Vague Advice

I have spent approximately 95% of my career feeling stuck. Sometimes I deal with this feeling of “being stuck” by overworking, which ultimately leads to burnout. Sometimes I deal with this feeling by researching my situation endlessly, as if a career is going to manifest itself by finding the right google search term. Through this research I have realised that most advice about advancing ones career as a musician/artist/content creator is vague and unhelpful. I’m going to deconstruct some of the vague advice I’ve seen/been given and hopefully we’ll all feel a lovely feeling of solidarity.

Know Your Audience and Market Yourself to them.

Sounds simple right? Figure out what your target demographic is by observing who comes to your shows, who turns up on your social media and engages with your content, then spend time and money making things for those people.

The issue? When your audience is primarily made up of friends and family, your stats don’t reflect what your actual target demographic may be. When you don’t have a pool of random people to poll/the money to make that happen, you can’t brute force a target demographic. Guessing what your target demographic might work for you, but I’ve put money behind my guesses and it’s made 0 difference.

This advice also assumes the shows you’re playing places you 1) in front of new audiences who will 2) continue to engage with your work after the show. This is a rare combination that cannot be counted on in many situations, and I’m really tired of those who survived the “emerging artist” stage handing out this advice as if it’s a guaranteed path to success.

Network

Go to gigs! Go to events! Go to things that so called “industry professionals” will be present at. Talk to people! Network and build connections! As a geographically challenged disabled Autistic human I dread this advice.

Let’s talk about the geographical challenges first. When you live more than 30 mins away from “the things” which are either scheduled during the work day or past 8pm, finishing at 11pm/12pm and your method of paying rent requires you to wake up at a decent hour and has nothing to do with attending “the things”, being able to attend “the things” regularly enough to become a familiar face in “the scene” and have any semblance of work life balance becomes incredibly difficult.

Ok, so you’ve accepted that you need to attend “the things”. How are you going to get there? Car? That’s not always an option for me because of the regular debilitating fatigue I experience. I try not to drive for more than 10mins after 9pm, otherwise I run the risk of micro-sleeps. The older I get, the less sure I am of my ability to drive late and not fall asleep behind the wheel. Sure, booking accomodation is possible, but it’s too expensive to do as often as I would need to in order to attend an “appropriate amount of things” to “build a network”.

Lets add my particular neurodiverse struggles on top of this and it’s a whole other level of fun. It doesn’t matter how energised I am at the beginning of the event, by the time it’s time for bands to mingle post show, I’m exhausted and in no state to pretend to be human enough to piece together a conversation. I usually either panic, talk to no one and slip out silently, or end up exhausted to the point I no longer feel human/can string a sentence together, talk to no one and slip out silently. What about daytime events? I think I could probably manage those, but they’re always held at least 1.5 hours away from my place of residence on a weekday when I’m working to pay the rent. They also cost money. I can’t afford the time off, and if there’s an entry fee, I certainly can’t afford that on top.

Advice givers really need to stop acting as if “Networking” is a simple solution that’s equally easy and accessible for everyone.

Grow Your Social Media Following

Have an “online presence”, post “consistently”, engage and interact with your “audience”, engage and interact with other creators, and if that doesn’t work for you, well, your content is either “low quality” or your not “working hard enough”.