Thanks, and Cheers back at ya, John.

More questions and advice sought: I am about to send in my order to Atomic Disc in Oregon to manufacture the above referenced CD with enclosed lyric sheets. I polled some associates: all insisted that a lyric sheet is needed because within the genres of Acid Folk / Brit Folk, my strongest strong suit is as a lyricist.

Originally, I was planning on manufacturing 500 copies. That way, I would have Replicated rather than Duplicated [burned] discs. I have ordered Duplicated discs form Atomic before and have had no complaints at all. So, should I worry?

Anyway, with the lyric sheet, that puts the cost of manufacture over $1,000. I would only have to sell 70 copies at $20 each to break even. But, I'm not performing. I haven't been performing much since 2015. And I have only just started MMM 5.0 so I don't know how much I need to reasonably budget for advertising. And I don't know how good I will be at utilizing MMM 5.0.

My mailing list is less than 300 people. People on my mailing list know I am alive because I send out a blogpost every month. Each month, folks on my mailing list will engage with my BlogPost. But I haven't asked them to buy much for several years though nearly everyone on my mailing list has attended a performance and/or own one or two of my previous CDs. If it were just a matter of this one album, I would just trust that I will sell those 70 copies sooner that later. But I have been very busy during the pandemic. I have four more albums ready to go. — What do you suggest? How should I be looking at this?

ONE HOUR LATER: I've started to crunch the numbers. If I made 300 copies, I save about $300 and I still have to sell 42 copies to break even. And that's not factoring in MMM 5.0 which, at the moment, cannot be factored in. So, I think my main question is: How should I be looking at this?

"The issue is just making sure you are investing in the longer term monetization strategy rather than just the current album, as that is where you can more reliably find your profit." —J. O.

My good friend Michael Olsen died suddenly in April of 2015. He was a marvelous flamenco guitarist. Shortly after his death, the following phrase began repeating in my head: "Finish your work!" He was 68. I am 67 now. The voice was referring to two proto-new wave albums begun in 1975. A Celtic folk rock album of recordings never mixed from 1992. And two albums I should have begun ten years ago. Then came the Bert Jansch album unplanned as described above: Of Service in Rosemary Lane. It's done.

Also, I feel it has the best chance of buy-in from folks who loved Bert Jansch, whose favorite album of his is Rosemary Lane, and who are aware of the Around the World in 80 Plays project, which is why I ended up with one of Bert's guitars in my studio for six months. I've been hanging out around MMM for quite a while, so I know the general idea. My thought is that Of Service would be a good album to use to really start to build up my mailing list (administered by A-Weber).

At 67, a long-term monetization strategy can only be so-long. Nevertheless, it's very important to me. 

Of Service… will be my 6th album. Should I be thinking of reissuing the other five? And of the five that I am working on now, two are about ready to go (one being a double album). My first LP was reissued 12 years ago as a neglected classic by [the now defunct] Yoga Records. The fifth album was showcased on NPR affiliate program Celtic Connections as one of the best 15 CDs of 2008. 

[Proto-new wave and Celtic folk might not sound like they have anything to do with each other. However, I have basically been playing the same sort of music all my life. When I started out, it was just a lot louder. The Greek National Radio Station on the island of Corfu did an hour long show about my music (in Greek, of course) in 2016. Translated, I was described as "an iconoclastic loner of acid folk." This seems right to me.]

There's an old movie called Bankshot. George C. Scott plays the head of a gang of bank robbers. They ha e broken into a bank. His safe cracker is trying to crack open the safe. "Are all the tumblers falling into place properly?" Scots asks. "Well, that's not really the question," says the safe-cracker. 

"Well," says George C. Scott. "What is the question. I'm dying to ask it."

That's how I feel.

Now I feel the right question is: How do I fit my back-catalog, my current release and my soon-to-be ready albums into my long term monetization strategy?

Thanks very much, John!

David

Cool. Lesson 44. I'll keep my eyes peeled.

DNL

John — I hope you are feeling better after getting COVID. My daughter and her kids in Bakersfield got it last week but they all had very mild cases. 

OK — at long last, Of Service in Rosemary Lane [see above messages] is at the manufacturers. A short run of 200 copies will be delivered at the end of next week or early the following week. 

So I'm zipping through the MM5 lessons and feeling a little overwhelmed. I saw somewhere a video you made for those of us who feel overwhelmed. So, I'm not alone and maybe I should watch that.

The question weighing heavily on me right now is to go forward as is or to covert to Tunepipe and when.

Quite a few years ago I hired Scott James to set up my web site. I said: set it up like John Oszajca says to set it up. Which, using WordPress, he did. I also got my small mailing list set up with A-Weber. A few years after that, I realized I wouldn't be able to get going on marketing etc. for a while. Life issues had to be attended to and I decided that, being an old man, I should complete five projects I had abandoned for one reason or the other over the last 10 to 40 years and complete them while I Still Could. 

So, I got on the horn with a very nice man with A-Weber and explained my situation. "What's the best use I can make of A-Weber under my present circumstances?" I asked. "Hmm," the Very nice man said, "At the very least, you need to let people know you are Still Alive. Can you put out a BlogPost every month?"

So, that's what I've been doing for the last two and half years while completing these recordings. The very nice man also told me I would need to do some work on my mailing list to determine which of my peeps owns which of my five albums. But, I have not done that

I like my website. Scott did a great job. I'm currently updating my bio, basing it on my USP. I have BlogPosts ready to be posted for March and April. So, I don't want to convert to TunePipe. 

But I have all this work to do with A-Weber and probably WordPress — of which I'm not overly fond. And now my Facebook Musician page is calling itself Meta Something. I'm sure everyone knows what this is and I suspect its probably not much different than it was before but I feel life is about to serve me a big juicy Frustration Burger. 

I have fairly ferocious ADHD and I know from experience that this sort of multi-platforming and me don't get along well. So, let me conclude with three questions:

1. Do you think that my fast approaching multi-platforming ordeal will be significantly eased by switching to TunePipe after April?

2. Can I, by any chance, migrate a web site set up on WordPress to Tune Pipe?

3. What other questions and/or tasks should i be considering now?

Thanks again.

David