be other people in your band. But that's a topic for another day.)

So where do you find fans, now that you’ve already recruited your parents, roommates and cousins to be your fans on Facebook?

We asked the industry pros who came to the New Music Seminar in Los Angeles on Tuesday for their best, non-obvious tricks for bagging new fans. We’ve distilled their advice into five quick tips.

1)    Play nice with search engines. So the obvious thing is to get people’s email address. One of the less obvious ways to get new fans is to have good [search engine optimization]. Thirty percent of new fans come from emails. But 30% come from Google or Yahoo. It’s people who are using search engines to find you. You need to make sure that if people look for you, they will find you.  – Ian Rogers, Topspin

 

2)    Use SMS texting. You can give away a song download or wallpaper or ringtone to people who text you their email address. Next time you’re playing  in town, you can tell them and let them in free if they bring three friends. So your 100 fans suddenly become 300 paying fans. With live concerts, the goal is to sell 300 tickets. That’s incredibly hard to do. – Tom Silverman, co-founder, New Music Seminar

3)    Buy a Facebook ad. "I spent $10 on a targeted Facebook ad and got 50,000 impressions and a good click-through rate. You can target only people who work at certain companies, like Google. You can target fans of other bands like yours. You can target only people in L.A. or San Francisco. So go to your band page on Facebook. There's a link that says, 'Get more fans. Promote your page.' Just click it." – Corey Denis, music marketing consultant, Not Shocking

4)    Speak to the fringe. "We had a client who spent 11 months out of the year sailing and one month recording an album.  Her songs were all about sailing. And she pitched her story to these boating and yachting magazines, and they all did these stories on her. She sold 10,000 albums a year, and most of them were to other sailors." – Derek Sivers, founder, CD Baby

5)    Talk to your fans. A lot of bands disappear when their show is over when what they really need to do is come out and talk to them. Have them engage in your show. Give them a video camera during the show and have them pass it around. Get their email addresses and then send them a notice when you post it so they can embed the video on their own sites. – Mike Doernberg, founder, ReverbNation

And as a reward for reading this far, here's a bonus tip from Silverman, whose credits include the creation of Tommy Boy Records, a record label for hip hop, dance and electronica bands:

6)    Develop your story. "Let’s take Susan Boyle. Her music was irrelevant. She was irrelevant. What sold her albums was her story. Of course, the music has to be good, too.  But there’s a lot of good music out there. But there aren’t a lot of good stories." 

Is DIY Suddenly DOA?

Artists have always needed fans - lots of them - but now more than ever, they need friends. Not groupies, but a group of smart individuals, or even - shockingly - a label.

But the broader theme was 'partner,' not just 'label,' during a Tuesday roundtable at the New Music Seminar in Los Angeles. "This is not about 'oh I need a label,' this is about, 'oh, I need a partner,'" TopSpin CEO Ian Rogers relayed. "The value chain is moving from what used to be artist-label-distributor-retailer-fan to artist-marketing partner-technology-fan. There are a lot of people who are going to be in that technology box, and there are a lot of people who are going to be in that marketing box."

Sounds perfectly logical, and other experts agreed. But the subtext was striking - suddenly, all the Long Tail, do-it-yourself zeal of previous years was getting updated by something more sensible and realistic.

Even by some of its more ardent supporters. "I'm tired, tired of hearing about DIY, I don't need a label crap. Tired of it," ReverbNation chief Michael Doernberg stated. "Because the truth is that everybody needs advisors. Everybody needs people to help them. Because when you get bigger, you need help. The question isn't 'do you need help?' - the question is, 'who?'"

And TuneCore? In the days leading up to the Seminar, Tommy Boy Silverman found himself in a high-profile spat with TuneCore CEO Jeff Price. The oft-unhealthy debate canvassed a few topics, including the extreme difficulties that artists face when trying to 'break,' whatever the definition of that is. Is a serious team and promotional firepower needed, or can a career get jump-started from scratch?

Price was not on hand, though the consensus seemed to fall somewhere in the middle. Indeed, Doernberg offered ReverbNation as a well-oiled technology partner, not a superhighway to DIY superstardom. In the end, 'experts agreed' that even the best DIY weapons need a supporting platoon, or at least a well-coordinated band of brothers. Other questions related to marketing firepower and financing may take some time to answer.

But what will this next-generation team look like? According to Rogers, different bands require different and customized support structures. But the manager will be a critical part of that future structure. "The manager is truly... the artist partner who quarterbacks and puts it together," Rogers noted.

But getting the right manager? That is a difficult challenge. The legendary fist-thumping, bus-touring manager of old suddenly needs digital credentials, and oftentimes, a more sophisticated resume. "Someone has to quarterback it all, and that takes strategy," Tommy stated. "There aren't that many good managers."

360 Deals Are Today’s “Record Deals”

 

By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition (www.WendyDay.com)

I gotta state right upfront that I am biased against 360 Deals. I understand WHY they exist, I just find them unfairly oppressive in the label’s favor in an industry with a draconic history of jerking artists out of money. I stopped negotiating deals for artists in 2005 because I refuse to do a 360 Deal for any artist! How strongly do you have to hate something to stop your own income over it?

In the early 2000s, the music industry went through a severe change. Music sales plummeted, the importance of the internet reigned supreme, and there was an influx of artists into the industry causing an over saturation never seen before. It’s gotten worse, not better, for the major record labels.

Once used to a healthy profit margin that afforded grand lifestyles for those at the top of the food chain, the major labels became disgruntled as sales dropped while they missed the boat on less profitable digital sales. Taking on the role of dinosaurs fighting for survival, they tried everything from stopping the new digital revolution, to fighting it, to suing it, to band wagon jumping too late. Nothing worked for them. And they still haven’t learned from their mistakes—they still continue to fight the ways the consumers want to receive their music.

So to justify their continuing existence, they decided to take an even larger share of the pie from the ONLY aspect of the equation that they controlled—the artist (or the “content” provided for digital download). Back in the day, labels took roughly 87% of the pie while giving the artists 12% of the money AFTER the artist paid back everything spent on them from that 12% share. This means that if the artist sold $500,000 worth of CDs, and it cost $50,000 to market and promote that CD (a very low example), the artist share of $60,000 (12% of $500k) would be divided between paying the label back that $50,000 and a check for the remaining $10,000. The label would receive $490,000 for its investment and belief in that artist while the artist made $10,000. In exchange for giving up the lion’s share of the sales, the labels always told the artists that they’d make 100% of the touring. Any show money, was the artist’s to keep!

When the shit hit the fan financially for the labels, they decided to tap into the show money, and all other streams of income for the artists, as well. After all, if your profit margin is made smaller, you need to eat more of everyone’s income to keep the fat cats at the top, and the stock holders, happy. Most 360 Deals share in endorsement income (15% to 30% depending on the artist), performance income (10% to 30% depending on the artist), merchandising income (20% to 50%) and Film/TV money (15% to 40%). Before I go any further, I have to thank Bob Celestin (Law Offices of Robert A Celestin www.raclawfirm.com) for supplying me a 360 Deal contract for an indie label and the good folks at Warner Bros Records for leaking me a major label contract for an artist’s 360 Deal. This enabled me to write about REAL contracts instead of just what I’d heard from lawyers, artists, and label folks.

How do labels justify taking an even BIGGER share of the pie from artists? They complain that they are doing all of the developing, investing, marketing, and promoting. Their argument is that they believe in the artist when the artist has nothing, and they feel that assuming the lion’s share of the risk should result in sharing in a lion’s share of the profit. If the label is developing and building the artist to a level of super stardom, they feel they have the right to share in a percentage of everything that super stardom affords the artist. So if they drive the artist platinum, they feel they should get a piece of the tour that came from the fame the label helped the artist build, and a piece of the endorsement deal or film income that came from the fame that the label helped build. I guess I could see this argument better, if I actually agreed that the labels did their jobs well of building artists.

I have a different vantage point of record labels. I see major labels based in tall glass buildings in NY and L.A. that have little interaction with the streets, fans, or the artists. I see them sign artists that have already started to build a buzz or sell music themselves, and then I see them sit back and let the artists’ teams continue to do much of the work themselves. I don’t see major labels taking much risk with their artists, but do continue to put them through a system that is almost an outdated cookie cutter version of how to sell CDs. The labels rarely interact with the fans and are quite out of touch about what the fans want or are willing to buy. They seem to create this assembly line of artists who all sound similar and fit a certain format at radio. They seem to throw a lot of music into the marketplace and work whatever catches on quickly and easily. Most labels do what’s best and easiest for the label, not what’s in the best interest of the artist. Now, in a way, it’s very unfair of me to make this sweeping generalization, because there are some amazing people who work inside of major labels and really go all out for the artists. But I find these people to be the exception, not the norm, and I also find them to be frustrated most of the time because they constantly have to fight with their bosses and the status quo to succeed on a project.

I also find that competitor labels usually hire the best people away from the labels who are experiencing some success, thereby breaking up the synergy within a team once they all learn to work well together. This is why a label like Def Jam or Universal could be so strong in the late 90s and yet be struggling to succeed today. I find that artists rarely look at the teams working at labels and just fiend for a record deal no matter the success of the label or who’s at the label (staff or other artists).

So labels got further away from the fans, the staffs got lazier or more frustrated (perhaps more work for less pay?), the artists took less risk because there were more of them and they were just happy to have a record deal, and the fans started expecting music for free because they could just download it if they didn’t feel like paying for it. Major labels continued reducing spending, slashing budgets, cutting pay, and signing “sure things” (whatever that means). And to justify the spending they were still doing, they decided to offer deals that cut into more of the artists’ income. The argument was that out of 50 artists signed to their label, only one was successful and funding the 49 losses. No other business on earth has such a backwards business model. Imagine if Ford built cars and accepted the fact that every model but the Taurus was meant to be a loss leader, and that the Taurus sales had to make up the loss of every other brand under their umbrella. Huh?

Or imagine if banks lent money for mortgages expecting 99% of the mortgages to default, and 1% of the mortgages were expected to make up the bank’s profits that year. Further imagine if each homeowner paying back their mortgage didn’t actually get to keep ownership of the house after their mortgage was paid back! The bank’s argument would be that they took all the risk on the house, so they should get to retain ownership. The people that lived in the house would still have to pay for all the repairs and upkeep, but the bank would own the house. That’s how the music industry is built. And the folks at the top with the most to lose are the ones fighting to keep this backwards system alive.

People ask me all the time what I think is wrong with the music business. I would like to blame our troubles on the greed of major labels, the proliferation of bad music that the fans don’t seem to want, or the free downloading of (stolen) music. But the truth is that if the artists didn’t agree to these incredibly bad deals, there would not be incredibly bad deals. If a bank existed that kept ownership of your house after you paid back your mortgage, you would never do business with that bank. Yet all day, every day, there is a long line of artists willing to sign their lives away to record labels because they don’t understand, or possibly don’t know about, the consequences. Or maybe they just don’t care. Maybe the need for fame overpowers the need for money…until they realize they aren’t making money but someone else is. I find that it takes artists 3 to 5 years to realize they are getting jerked. In that time, a lot of money is lost and one or two things happens: either the artist is replaced with a new artist willing to make less money, or the artist has enough value to renegotiate their deal and share a larger piece of the pie. Sometimes, they even start their own labels and repeat this onerous process with their own new, unknowing artist! They got jerked, so they turn around and jerk someone else.

But back to 360 Deals. This new model will exist until artists are willing to say “no!” and I don’t see any signs of that happening. What I do see happening are artists becoming more entrepreneurial, and instead of signing to major labels, I see them finding their own investors and building their own teams who can help them succeed. There are enough laid off employees of record labels who’ve experienced some success out here to hire to run and work at indie labels. There’s a huge void in the marketplace to deliver the kinds of music fans want…and that’s not just one kind of music.

What I learned from both the buzzes of Drake (lyrical mainstream artist who’ll succeed at radio) and Gucci Mane (not-so-lyrical street artist with gutter stories and experiences to share) is that fans still want music. Major labels are still slow to respond to the needs of the streets and the internet is only speeding up and splintering demand further. There’s still a market for good music that the fans want. Our job is to give it to them. And if we do so with a fair and equitable split of the profits, the artists can build lifetime careers and we can all make money!

I hear the artists who sign 360 Deals say that they feel they have to sign these deals because the label won’t work their projects if they don’t give up a bigger split. I hear the artists say they want the labels to help them land endorsement deals, major tours, and TV Shows and film roles—but I’ve yet to see a major label do this. Let’s be realistic, these major opportunities go to the biggest stars and the ones who apply themselves directly in those alternate areas. If you hire a film agent, and take acting lessons, you may get increased roles in film and TV. If you increase your fame through music sales, your endorsement opportunities increase. Beyonce landed a Revlon contract because she was a star, Revlon did not make her a star. How many new artists are the major labels building to be stars? In 2009, it was Taylor Swift and Susan Boyle out of all of the releases that came and went. And neither of them were developed by the major label system—one was a product of an indie label and the other a product of a TV show. The majors had access because they did deals with middlemen and then applied their systems behind those movements that were already happening. Maybe that really is the job of a major label in today’s environment.

In my opinion, a 360 Deal is an excuse for a major label to take a bigger piece of the pie without doing any additional work. It’s insurance on their part. If the artist does blow up by chance, it gives them more opportunity to make a bigger cut. And that’s just smart business. I guess if they called it what it really is, I’d be less annoyed by it: the price of doing business with a major label. If they played a bigger role in building overall success, I’d be happy to see them share in a bigger piece of the pie at the end of the day.

Example of a “360 Deal” Artist (this is not an actual artist example):

Male rapper based in Atlanta with a strong following. He has his own team of inexperienced friends and family around him and a very strong street following. The DJs, fans, other artists and industry are supporting him and propelling him forward. With no real single or CD in the marketplace, demand is high—he’s getting $30,000 a show and performing three or four times a week for the past few months. This will last about 6 months, approximately. He’s put out a series of mixed CDs, for free, over the past year. The label signed him a year ago to a 360 Deal but hadn’t begun to promote him yet because their roster was full. The artist got tired of waiting and began putting out a new mixed CD every month to build his buzz.

Advance: $75,000
Album Budget once popularity increased: $350,000
Recoupable Marketing and Promotions: $750,000
Monthly Show Income: $420,000
Endorsement Deal: $50,000

Album comes out and sells a total of 350,000 copies (it was a very commercial album but the artist had been very street, almost gutter, up to the point of his album release so fans didn’t really embrace the album as expected).

Album income for label: $3.5 million
Artists’ Share after Recouping: negative balance of $405,000
$750,000 + $75,000 = $825,000
12% of $3.5 mill = $420,000
$825,000 - $420,000 = $405,000
Artist’s endorsement Deal Share: $37,500
75% of $50,000
Artists Share of Touring Income: $1,764,000
70% of $420,000 x 6 months
Artists Share of Publishing Income (50%): $100,000 (estimate of mechanicals and ASCAP/BMI royalties)

Income for Label: $4,773,500 gross income on an investment of $825,000
$3,500,000 sales
$405,000 recoupment
$12,500 endorsement income
$756,000 tour/show income
+ $100,000 publishing income
$4,773,500 gross income
Less Staff costs
Less Day to Day operating expenses
Less Taxes

Income For Artist: $1,122,375 income
$37,500 endorsement income
$1,764,000 tour income
+$100,000 publishing income
$1,901,500 sub total
-$405,000 recoupment
$1,496,500 gross income
Less 20% management fee
Less 5% Business Manager fee (Accountant)
Less Tour costs/legal costs/tour manager/DJ/Operating expenses/taxes

Let’s compare gross incomes…
Artist made 1.5 million while label made 4.7 million
Artist share: 24%
Label share: 76%

Let’s compare Net incomes before taxes…
Artist made approximately $1 million while the label made approximately $4.5 million
Artist share: 18%
Label share: 82%

If the label is taking all of the risk (they are not), putting up all of the money in all of the right places (they are not), devoting all of their attention to this one artist (they are not), and doing most of the work (they are not), then this business model makes sense for everyone involved. But if the artist is doing the bulk of the work, risking their career in the hands of the label, and coming out of their own pocket for many expenses, then this business model is hugely skewed in favor of the major label.

 

Follow Wendy Day on Twitter @RapCoalition

by Sebastian Samuels

That’s the truth, when it comes to licensing your music to make money from it not all clients are worth the time and effort. You must choose your clients wisely and stick to the ones that will make you the most money.

There are clients out there that will will nickle and dime you for everything. Discounting off of this and off of that and the end result is you put in so much of your precious time and what did you get out of it? 150 dollars and 6 hours of wasted time. Not worth it. When you calculate the time it boils down to 25 bucks an hour. When you’re desperate then maybe that’s worth it but you must choose your clients carefully and go after projects that will bring you 150 dollars in 15 minutes or 1000 dollars in 15 minutes. Those are the types of clients projects you should be involved with.

A good musician friend once was complaining to me about this client he had. The client was producing online videos for a big global event that was going to draw major views. He had mentioned he’d delivered almost a hundred tracks to this client and he already hadn’t selected any of the tracks to license yet. This was for a prior project. I was like that’s too much of a waste of time and you it’s time to move on from that client. My friends music was awesome and the highest quality recordings. I would have used his music. My friend also mentioned that this client is very cheap. When I heard how much money he was paying my friend, I was like dude just move on already he’s not worth your time but my friend continued trying to please this waste of a time client. The client would complain to my friend all the time that he only paid 100 bucks a cut at other companies or to other artists but my friend negotiated 150 bucks a cut.

So the client contacted my friend for this big project and he was needing about 20 cuts for these online videos of this big global event. My friend started delivering many of his tracks for these videos and the client kept complaining that none of the tracks are working. So my friend delivered many, many more and finally after delivering over a 150 tracks in a one month period this client picked one track and still complained that alot of the tracks are just not working for his videos.

When my friend was telling me this story I was like dude come on it’s not worth your time and energy to try and please this very cheap and picky client, move on already.

And you know what that’s the truth, move on. Just come right out and tell the guy it’s not working out and the relationship is just not going anywhere. So my friend finally told the guy to just keep the tracks he had sent him (by now it was in the ballpark of 300+ since he had delivered tracks for two different projects) and he will not deliver anymore. If he ever wanted to license any of the other cuts and that was fine but he wont be delivering any other tracks.

So be careful when choosing clients and go after the ones that are going to make you the most money when it comes to music licensing. Stay away from the clients that are really cheap and the clients that will even complain about a penny. Those are the worst ones to be working with!

For more information on how to license your music in TV and Films check out my free newsletter by going to HowToLicenseYourMusic.Com

Ariel’s Top 6 Facebook Apps for Musicians

6 Apps that will make your Fanpage ROCK!
6 Apps Every Musician Needs to Know About
The Best 6 Facebook Fanpage Apps For Bands and Musicians

Have a fanpage but still not sure how to make it pop?

Here are six Apps that will set you n the right path, help you to stand out from the pack and keep your fans engaged and interested in you on a consistent basis.

1) Involver – http://involver.com

The people at Involver are masters of fan page branding. They offer two applications from their gallery free of charge (they have some wonderfully tiered packages, but those will cost you). I would recommend installing the Twitter and YouTube applications on your page, but there are other great ones as well. Your fans will then be able to see you last 5 tweets and last 6 YouTube videos right from your Facebook fan page.

*Check out the free app gallery here: http://involver.com/gallery.html

2) iLike Music Tab – http://tinyurl.com/FacebookiLikeApp

One of the premiere music applications for fan pages. One great feature that iLike exclusively provides is the ability to load a large, MySpace-esqe banner. It is somewhat difficult to currently brand yourself visually on facebook (without spending a lot of $), but this is a good start.

This app plays music, shows your Twitter feed, has links to purchase songs, etc. In order to create on one these you need an iLike account: http://ilike.com

3) ReverbNation - My Band - http://tinyurl.com/FacebookMyBand

There is a lot of overlap between My Band and iLike. The main functions that separate My Band are the merchandise options (fans can buy merch right from this tab), and the newsletter/street team sign up box.

*If you do not have a newsletter management service or widgets that you currently using throughout your web presence, I would start to get acclimated with ReverbNation, and use My Band on your FB Fan page.

If you are already using a newsletter management service and have your widget situation covered, iLike is the way to go because of the beautiful branding opportunity with the large horizontal image.

4) Poll Daddy Polls - http://tinyurl.com/facebookpolldaddy

Poll Daddy Polls feature both private polls that only your friends can see, and public ones that you can share with all of your fans. This is a great way to poll your fan base and see what they really want!

5) Selective Tweets - http://tinyurl.com/SelectiveTweet

Update your Facebook Status from Twitter but only for the tweets you choose. This is a great tool for musicians who want to save time but still want to be selective.

Just end each tweet with #fb when you also want to update your Facebook Fan Page status.

*It doesn’t work if your tweets are protected.

6) Twitter/Facebook synch - http://tinyurl.com/TwitterTweetFB

*For personal pages, not fan pages

Many people ask me about this, so I wanted to include it. This links your tweets with the status updates on your personal profiles, not your fan pages.

via arielpublicity.com

by Chris Brogan

Are you hoping to connect with bloggers and get the word out about your product or service? Are you hoping that you can find someone who’s interested in what your company is offering, and then share the pertinent details so that hopefully the blogger will write a decent story about you, maybe even include a few links? Have you felt frustrated by the varied and less-than-successful experiences you’ve had with your efforts?

Let’s talk about it.

Do Your Homework

All bloggers aren’t the same. Big numbers don’t mean big response. Just because someone writes about X doesn’t mean that your product is actually X to them. Bloggers can be fickle and often work to the beat of their own drum.

I get dozens of pitches a day. I delete almost all of them unread, unless I know the person, and then half the time, I delete those, too. The reason is that people aren’t considering what I write about before pitching to me. I rarely ever cover software here, so if you’re showing me a software story, it damned well better have a human angle.

The same is true for any of the bloggers you need to reach. Not sure where to find the bloggers you need? Use these resources:

• Alltop – the Internet’s magazine rack.
• Google Blogsearch – search by topic.
• Twitter Search – find bloggers by what they tweet about.
• Postrank Topics – search by topic.

Once you have a sense of who you might want to reach for your stories, it’s all about building relationships.

Be There Before the Sale

This is something Julien and I wrote about in Trust Agents, and it’s the first part of making your blogging outreach more successful. If you want people to write about you, they should probably know about you first. Quick ways to get that started:

• Follow them on Twitter.
• Comment on their blog posts.
• Set up Google Alerts and comment on related articles.

Is this more work than just blanketing someone with email and hoping a few write about it? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes.

The trick is not to talk about your stuff. You should have started this outreach weeks and weeks before ever needing anything, and it should be genuine. Be interested in the people you hope will take an interest in you.

Make It Easy

People that I like in the outreach department work to find the people who she thinks make the most sense for the story. They deliver tons of information and preparation. They do lots of checking and double-checking (because bloggers can be fickle or forgetful). They make everything as seamless as possible. Some ideas:

• Make everything dead simple.
• (Tyler in the comments suggested) Be clear what you want the outcome of the outreach to be.
• Provide URLs to everything, so that bloggers can refer.
• Provide photos to go with the piece, or a video, or whatever other content.
• Keep your outreach emails brief, and keep the details highlighted and bolded appropriately.
• Make sure your FIRST email does nothing but get the buy-in to pitch the story.

Let’s pause on that last point. Some people disagree. They want the whole pitch in the first email, because two becomes a clutter. I’ve honestly seen it done both ways. I know that when Cathy sends me an email asking to pitch me, I’m going to ask for the pitch. I’ve seen others send me the pitch in the first email and it’s been okay, but more often than not, I prefer the two-email system. You can dispute this. Really.

To me, making the effort simple is a good thing.

Ask the Right Questions

I’m often given business books to review. I’m a voracious reader, and I like sharing the good ones with people. However, I also tell people who send me books that I don’t guarantee a review. Sometimes, the book is okay, but not my favorite. Other times, I really don’t like the book. If the people who send me the book ever push for a review, I usually explain that it might not be as positive as they’d like. As an author, myself, I don’t like giving bad reviews.

To that end, think about some questions that might let you have some guidance on how the blogger acts.

• Can you tell me how long it takes to post from when you receive the product?
• May I check back in a few weeks from now?
• What do you do with negative reviews?
• If you have disagreements or problems with the product, could you email me first to make sure you have all the information?

Questions like this and others can be really helpful to you setting your own expectations.

Above All Else, Don’t Push

If not this story, the next one. Believe me, relationships in this space run long and weird.

Christina Pacelli from Red reached out to me to cover the Eye Fi (a USB-to-wifi cool gadget) over a year ago. She sent me one. I couldn’t really get over my own techno-idiocy to make it work. A year later, Christina and team got smart and mailed me a new Eye-Fi (still have the old one, by the way) and a Novatel Mifi device (which acts like a wandering hotspot). Combined with BOTH, I’ll be able to use this product on the show floor at my next event and report back what I think of its benefits to various groups.

A year. Christina has been politely persistent for a year. And it will pay off. (Who knows? Maybe the links already make it pay off.)

Don’t push bloggers, and just accept that sometimes the story doesn’t hit. I’ve had a series of situations where things seemed right, and upon checking them out, I just didn’t feel good about blogging it, or wasn’t moved to blog it, etc. As the person pushing that particular product, I’m sure it doesn’t feel well when your push goes nowhere. I’m so sorry when I’m the cause. I imagine bloggers also have their own reasons and feel bad, too.

In most cases, it comes around to the better at some point. This is a long game for lots of us. Be patient. Learn who doesn’t work out. Move onward.

An Imprecise Science

There’s more to it than all this, but this is a good start. If you’ve questions, I can definitely add more. What do you think? What have you tried that’s worked? What else have I missed?

Shouts to OzoneMag.com 4 the post!