I'm starting to send out pre-release copies of Save You From Yourself to the press. Every few days I mail out a handful of puffy envelopes.
I had a long phone conversation (I know! The phone!) with my pal Kym Tuvim last night. She's in the middle of promoting a new album herself. Aside from teaching piano, Kym is otherwise a full-time touring songwriter.
Get this, Kym sent out packages to over 140 radio stations! No spam cannon, no "check out my MySpace!" nonsense. Just polite emails asking for permission to send a CD, and then a follow-up email awhile later. (Also: her CD is awesome, and in top-notch packaging.)
And it's working. She's getting airplay.
See, this is one of the reasons I'm not worried. Sure, anyone with little or no money can record an album and slap it onto the web these days. That used to be hard, now it's the easy part.
But the extra-mile stuff that actually gets results is still hard. Picking up the phone, going out on tour, following up without coming off like an insane person, writing a really good song that won't be forgotten the moment another dramatic chipmunk comes along.*
(* yes, everyone knows it's a prairie dog by now.)
I figure if I try 10% harder, that's 10% more than most will even bother doing.