A year ago, I picked up an injured cardinal on the side of the road. I took it to a wildlife rehab center in my city. I wrote a post about it. On a whim, at the end of the post, I accepted PayPal donations for the rehab center. I got over $900 in three days. The two women who started the center cried when they received the check.

Weeks later, we had a conversation about their fundraising. They’ve always done it the same old way. Bake sales and benefit concerts. Both introverts, they loathe benefit concerts. In fact, they detest fundraising. Their talent is rehabilitating owls and hawks, and many other wild animals that have been shot, hit by cars, or wounded by some other human contact.

I offered that they eliminate the Bake Sale paradigm from their business model. (You gotta bake a lot of muffins to raise $900.) “Start a blog!” I said. I suggested that one of their volunteers could write daily reports about different animals. She could add photos for every story to create connection and heart. I explained how blog software links up and networks, and how Google eats it all up. I said that their donations could now come from across the globe - not just from the locals.

They were interested. But they told me they didn’t have the time or the resources to do a whole new thing in their lives as they could barely keep up with the work they do already. They have not started a blog, nor have they changed their website.

Muffin, anyone?

New Success Requires Letting Go of Old Paradigms

Here’s the Indie Musician’s version of the Bake Sale paradigm:

Find ways to get money to make a CD. Use credit cards. Ask your mailing list to pre-order CD’s. Then, make the CD. Go on the road for at least two years doing shows to support the CD. Borrow more money for promotion. Pay back debt and hopefully make extra money, too. Hope for Big Shows, opening act slots and festivals - along with all the other musicians.

It’s not a bad paradigm at first. I’ve always made my money back on my CD’s. I’ve obviously made a pretty good living at it. Lots of my friends have as well. Many people barely scrape by, though. And the rest of us get tired of the constant touring. Some nights we get sold out crowds. Some nights the seats are half full. Sometimes we drive 8 hours to get to the next gig, only to wake up and do it again. By 35, we look like Keith Richards.

And of course, the new issue is that lots of people aren’t buying CD’s anymore - especially on college campuses. (At one college last fall, many of the students had their laptops open during my performance. One of them actually admitted to being on Limewire and downloading my songs for free as I was playing.)

As careers get better, you might make more money, but you then have to subtract 20% for agents, and 20% for managers. And take into consideration that retail store CD sales offer pretty low profit. You have to stay on the road and keep feeding that paradigm. It’s a hungry paradigm.

An Example of The New Paradigm

So, what’s the new paradigm?

The thing is, there isn’t one yet. And there may never be. What it’s really all about is a new way of thinking, and a whole new set of ideas directed towards new kinds of goals. And there’s a feeling that happens when you start to “get it.” There’s the internet and all of its conversations and ways of reaching people.

I started my blog two years ago this week. My blog audience is not songwriters. I don’t write about the craft of songwriting, even though that would’ve been an obvious choice for me. My blog audience is my music audience. My posts don’t appeal to anyone in the music business, necessarily. Nor are they designed to publicize my music. I started writing my blog mostly to continue the conversations I was having with people as I signed their CD’s after each show. That’s it.

So, here’s what’s shaping up to be typical of my new paradigm:

I wrote a post about my personal experience of creating a Vision Board at a friend’s house. It was months before The Secret DVD came out. Upon the release of that DVD, people began to Google “Vision Board.” My blog post was the very first thing that came up. (If you Google “Vision Board” today, my follow-up post on the subject is on top.)

At that time, I was facilitating my retreats for women once or twice a year. I only offered them to my mailing list. At my October 2006 retreat - seven months after my blog was born - two women who had never heard my music or seen me perform attended. This was the first time that had happened. They had found my blog after they saw The Secret, and went to Google to find Vision Boards. Then they started reading my blog. Then they came to a retreat. They bought my music there. I still see them when I tour to their city for shows, etc. (One of them is going on a beach trip this summer with the other women from that retreat. They’ve all stayed in touch.)

In 2007, I offered four retreats. It was the most I had ever offered in one year. They all sold out, and each retreat was attended by a handful of people who had discovered my music because they found my blog first.

At the retreat I facilitated this past weekend, (2008) over half the women attending had found my blog first. This same expansion has been happening at performances as well - though I don’t make the audience raise their hands or anything. Mostly people tell me about it at the CD table after the show.

The Siren Call of the Old Paradigm

If you’re creating a new paradigm, you might have many days where you just want to give up and do it the old way. This has been my biggest challenge.

In fact, most music biz people aren’t all that thrilled about my new paradigm example because it seems like a painfully long wait for someone to “discover” you. It’s also lots of extra work, they say. After all, you can perform at a festival and stand up in front of 5000 people. Or you can get on NPR and the whole country can hear you! Why not invest your time and effort into that?

The festival thing is valid. You really do build your audience when you play at festivals. And nothing can propel a show into a sell-out like a great interview on a local NPR or community radio station. I won’t deny that.

However, if you have a new CD and you want to get it out to NPR, then most radio promoters begin at $8000 for a several week push. Several weeks is all you get. And most of them do little more than put some postage on your CD and send it to the stations, then follow up with a phone call about your CD (and the other four CD’s they’re getting paid $8000 a piece to promote that week). And since NPR is the only thing in the world music business not owned by Clear Channel, that’s what everyone is thinking. Every single person who’s releasing a CD - from Lucinda Williams to your cousin Travis - is looking to NPR for their airplay.

Festivals are cool. There are a handful of great ones. But they’re only in the summer. And most of them don’t want the same artists year after year. And most of them are heavily booked by certain agencies that offer deals to the promoters for booking more than one of their artists. If you do get in the line up, you have one hour to do great. And then you need to follow up in that same community later in the coming year, and promote the show well. In other words, one festival doth not a career make.

Besides, this old paradigm is driven by the agents and the managers and the promoters. The new paradigm is more fun. It’s artist driven. It’s reader driven. It gives me the option of doing it how I want to do it. I am not only wealthier now. I am also decidedly happier. Just ask my closest friends.

(My retreats are all in my hometown, by the way. No travel.)

The Unavoidable Challenges of Two Paradigms

I’m on line a lot. I read blogs. I get eBooks. When I can, I study anything from on-line marketing to code writing to WordPress plug-ins. When I’m in this world - even though I’ve learned a lot - I’m a moron. Everyone knows more than I do. This world is filled with on-line marketing secret formulas , mixed up with lots of code and Google analytics. I bow to the gurus so I can monitor all the changes. It is a big world.

Then, I turn off my computer and do a performance. Or I go to a radio interview. Then, I wonder where all those people in that on-line world live. In this other off-line world, lots of people still use AOL. And in terms of computer know-how, I’m Steve freakin’ Jobs. In this arena, I say the name “Seth Godin,” and I’m met with blank stares. I say “Brian Clark” and the stares get blanker. In fact, in this arena, many of the presenters, DJ’s, promoters, and managers are a bit disdainful towards my on-line-ness. One radio interviewer got an attitude when we were on the air. He asked me why he or any of his listeners should care that I have a blog or that I’m ranked on Technorati. (He pronounced Technorati wrong.)

So, I’ll be the first to admit that moving over to a new paradigm will take some courage, some weird looks, and some mistakes. And it might mean you feel a little on your own. And for a while, it may even mean less income. But as Seth Godin said in his oft-linked-to music business talk,

“The only way you get from here to there is to just do it. Now, you might be wrong. But the alternative is you WILL be wrong.”

He’s right.

tags: blog, blogging, google, seth godin, online marketing, music, christine kane

Alison Lee has a wildly popular podcast called Craftcast. She’s all about creativity, crafting, art, music, and writing. She’s also a great interviewer. Her guests have ranged from best-selling authors like SARK to celebrated musicians like Gabrielle Roth to fabulous artists like Claudine Hellmuth. I am honored to be her guest on this week’s Craftcast Podcast. Our conversation is a lot about creativity, a little about building a career, and all about being a pioneer.

Click here to listen.

Here are a few photos from my four day adventure in Florida.

Of course, any road trip has to start with the look my dog gives me as I’m walking out the door with my suitcase…

I got bumped into First Class on my USAirways flight to Orlando. This was mighty exciting.

One time, my friend Joy took a picture of her First Class seat and sent it to me on my cell phone. She was so excited that she didn’t care what all the grumpy business men in first class thought of someone taking a photo of her own seat.

I was excited. But I couldn’t bring myself to actually take the photo!

On Friday morning, I drove to the WMNF studios in Tampa for the Live Music Showcase with Bill Dudley and Nell Abram.

It’s a challenge to sing and do an hour-long interview at 9am. Luckily, WMNF is just about the best station out there - so it makes it worth it. The interview was fun. And everyone at the station was unbelievably kind. (Julie Scheid at the front desk even printed out directions to the Wild Oats, so I could go find some Kombucha for my lunch!)

This the Friday Morning Musicale, a 400 seat theatre in the Hyde Park area of Tampa. I found my way there in spite of MapQuest’s attempt to make me turn right into the Hillsbrough River.

I took this photo as we were getting ready for sound check.

Someone borrowed my camera and took this picture during the show. (Apparently, there were two of me.)

On Saturday I drove across the Everglades - with Carl Hiassen on the iPod - over to Ft. Lauderdale for a show at the Labyrinth Cafe. This shot is after the show. It’s me with two of my favorite music promoters in the world - Susan Moss (left) who promotes the Labyrinth shows, and Cindy Edwards (right) who came all the way down from Sitka, AK just to see me play. (She surprised me by walking right up to me as I was about to get on stage. She’s the promoter I work with in Sitka. And she happened to be in Florida for the week.) I love these two women!

Dinner at midnight after the show at the Peter Pan Diner (Restaurant, Bakery and Lounge - now there’s a classy joint!)

Susan’s dog Rocky - the bad-assest Shih Tzu in the whole state of Florida. (And I’m not just saying that.)

I drove about 20 miles under the speed limit the whole way back across the Everglades because I couldn’t stop watching the birds. I got honked at and flipped off several times by angry pickup truck drivers who had more important things to do than smile at the herons. I happened to see this alligator in time to pull over and take a picture.

My Sunday evening show was at 6pm. A house concert at one of the most beautiful homes I’ve ever seen. It was designed by the owner himself and will be featured in Dwell Magazine someday, I’m sure.

Even though time was pretty tight, I got to take a boat ride out on Lake Tarpon right before the show. (One of my mantras is “My kingdom for a boat ride.”) We did a brief ride down an inlet so I could see the way Florida used to look before ol’ Walt came and paved it over. (…she says as she moves her Complaint-Free-World bracelet over to the other wrist.)

A House Concert is a concert in someone’s home. This particular series is promoted by Craig Huegel - who sells the tickets and presents the shows in different homes in the community. (Spacious homes work well!) As you can see, the view is spectacular. I took this before the show…

Eddie Hoffman took this during the show…

At the end of the performance, I took pictures of the audience. Aren’t they a beautiful bunch?

I would conclude with a photo of my dog upon my arrival to my house. But she refused to sit still for a photo at such an eventful moment.

On Saturday night, my friend David LaMotte and I did a special performance at the Grey Eagle Music Hall in Asheville, NC. Though we’ve been friends since forever, we rarely perform together.

The show was totally sold out. And I’ll go ahead and let you know that you missed a riveting version of Extreme’s More Than Words. (We played it in honor of a wedding gig that we did at back in the mid-90’s.) Though I did my best Nuno Bettencourt on the guitar, we still managed to giggle our way through it.

I think there may have been lighters held high out in the crowd.

And yes - as some of you read in the comments on the last post - we did an acoustic on-demand version of Dancing Queen.

Anyway, the highlight of the evening was when David read a new poem he wrote. When he finished, the crowd applauded and woo-hooed wildly for a good three-minutes. It made tears come to my eyes. I asked David to let me reprint it here for my blog readers. It’s better to hear David read it himself - but you can read it aloud if that helps!

White Flour

by David LaMotte

(a true story about events that occurred on May 26, 2007. © 2007 Lower Dryad Music)

The day was bright and sunny as most May days tend to be
In the hills of Appalachia down in Knoxville, Tennessee
The men put on their uniforms and quickly took their places
In white robes and those tall and pointed hoods that hid their faces

Their feet all fell in rhythm as they started their parade
They raised their fists into the air, they bellowed and they brayed
They loved to stir the people up, they loved when they were taunted
They didn’t mind the anger, that’s precisely what they wanted

As they came around the corner, sure enough, the people roared
They couldn’t quite believe their ears, it seemed to be – support?
Had Knoxville finally seen the light, were people coming ‘round?
The men thought for a moment that they’d found their kind of town

But then they turned their eyes to where the cheering had its source
As one their faces soured as they saw the mighty force
The crowd had painted faces, and some had tacky clothes
Their hair and hats outrageous, each had a red foam nose

The clowns had come in numbers to enjoy the grand parade
They danced and laughed that other clowns had come to town that day
And then the marchers shouted, and the clowns all strained to hear
Each one tuned in intently with a gloved hand to an ear

“White power!” screamed the marchers, and they raised their fisted hands
The clowns leaned in and listened like they couldn’t understand
Then one held up his finger and helped all the others see
The point of all this yelling, and they joined right in with glee

“White flour!” they all shouted and they felt inside their clothes
They pulled out bags and tore them and huge clouds of powder rose
They poured it on each other and they threw it in the air
It got all over baggy clothes and multi-colored hair

All but just a few of them were joining in the jokes
You could almost see the marchers turning red beneath white cloaks
They wanted to look scary, they wanted to look tough
One rushed right at the clowns in rage, and was hauled away in cuffs

But the others chanted louder marching on around the bend
The clowns all marched along with them supporting their new friends
“White power!” came the marchers’ cry — they were not amused
The clowns grew still and thoughtful; perhaps they’d been confused?

They huddled and consulted, this bright and silly crowd
They listened quite intently, then one said “I’ve got it now!”
“White flowers!” screamed the happy clown and all the rest joined in
The air was filled with flowers, and they laughed and danced again

“Everyone loves flowers! And white’s a pretty sort!
I can’t think of a better cause for marchers to support!”
Green flower stems went flying like small arrows from bad archers
White petals covered everything, including the mad marchers

And then a very tall clown called the others to attention
He choked down all his chuckles, and said “Friends I have to mention
That what with all the mirth and fun it’s sort of hard to hear
But now I know the cause that these strange marchers hold so dear

“Tight showers!” the clown blurted out, and hit his head in wonder
He held up a camp shower and the others all got under
Or at least they tried to get beneath, they strained but couldn’t quite
There wasn’t room for all of them, they pushed, but it was tight

“White Power!” came their marchers’ cry, quite carefully pronounced
The clowns consulted once again, then a woman clown announced
“I’ve got it! I’m embarrassed that it took so long to see
But what these marchers march for is a cause quite dear to me!”

“Wife power!” she exclaimed and all the other clowns joined in
They shook their heads and laughed at how mistaken they had been
The women clowns were hoisted up on shoulders of the others
Some pulled on wedding dresses, “Here’s to wives and mothers!”

The men in robes were angry and they knew they’d been defeated
They yelled a few more times and then they finally retreated
And when they’d gone a black policeman turned to all the clowns
And offered them an escort to the center of the town

The day was bright and sunny as most May days tend to be
In the hills of Appalachia down in Knoxville, Tennessee
People joined the new parade, the crowd stretched out for miles
The clowns passed out more flowers and made everybody smile

And what would be the lesson of that shiny southern day?
Can we understand the message that the clowns sought to convey?
Seems that when you’re fighting hatred, hatred’s not the thing to use
So here’s to those who march on in their massive, silly shoes

My new CD is called “A Friday Night in One Lifetime.” (Click here to get it.)

Lots of people told me that they actually tried to put my DVD into their car stereos so they could listen to it on their way to work. Many of you might snicker at such blatant non-technical behavior - but it sounded like something I would probably try!

Alas, DVD players and CD players are not Equal Opportunity Devices.

So, seeing as how I’ve learnt (you can use this word in Australia) all about customer service, I went back into the studio to create a CD version of the performance. (Actually, Van Atkins did all the work. I just watched him and bought lunch a lot.)

Here’s the deal:

It’s a double-CD of a live performance. It’s the same performance that’s on my DVD — but there are a few more stage stories and banter moments on the CD. (And each one gets its own track - so you don’t have to listen to them every time!)

This CD was also re-mixed and re-mastered for better stereo listening.

You can buy it today. Right now. Just click here.

My shopping cart has free shipping too!

p.s. I’m performing in Raleigh-Durham this weekend on Friday night. And Hampton, VA on Saturday night. If you live nearby - or if you know anyone that lives nearby - show the mainstream media that blogs have power! Come join me!

p.p.s. Thank you!!