Wednesday 7th June, 2023
Do I talk about it here too?
I’ll expand briefly on my lil TikTok story involving Three Ireland. For the backstory you can check out the video of this months Perpetually Not Drowning vlog here. Firstly, I’ll reiterate: “I’m not upset by anything that anyone said”. Secondly, at time of writing, Three has suspended the comments section for a second time. :P
One thing I didn’t touch on in my video was a quick point that my dear friend, & Circus partner Chloe made. The kind of audience following a company like Three Ireland is a fractured & odd crowd. Akin to the kind of audience that follows accounts like RTE, Pepsi, or any other mainstream company. Such a crowd is usually quite large & attracts the kind of folk who like to rile up people.
It’s inevitable to anyone looking for any kind of ‘mainstream’ exposure with brands like RTE, Three, or Pepsi, etc… When you’re reaching out to a broad & eclectic group of people, you’re gonna rub some up the wrong way, & expose yourself to some chaotic folk. Just par for the course & nothing to be taken seriously. If it wasn’t me they targeted, it’d be the next person.
Okay, enough of that. :P
What I wanna get off my chest, onto the screen, & hopefully cleared up… is my living situation.
In a couple of weeks I’ll be out of my current house. The way things are, it looks like I’m moving back home for a while. Paying for college has been a tough one this year, & I’ve got next year to worry about too. Not only that, but I’ve music expenses I need to get started on. I still owe one or two people money from the album process, I need to start working on my digital marketing… & then there’s a bunch of equipment & circus classes I wanna keep up so I can integrate them into the future live shows. Finally, I’ve a bit of dental work & with anything left over, I’d really like to go back to physio to tackle my back injury again.
Phew… that’s a whole bunch.
So, moving home for a bit & reducing my expenses a little, will go a long way… but reducing costs will only get us so far. The reality is this… I need to bring in more money that I am. I’m still on the social welfare during my time at BIMM, which consists of 220 euro a week. This has been life changing, but it’s barley enough to get me by. My Patrons have been adding an extra 100 on top of that each month, which brings my usual month up to 980 ish. Sometimes I’ll pick up some stray work or the occasional royalty… but REALLY, my earner is Patreon.
So what’s a boy to do?
I guess the first thing I need to do is ask you to join in on the Patreon here. Or, if you’re not interested… I’d love to know why. I really have no idea what people want from a Patreon. Not only that, but trying to resolve my ideals of ‘no pay walls’ is really tough when people aren’t paying for anything extra. So does it matter what I offer my Patrons? Most of them just want to see me do well.
The reality is… my fanbase have what they want. They aren’t too fussed about behind the scenes content, or my demos… or much of anything else I can provide them regularly. The music is out there, the film is out there, & when I play they come see me. At what point to I accept that I’ll need a bigger audience to find more Patrons? Or is it a ‘build it & they will come’ type thing? I’m a lil lost here.
It’s my responsibility though, ultimately, to find out what works, what’s wanted, & build the community there. But if that wasn’t the hardest part, we’d all be successful. It’s always a telling sign that there are parts of this industry dedicated to selling advice on how to make money… even the people telling you how to do it are actually doing something else to make their money… Another line of thinking that brings me back to the best advice I’ve discovered: “the artist knows everything”. (which is a topic for another day)
I was about to type, “I’ll keep it short.” But this seems to be long enough already.
So I’ll say goodnight…
Nathan
