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Interview with 150,000-Unit Selling Indie Artist, Donna Michael
Marketing Ideas, Getting to Why
Donna Michael and I were in the thick of our discussion about issues surrounding artistry, business and careers, when suddenly our concentration was disturbed by a loud thumping sound. "Oh, great!" Donna laughed. "Disco music at the Provence Café in downtown Nashville! What happened to that great jazz we were just hearing?" We took advantage of the break in conversation to move to a table by the window overlooking a busy street and to order some of the café’s savory "lemon Provence cookies." Once settled into our new spot, our conversation turned to Donna’s significant success as an independent recording artist.
MARKETING IDEAS
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Donna, you have been very successful as an independent recording artist and you’ve sold a lot of CDs.
Donna Michael I have by some standards, yes.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] The numbers I heard from CD manufacturers like Disc Makers is that the average number of sales for a self-released CD is about 500 units. How many have you sold to date?
Donna Michael I’ve sold over 150,000 CDs.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Those are great numbers for an indie artist!
Donna Michael Well, before anyone gets too overwhelmed or too impressed, the key has been the longevity of my market—I like to be honest about it. The first album was a Christmas album, called Winterfall," done with my hammered dulcimer partner from North Carolina, Lee Spears. The great thing about a holiday album is that the season comes once a year, and you sell albums every year, over and over again. I can’t say this for all artists, but one of the things I found helpful was to produce a project that’s "classic." Create something that has meaning and relevancy, no matter if it was recorded four years ago or ten years from now—something with a timeless quality.
I was very influenced by that first album, at least from the standpoint that it could be played over an over again each season because people loved it. If you are a songwriter composing songs with words, there are times when songs "date" themselves and listeners will "retire" them after a while because they want to hear something new and fresh. It helped with my sales that my album was in a recurring market and could be played again and again. Like I said, we offered this project at the onset—when others were just beginning to record holiday CDs in that genre, but we also enjoyed considerable success through the gift market. People don’t realize the gift market is huge.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] What is the gift market?
Donna Michael You know how you walk into a gift store now and there are CDs sold there? "Music to Make Wine By," "Music for Romance"—the list is endless. That’s what the gift market is. That’s an extremely lucrative market. Once again, the sales recur over and over again and there’s a timeless quality about the music sold in those markets. Still, that’s not for everybody—either as listeners or as composers/songwriters. And, I don’t want people to confuse this timeless quality some instrumental music can have with what may be referred to as "elevator music"—not the same thing at all.
There are a lot of independent artists performing on the festival and college circuit. They have their own special markets and certainly that is an excellent way to entertain a lot of people, motivate a lot of people, and connect with a lot of people. Many artists have done that with great success.
To me, gift markets seem to be primarily for instrumental music and for inspirational music—and the latter can include anything from specifically Christian to a more general type, what we might describe as music for hope and faith. Another avenue would be motivational—there are so many products on the market related to finding ways to improve or better your life, how to make a difference in your job, your family, how to get your life together. Some people have done really well marketing that way. There is also an organization called the National Speakers Association. Some singers and performers are also starting to be speakers. I have a couple of friends who are doing that.
Again, it gets back to, "What am I writing? What am I creating? Whom do I want to reach? Where are they?" Even when I knew what I was going to be doing with my music, I continued to ask, "Where are these people?" As a writer/performer/recording artist, I think you also have to look at your own age bracket as well as the average age of your listeners. Of course, we’re all aware that the commercial music industry has become much more youth-oriented. Many of the great, talented country singers are being excluded from radio because they are considered "over the hill." Incredibly gifted and seasoned performers who have an amazing legacy, they can’t get played. One of the criticisms of the industry, not only country but also all of the genres, is that the artists just keep getting younger. Next thing, we’ll have a five-year-old singing!
[The Aspiring Songwriter] How many genres of music are most fourteen-year-olds going to buy?
Donna Michael Well, rather than saying, "Oh, poor me, I’m not a fourteen-year-old child star!" or something like that, you have to look at is as, "Well yes, those young performers may be very talented and yes, they will appeal to a certain market for a certain time, but what’s YOUR real message as a writer/performer?" Maybe what you are doing is not intended for that group of listeners. There are certainly other groups of listeners who want other kinds of music. There are people who are loyal listeners, they have money; it’s not just the young kids who have money. People want music that they can listen to and that they feel is relevant to their lives. Maybe it’s not like it was in the 60’s where there were anthems for social change, where music reflected the pulse of society, and maybe music won’t ever have that impact for social change again—who’s to say? But that doesn’t mean that people don’t still need music as a part of their lives. So rather than think "There’s no chance," say "Where is my audience that wants a singer or a writer who has lived the life experiences that I am singing and/or writing and playing music about?" No matter how much someone might be impressed with a very young performer, the believability factor just isn’t there. You simply can’t believe that this kid has lived this life experience—how could they?
[The Aspiring Songwriter] A thirteen-year-old doesn’t generally move me.
Donna Michael Right. They might impress you, but they might not move you.
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Which leads me to another questions, Donna. There is another aspect of your music career that IS about moving people, and that is your ministry. You not only perform at churches and music conferences, but you are also a seminar leader. You have been very active in tying your music to your ministry.
Donna Michael One of the things I’ve found, and I think that it’s another piece of advice, is to take a good look at your collective life experiences. Rather than viewing them as, "Oh, that was something I did that was a dead end," or "That didn’t work," think of "How did that prepare me with knowledge that I can use to help me to do my writing or speaking, or whatever it is that I happen to be doing with my life?" I realized that the time I spent as an art teacher as well as the time I spent in an administrative position in the Nashville music industry gave me the necessary keys to creating and producing music that reflects and speaks to what we all yearn for—living up to our true potential. I realized that what I had experienced gave me empathy and a greater degree of understanding that would help me more effectively touch and inspire my listeners.
There was an interesting thing I heard somebody say, someone who is a very gifted public speaker—people always look to public speakers as though they have lived it all, they have learned it all, and that they know it all. She said, "When I speak, I go and I share what I know at the time, for I’m learning the same things daily that these people are. I make the same mistakes that I’m trying to help other people overcome." It was a very human way to explain it, because I think people incorrectly assume that they have to have done it all, seen it all and learned it all in order to share with others. That’s what motivated me to do even more speaking, the workshops and the seminars. Again, I realized that many of the people I wanted to reach, they were searching for motivation and ways to improve their lives—just like I am—to find something to believe in, especially themselves. Share with other people that you, too, are having struggles.
One of the things that I’ve really latched onto in the last two or three months and what I would hope to always keep as my focus and intention is a sense of being real. I’ve seen a lot of people speak and they come off as, "OK, I’ve done this and accomplished that, and now let me tell you how YOU can do all this too!" It’s almost a bit condescending and somewhat alienating, because it can come off as having an air of superiority. There are several songwriters I know personally who have achieved incredible success as hit writers, and they’re also great teachers of their craft. What makes them great teachers AND great songwriters is that they’ve never forgotten where they came from, what it is like to try to learn, and what it feels like to struggle. I think for that reason they will always be great writers and great teachers.
If I can ask for one thing, like making my wish on the lamp, it would be to always remember the essence of what it TRULY feels like—to remember the journey in all its aspects that brought me to this place of being able to achieve whatever I might have accomplished. It’s a necessary thread of continuity for me and it always starts with a question mark, asking things like: "Am I doing the right thing? Is this the right, intuitive thing to follow? Is this the right business decision to make?" There’s an uncertainty and you may not always feel like you know what you’re doing. So in my workshops and seminars I try to include that "realness" that I confront each and every day, that human element that always wants to know why and how and, if we are honest, experiences those times of doubt and even fear. The bottom line is—we’re all in this together. I don’t want to come off as the big, mega-inspirational "I’ve got all the answers" speaker—because I’m not, and the moment I assume that I am is the very moment I lose touch not only with my audience, but especially with myself. It’s a different approach from what many of us have heard from some self-proclaimed gurus—"Buy these ten tapes and you will change your life forever." I don’t think so!!
GETTING TO WHY
[The Aspiring Songwriter] Donna, has your experience in the speaker market changed what you’re writing about?
Donna Michael Yes. Like all other writers who start out pursuing their careers, I wanted to "get into the music business." We tend to look at whatever the market is and we endeavor to write like that, be it pop, country, inspirational. "I’ve got to emulate so-and-so because they had a platinum hit with that one song, so I’m sure I have to write like that in order to be successful." And of course writers can try to do that. But what they don’t have is the HEART in what they are creating. It’s like a Xerox copy. I think that’s really important because, for me, it wasn’t until I really struggled in my own life with the essence my goals and the essence of who I was and am—that I got clear on what I really wanted to be doing. But, please note here, I’m in no way endorsing the "suffering artist" mentality or consciousness. It’s really just saying to yourself (with great honesty), "What is going on here? What do I REALLY want? Am I standing in the way of achieving my own potential? If so, what do I have to do in order to grow and live my dreams?"
My album, Somewhere In The Silence, was done in one sitting, one single recording session, 70 minutes long, non-stop, playing from start to finish with no retakes or edits. It was, to me, the ultimate surrender to the process of creativity, having only faith as my "handhold." I only had a stopwatch, and absolutely no preplanned music. I like to think of it as total trust. But just prior to that session I had experienced a turning point in my career—and my entire life—when I said, "I don’t really know what to do anymore. I’ve tried everything I know how and I thought I was doing it this way and that it was the right way." I had been continually thinking and worrying about so many things—all of the business aspects I mentioned earlier. All of those ARE good, all of those are valid, and all of those are very necessary. But we can get so caught up in that place and in those patterns that we forget to listen. Why are we doing this? Why are we creating this? Why are we even wanting to share this with the world? I had to get to that "why" point for me—and not everybody has to do this. But I had to stop and say, "Ok, I see all the left brain aspects, all the facts, I see all of the business things." But I just ... I just had to think about and ask myself—"Do you really want to do this? And if you had to stop tomorrow, could you?"
I once ran across an article where someone asked Stephen King, the writer, "Why do you write?" I’m paraphrasing it. And he said, "You assume I have a choice?" I had to get to that point, where it was, "This is more than something that I really want to do—it’s something I HAVE to do. Yes, I’ve collected that left-brain knowledge, the business knowledge. Now I’m going to TRULY listen to my heart." When a person is willing to do that and go to that point of willingness to trust, then the music takes on a life of its own that you can’t copy from a hit songwriter. And that’s not about suffering; it’s about listening. It’s about stopping long enough to hear the essence of who you are, whether you’re writing for a teen group or you’re writing for an opera singer, whatever you’re doing.
Learn more about Donna Michael and hear her music by visiting her website at www.donnamichael.com. Next week, part 3 of the Donna Michael interview: Finding a Balance, Desperation/Inspiration.
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