What Does it Mean to Be Successful?

I’ve been wondering lately what it would look like for my CD to be successful. In fact, a lot of people know that I just released a CD. The most common question I get is, “How’s the CD going?”

I’ve been very pleased with the exposure of my music thus far and I’m satisfied with where I am today, June 7, 2007. I’ve done a little bit of PR and some minor marketing. I’m planning a DIY publicity article very soon. It will be pretty much an open-source look at the marketing efforts of my music CD. I’m going to wait a little longer to see how much of it actually pays off. I think it could be more useful to people if they know what worked and what didn’t.

I think my previous standard of success for this CD went something like this:

If it pays for itself, I’ll be happy.

But today, I’m starting to really be unsatisfied with that as an achievement. In all honesty, I’m not really in this to break even. I’d love to be able to quit my day job and do that thing that I love to do full time. Whether this CD is the key that turns that lock, I don’t know. I would like to think this CD will do more than help me pay for the debt that it caused, though.

The other measure of success is something a little more personal and meaningful to me. I really would love to hear stories about people who find an emotional connection to one of these songs. I work hard to write songs that mean something and that make people think. I try to communicate thoughts and feelings from experiences but make them generic enough that the listener can super-impose the words onto their own lives. I heard a story last week about a co-worker of a friend who heard my CD and some of the music touched a nerve because, at that moment, the pain in her life was louder than the joy. Somehow, the music helped her.

Since different people have different opinions of what success means, I’ll try to account for that in my upcoming article.

And if you hear me on the radio, say so! I’ve received confirmation that I’ll be in regular rotation on Power 88 here in Colorado Springs starting next Tuesday.

Popularity: 5% [?]