Making My Dream Earn Money.

I had one of those epiphanaic moments recently, when I realised that I’m really great at talking about how to make more money, but whilst I can talk the talk, I’m falling down on “walking the walk” far more often than I need to be in order to build some success.

I have a product to sell (music) and I know that there is a market out there for it (past bookings and public reception).  What I need to do is stop procrastinating and just Get On With It.  I’ve been talking with a friend about doing more public and paid bookings, but we haven’t gotten any further than talking about it.  We have a terrible tendency to get together, talk a bit and then lapse into a salad-eating and ‘Robin-of-Sherwood’-watching frenzy.

Now, 2008 has, in common parlance, been a complete bastard of a year.  Many people that I love and respect have passed away this year, and I’ve spent a lot of it feeling a bit punch-drunk.  Just as I recover from one hit, BLAM! Another one comes in.  At this point in the year (having lost a dearly loved friend and neighbour under a week ago) I know that there is nothing I can do to salvage the year.  What I am intending to do, though, is to get utterly bladdered on New Year’s Eve and kick 2008 out of the door with all the venom and savagery that it deserves.  And I shall be welcoming in 2009 with open arms and the intention that it will be a Good Year.

In other words, 2009 will be the year that I actually get my arse into gear and start developing the music career that I both want and need.  I highly recommend that if you are procrastinating about starting a small business or developing your current career in a positive fashion, then you earmark next year as the year to do it.  In order to do this, I have made a list of the steps that I need to take in order to make this happen:

1. Set a regular practise and repertoire time with partner
2. Sort out new costumes
3. New promotional pictures in new costumes with instruments
4. Expand website to encompass new work
5. Record a three track demo
6. Pull together a press pack
7. Compile mailing list and references for potential venues
8. Do a Mailshot
9. Follow up phone calls

I publish this list here as a public mark in the sand, and to let it be known that I intend to create my own luck next year, and to have a good year at that.

Stuff you, 2008.  2009 is going to be MY year!