Mike Vial is on a tear

I don’t know Mike Vial. I found his site through the /now page movement. Have you seen my /now page?

A few months ago I linked to his blog and shortly thereafter I got a nice email from him thanking me for the link. It felt like it was 2004. Back when the blogosphere was alive and well and people thanked each other for links to each other’s stuff.

I’ve been following along with Vial’s blog ever since and I’ve been saving almost every single post he’s been writing in hopes to somehow find a way to link to them here. So I might as well just do that; link to a few I’ve saved. Their all gold.

The perfect Spotify consumer:

If you looked at your “Year in Spotify” data as a consumer, here’s something to consider: How much are artists making from your streams? It takes 150 streams to equal one single sale; 1500 to equal an album.

Your Spotify data proves music is devalued:

It could take five to ten years to stream our top artists enough to earn one sale.

The simple mistakes fester:

No matter how experienced you are, simple mistakes will need to be fought.

What are you willing to sacrifice for your art?

Jennifer Lawrence was willing to live in a rat-infested apartment the size of a closet, even willing to eat around the holes in her bread that the rats had chewed, to get her first start as an actress in New York.
I’m going to be honest with you, I am not willing to do that. Not one bit.

Your voice > a meme:

Writing in your own voice is more powerful than copying-and-pasting a chain post, like one phrased, “Not one of my Facebook friends will copy and paste…”

Size matters:

In the book Band:Smart, Martin Atkins tells bands, “100 people in a 50 capacity venue is a riot; 100 people in a 1200 capacity theater is a funeral.”

Grand ideas and the artist-in-waiting:

Grand ideas are great, but when you have a huge idea in your head, only one person can see it. You.
Think about a a smaller project you can release tomorrow, next week, next month. Who can see that? Everyone. (And maybe that brings you closer to the grand project later.)

Do not be satisfied with simply reading the portions that I’ve chosen to quote. Go through and read all of these posts. Have you subscribed to Vial’s blog yet?

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