Independent musicians with loyal fan bases are leaving significant revenue on the table by treating physical products as afterthoughts. Vinyl, CDs, and cassettes aren't nostalgia plays—they're strategic revenue channels when approached with the same rigor labels apply to streaming campaigns. Thom Skarzynski is the founder of [...]
How Independent Music Venues Evaluate Artists Most independent artists treat venue booking like throwing darts in the dark—mass outreach with generic pitches, hoping something sticks. Christal Hector, founder of TuneHatch and member of the National Independent Venue Association's Industry Affairs Committee, explains what actually happens on [...]
The Session Musician's 50-Year Career Blueprint with Johnny Thirkell Photo by David Harrison Most musicians dream of stability. Johnny Thirkell built a 50-year career with David Bowie, Paul McCartney, George Michael, and The Who - starting from colliery bands and working men's clubs in [...]
The Economics of Niche Markets for Creatives Photo by behrouz sasani What if the best business decision you could make is accepting your music is "unmarketable"? Not in the sense that nobody wants it—but that it won't compete for Spotify playlists alongside mainstream artists. [...]
Image by @asim-razan on Pexels.com Most independent artists release their albums everywhere immediately—Spotify, Apple Music, every streaming platform. But what if that's backwards? Ezra Vancil sold his last album exclusively to his email list for an entire year before releasing it to streaming platforms. [...]
Image by @jddartphotographer Welcome to 2026. In this first episode of the new year, I'm sharing six strategic lessons from 2025 that changed how I work—from shifting to newsletter-first architecture, to creating systems that enable creativity rather than kill it, to recognizing when strategic [...]
