2021 Rules

PERSEVERANCE

It takes longer than ever to make it. If you are not in it for the long haul, don't even start.

YOU CAN PLAY BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN WIN

The barrier to entry has never been lower, but the odds of getting noticed and growing have also never been lower.

YOU WILL NOT BECOME A HOUSEHOLD NAME

No one is anymore. Unless maybe you're president or a tech billionaire. You may want to increase the size of your audience, but there's absolutely no way you can reach everybody.

HATE

Once you have some success, you will have people taking you down online. Be prepared.

STUNTS MAY NOT GET YOU NOTICED

Used to be you could make a flashy video, perform some outrageous stunt and you'd get publicity and you'd be on your way. Today, the internet is an ongoing flashy stunt machine, can you say TikTok? Best to focus on the underlying art as opposed to the marketing.

MARKETING

You can have a campaign with a lot of tear sheets that ultimately reaches no one, has no effect.

NEWSPAPERS

Are worthless unless you're appealing to an older demo, the younger, more active audience just doesn't read them. Local newspapers have never meant less. Subscription levels keep decreasing. So you can send the article to your mother but you won't be any further down the road to success.

PRACTICE

In an era where everybody can do it, those who can do it well have a leg up. Furthermore, in an era where everything is easy, where the computer tools help you, being able to perform at a high level in the offline world is notable. You can fake it online, you can't fake it off, at least not without tech. In an era dominated more and more by machines, it's the human that translates. If you learn how to play an instrument, or paint, or do anything which is not easy, eventually people notice. They're awed because there are so few skilled at your level.

INSPIRATION NOT SKILLS

Inspiration is the basis of great art. Period. Without it you have something inert that does not affect people. Inspiration usually happens in a flash. The key is to act on it immediately, and don't let in your naysayer voice or outsider criticism. When you're inspired, you capture the zeitgeist. It's all about catching lightning in a bottle. You know it when you do it, but it happens very infrequently, usually when you're not even working.

LIVE A LIFE

Otherwise you have nothing to build upon, nothing to say.

THERE ARE NO RULES IN ART

You can get up at noon, you can work five minutes a day... Artists channel the world so the rest of the public can understand it.

YOUR GOAL IS TO BE SELF-SUSTAINING

There are no longer any markers that definitively say you've made it. No record deal, no TV appearance. You have to learn to be happy with the success you have, not the success you dreamed about.

ART FIRST MONEY SECOND

People can tell. They know what you're all about, what you're in it for. There's commerce and then there's art. There can be money in commerce, but don't confuse it with art. Art touches people, art lasts.

WHAT'S HATED TODAY IS LOVED TOMORROW AND VICE VERSA

You have to adhere to your own inner tuning fork. If you compromise and do it their way chances are your work will lose its essence. Sure, the Beatles were loved by critics in their era. But not Led Zeppelin. Which never changed its sound to satiate critics.

CRITICS

It used to be a small club based on access and free records and tickets. Today everybody has access and everybody's a critic, so criticism means less than ever before. Furthermore, don't pay attention to any criticism made by someone who doesn't love your work or genre to begin with. Who cares what a critic of Renaissance art has to say about abstract expressionism.

YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE ON YOUR TEAM

Culture has changed. Nobody's in it for the long haul, everybody's in it for themselves, everybody wants money and they want it now. As a result, you'll get a plethora of bad advice, mostly in the vein of do this now because everybody else is.

CONSTANT CREATION

You must be creating work on a regular basis, so that fans can keep up with you constantly, otherwise you're forgotten. Don't shoot the messenger, this is the reality. If you're waiting years to debut your work you're laboring under the fiction that people are eagerly waiting for its delivery. There are a few fans who feel this way, most people have moved on, because there are so many options/choices in the marketplace. You have to be really special for people to be waiting for your pearls of wisdom with bated breath. And if you believe mainstream publicity can bridge this gap you're wrong. Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities," his first and most successful fiction work, was serialized in "Rolling Stone" before publication.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS A CHOICE

The goal is to deliver a large enough audience that their chatter sustains your career. If part of your art is social media, interacting with your fans, go for it. But if it is not, don't. But, at the beginning, you're going to have to play this game, you're going to have to participate.

INVITE DON'T FORCE

No one wants anything jammed down their throat today, everybody is overscheduled, it's a privilege to be able to gain someone's attention and time. Don't hammer, don't chide, don't say you've delivered the best thing since sliced bread, be warm and open, invite, so that tastemakers will be interested in checking you out and spreading the word.

GROWTH

If it's not happening, you're doing it wrong. Or you've been too afraid to play, to allow your work/career to grow. You've got to post your work online. It doesn't matter if it's imperfect, if it's unfinished, just by participating you will improve and this will make more people stick to you.

VIRALITY

Happens very very slowly. Almost under the radar. Once or twice a year something blows up virally nearly instantly. And most of these have a short shelf life.

GENRE

There are no channels. Do whatever you want. Sure, some types of creative work have a larger built-in audience than others, but now, more than any time in history, the world is open to anything, you can grow an audience for anything. Don't shave off the edges to grow your career, it's the edges that hook people.

YESTERDAY'S HEROES

Can succeed on the nostalgia circuit, but barely have a leg up online. Your name gets you entry, but the work decides whether you get traction or not.

BITCHING AGAINST THE SYSTEM

Is positively fruitless. It's a waste of energy. Furthermore, there's this canard that there is an impenetrable system that is working against you. How can this be where anybody can post for free on YouTube or SoundCloud and for a de minimis price on streaming services like Spotify and Apple? You have a bigger chance than ever before. The system is working for you!

DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO THE SCUTTLEBUTT/NEWS

Successful people rarely bitch. It's only the unsuccessful, used to be successful and wannabes who spend their time complaining endlessly, it's easier than creating great work. Furthermore, most people writing in major news outlets have no real understanding of how the system truly functions, nor does the government. And the more people bitch, the more systems operators retreat from view, because there just can't be a rational discussion based on facts. Mob mentality rules today, as well as misinformation, don't be a victim of falsehood.

THE INTERNET IS THE MEANS

You create the end. Computers and the internet are your toolkit, mix and match and innovate. Some of the greatest products of all time were mistakes. And some of the greatest sounds in music history were created by people playing with equipment in the studio, oftentimes contrary to instructions by the manufacturers and the poohbahs.

YOU'VE GOT TO LOVE IT

It's a long hard road and success might be long in coming, or it might not come at all. Anybody who's a legend contemplated giving up at one point.

MEANS TO AN END

If your art is a way to get rich, to become a brand, sell clothing and tchotchkes...that paradigm does exist, but it's very different from creating art. Creating art takes all your time. You've got to experience, you've got to distill, you've got to polish...it's a full time job. Today money is paramount, most respected, but never confuse that with art. In a world where everybody can't get rich, in a world where no one is as big as they think they are, in a world where the public is searching for soul fulfillment...art is king.


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