The other day, I emailed 1,257 people, asking if 124 would volunteer to stream my song five times a day for five days on Spotify.
I’ve been doing this long enough to know that everything is a percentage of a percentage.
For example, I knew about 50 to 60 percent would open the email.
I knew about 5 to 7 percent would click one of the two links.
About 0.3 percent would unsubscribe.
And I also knew that asking 9.8 percent to take action (what I asked for) was VERY high.
In fact, it ended up about where I expected: between 2 and 4 percent.
(How bored are you right now?)
So, we needed 124 fans; we got 35.
Not terrible.
It just means that instead of streaming the song five times a day, we all need to crank it up to 18 times a day.
For reference, I haven’t even listened to the song that many times in my entire life.
And honestly, I’m not sure I’d recommend anyone do that.
What we’re really trying to do is tell the Spotify algorithm to show the song to more people.
Welcome to the modern music industry, where I politely ask you—my beloved core audience—to listen to my song 18 times a day until you actively dislike it, all so strangers might hear it once or twice, maybe get curious about my other work, sign up for my newsletter, and then volunteer to listen 18 times a day themselves.
It’s a charming little cycle of mutual resentment, which I’m only just now noticing as I type this.
I believe this is what they call surviving the music industry while quietly questioning your life choices.
I also don’t even know if this plan will work.
I 100 percent know that doing nothing does NOT work, either.
You have to try.
Something.
This is the best I could come up with for now.
All this to say: I think the only way I can in good conscience ask you to stream the song 18 times a day is by requesting that you:
Step 1: Put it on repeat.
Step 2: Mute it.
Step 3: Go to bed.
In the meantime, I’ll go back to the drawing board and try to figure out how to release music DIY.
Humbly yours,
Aaron