You Scratch My Back
You see, I am getting a little weary of having my music languish in obscurity. The few comments and reviews I receive, along with my own uninformed and utterly biased opinion, have convinced me that my music shouldn’t be limited to the handful of ears who happen to have been exposed to it (I am eternally grateful to those ears, by the way).
But I’m a busy guy. I have no time to gig or spend hours promoting. I have a degree to earn, rent to pay, and most importantly, a beautiful wife who has this unreasonable thing about actually wanting my time and attention. The point being that there is little room for me to actively promote my music.
So I want to make a deal with you. I’m asking you to find some music blog, some popular MySpace or Facebook page, or any other Internet entity to which lots of people turn for new music, and get them to highlight the music of Paul Fidalgo and the Conflict of Interest. Write them an e-mail saying how much you like it, and send them to my website. Send them an MP3. Post a message on a forum talking about your favorite track. Call or write to a radio station, and direct them to the music. Post a review on Amie Street, Amazon, or iTunes — anything along those lines to help pull me from the quicksand of irrelevance.
But you’re busy, too. I totally get that. So here’s my deal: you do me one of those favors or something like it, and if it pans out, if it leads to a mention, a plug, a featured download, etc., I’ll owe you one favor of similar effort. What’s that mean? Hard to say, but whatever I do in return should match the effort and time it took you to do your part of the bargain. To make it clear, let’s look at a couple of examples.
GOOD: You send an e-mail to www.GenericMusicBlog.fake telling them they will love the Conflict’s music, and they feature one of my songs on their site as a result. I, in turn, check out your YouTube video, and write something about it on my blog, giving it Interweb love like Diggs and reditts.
BAD: You get PopularFacebookChick to tell her 1000 friends about my music, which leads to many downloads, and you ask me to do your thesis paper for you.
Make sense? Sound good? You ready to help me out?
Great. I’m excited. I’m thrilled. Malcolm Gladwell’s gonna write a frickin’ book about this. Thanks in advance, and good luck. I’ll need it.
