Post Production Depression: Keeping Your Marketing on Track
A good friend of mine is a visual artist. She once remarked that after a major gallery show or exhibit she fell into a kind of depression where she was unable to gear up for the next phase of her career or work. With that in mind, I started talking with some of the musicians with whom I have worked about their experiences after completing a new release and found that they often went through this same "post-production depression."
When musicians are working on a major project such as creating a CD or compilation they focus almost entirely on the music - the writing, recording, sound, gear, studio time, band members. During this highly creative process the level of excitement skyrockets and usually peaks when they finally finish their work. After the recording is complete, everyone sighs in relief. You've done your job, created the music and made it available to the public. But in reality, a musician's job is far from done.
Musicians whether they are signed or unsigned need to recognize that they can never let up or take a break from the promotion cycle. If you have a tour or concert dates set up to follow a new release then some of the momentum will carry through to the excitement of a tour. But if you have nothing planned, you may fall victim to post-production depression, the lull after the excitement of creating a CD. To circumvent this you need to take an aggressive stance on your self-promotion throughout the process of creating your CD and for years after.
Your CD is your baby and you have to be willing to support it after giving birth to it. That means that during the process of CD you must take the time to ask yourself some essential questions about your goals for the CD, how you plan to promote it and build a market for your music. You cannot isolate yourself from the marketing side of music just because you are in the studio.
I often recommend to musicians and bands that they come up with a road map with a dual track. One track describes what they would like to accomplish in the studio and their timeline for CD production and the other track describes activities for self-promotion that should occur simultaneously with their studio work. I've found that laying out a process of promotion during the creative period of writing and recording gives musicians a chance to incorporate it into their everyday creative work life in the studio and it becomes a natural extension of their current work.
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