As the calendar turns and reveals a new year, it’s a good time for looking ahead, evaluating the past and journaling the present.

My entire Facebook newsfeed is filled with pithy farewells, acknowledgments, confessions of fandom and even a few nasty condemnations. The impact that Michael Jackson had on my generation is immeasurable, I’m convinced.

A musician without a label or an author without a formal publisher doesn’t have the publicity machine that gets their “signed” colleagues noticed. They often have to rely on word of mouth for at least a good portion of their publicity.