Innovative Marketing

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What's most fascinating about the late night wars is how few people are actually watching. Once upon a time, there were three networks, an appearance on Johnny Carson could break your career wide open. Today, five percent of America watches NBC during prime time. Back in the '52-53 season, it was thirty percent. Something's changed. But the reporting hasn't.

Yes, I got these statistics from the "New York Times". But mostly the article on NBC/Conan/Leno was a rehash. It was as if you'd never paid attention to the story previously, as if you'd never read TMZ, had no Web connection. Trying to get the story right ended up making it so bland that only the most dedicated would ever read the article. But in the past, we read, because that's all we had. The Sunday "Times" plunked down on our doorstep, there was no Web.

But what made me fire up my computer was Stephen Elliott's essay "The D.I.Y. Book Tour" on the inside back page of the "Book Review".

Ever wander into a bookstore during a reading? The room can be packed with bodies, but oftentimes there's no one there but the author and the proprietor. But this is how you sell books. By going to where the people buy them.

"The Adderall Diaries" is Mr. Elliott's seventh book. It got good reviews. But the concept of going out on the usual suspect book tour depressed him, he "didn’t want to travel thousands of miles to read to 10 people, sell four books, then spend the night in a cheap hotel room before flying home. And my publisher didn’t have the money for that many hotel rooms anyway."

Sound like the music business? You can't even get a deal with a major label, and if you do, they take a plethora of rights and are reluctant to spend cash. And if they do open their wallet, it's to put you on TV, to meet radio programmers, who are inundated with talent and rarely care about you. They're worried about their own jobs, not yours. There's an unending supply of wannabe acts. If you don't make it, so be it.

Mr. Elliott decided to try something different:

"Before my book came out, I had set up a lending library allowing anyone to receive a free review copy on the condition they forward it within a week to the next reader, at their own expense. (Now that a majority of reviews are appearing on blogs and in Facebook notes, everyone is a reviewer.) I asked if people wanted to hold an event in their homes. They had to promise 20 attendees. I would sleep on their couch. My publisher would pay for some of the airfare, and I would fund the rest by selling the books myself."

Few people want a free book. What I'm saying is, only those people who truly wanted the free book would ask for it. Try this experiment... Stand on a street corner and try to give away your unknown CD. It's a difficult proposition, almost no one will take it. And those that do are probably afraid to deny you and will never listen to it anyway.

The readings that resulted were far different from in-store experiences. Some attendees were completely out of the loop when it came to famous authors. But the attendees couldn't get enough.

"The readings mostly went very long, over an hour with questions, and people didn’t leave. We were often up discussing until 1 in the morning."

The audience was rapt with attention, involved.

"All together, I sold about 1,100 books (not counting copies of my older books, which I was also selling) at 73 events. Seven hundred of those were books I purchased wholesale, a few hundred more were sold by local booksellers invited to the readings."

That's a lot of books. And you can bet those who read Mr. Elliott's book will continue to follow his career. After all, he came to their friend's house, they met him! It would be like seeing a new band in your buddy's living room.

But new bands would rather get radio airplay, or appear on TV. Both of which are difficult to achieve, are highly impersonal and rarely pay lasting dividends. But those are the established ways of breaking. But it's even worse, just like network TV, fewer people are paying attention.

You might feel good getting your album reviewed in the paper, even the "New York Times". But does your audience really learn about music from a traditional media outlet, where you can't even hear it?

Lost in the outcry about the death of traditional media is the fact that the audience has scattered, fewer people are paying attention, it's harder than ever to truly reach your potential audience, get them to check you out and close them. And it's actually converting people that counts. Radio statistics mean nothing in the abstract, nor do media clippings. It comes down to whether you have fans. But how do you get those fans to begin with?

Large music institutions are no different from NBC or the "New York Times". They keep tightening their belts and complaining that things are not the way they used to be. They're never going back to the way they used to be. We're never going to be limited to three networks again. If you want to succeed in the future you've got to throw the old rule book out, you've got to go directly to the people.

But this isn't sexy. You want to tell your mother your record was spun on KDRECK in Albuquerque, you don't want to tell her you played for thirty people in a living room. But the latter will probably pay more dividends.

But it's not as simple as finding a small place to play. You've got to tailor your act to your audience. Beat-driven extravaganzas don't work in living rooms. Nor does heavy metal cacophony. Acoustic music, with stories, featuring songs that work without production connect one on one.

Sure, people love to dance. They even love to head bang. But the audience for dance music loves the record more than the act, which sucks if you're the act. As for metal music... You just need a bigger place to play. Or one that befits your music. A large garage, with a keg of beer.

But whatever you do, your music must be inviting to the audience. Don't tell people that you've got it right, that they're wrong and they need to acknowledge your greatness. You've got to be so good, so in the pocket that people will call their friends to stop by, as opposed to making excuses and leaving themselves.

You've got to think for yourself. You've got to know most people over thirty five telling you how to make it have no idea what's really going on. You've got to know that you've got to start extremely small, and that growth to ubiquity might never occur. But if you're good, if people like you, your audience will expand, you'll make more money, you'll be satisfied, you will have built it yourself, reliant on no fat cat, fearful of no one pulling the plug.

"The D.I.Y. Book Tour": http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/books/review/Elliott-t.html

"NBC's Slide to Troubled Nightly Punch Line": http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/business/media/17nbc.html

"More Than A Rough Patch": http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/01/17/business/17nbc_g.html