Music is the Business

Lately I’ve been thinking a bit about the business aspect of the music I’ve been creating. Making music is all well and good, and to an extent (See “Low-Frequency Autoeroticism” for an excellent example), I write for myself as much as anyone else. But eventually, I’m going to have to start getting serious about the financial aspect of it. Actually funding the project won’t be a big deal–I have a nice job, the finish line is in sight as far as paying off school debts goes, and I have a nice windfall from my obsessive saving of money, to say nothing of the government’s rewarding people (Including those who can’t responsibly handle their money) by giving them more of it–but I’d like to try and offset the expenses nonetheless, if not wind up swimming in a mountain of money in my backyard. So to do that, I need to promote the music, and I’ve considered actually getting business cards as one method of this.

See, I’m not really a great self-promoter. I tend to shy away from the spotlight–this may be why the bass guitar is my primary instrument of choice; with rare exceptions, bass players in bands are generally underrated compared to their band as a whole (John Deacon of Queen and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin being two excellent examples)–which suits my personality but is generally counter-productive to getting my name out there in terms of the music. I figure with business cards, I can become a shady used car salesman type when I’m out and about and doing things which cause people to stop and talk to me. Generally, this tends to occur when I’m out playing DDR somewhere. You know, “Thanks, but I’m really not that good…oh, hey, have a business card, and check out my website…”

I am, sadly, completely dumb artistically, so any ideas I come up with will probably not look very good.

Then there’s the whole trademark thing. Ideally, I’d like to actually officially trademark the term “Emptyeye” as it relates to music. I know I’m not the only Emptyeye out on the net. I think I’m the only one doing stuff related to music, but it’d be nice to have the legal power behind it to make sure of that fact. You can read more on the dilemma here; I particularly love ironyengine’s smartass reply here.