August 30, 2010 marks the release of the highly anticipated book, The Local Music Journey:  Thoughts, advice and inspiration for your independent music career, written and compiled by Independent musician and author, Nick Venturella.

The Local Music Journey… is a resource for independent music professionals outlining necessary steps to build a solid foundation from which to grow a successful independent music career.  Amongst the plethora of useful information Venturella provides, based on his own experiences, the author interviewed many independent music professionals who share their take on their own music journey.

“Some of the best answers related to indie music industry questions come from those in the indie music community -- they're more experts than they know, and collectively the expertise is certainly more than mine alone," said Venturella.

Venturella continues, "The goal of the book is to serve as a snapshot in time creating a wider understanding of what it takes to be successful in the independent music industry -- however, one defines success -- and provide some ideas and resources to help indies achieve their success beginning with small, local steps as needed working toward larger and farther reaching -- regional, national and international -- career victories.
 
"This book is really for anyone involved in indie music no matter if you're just beginning or a veteran," said Venturella.

The Local Music Journey was written and compiled independently by Venturella.  He conducted several personal interviews and many more were captured with the help of social media.  "This is really the first book that I'm aware of that covers the business of independent music on a local level here in Wisconsin.  It's also the first book of its kind to tout new media tools used to capture the majority of the book's interviews," said Venturella. 

The book's forward was written by Roy Elkins, Founder and CEO of Broadjam.  Some of the key interviews include:  musician, Peter Mulvey; artist development company, Machine Records; members of the iconic Madison, WI-based recording studio, Smart Studios; Founder of the Madison Area Music Association, Rick Tvedt; and many more.

Additional features surrounding the book are found on the book's website, www.localmusicjourney.com, which includes the Resourceful Musician Blog--valuable innovative, and often low-cost, ideas for independent musicians to market and promote themselves.  Also on the website is an opportunity for independent musicians to shamelessly self-promote on the Promote Yourself page.

The book's website even offers a chance to give back with an option for supporters to make a donation.  Donations are then disbursed quarterly to area organizations that promote the enrichment of music, music education, and providing instruments to kids.

I love being a musician, artist, author and entrepreneur.  In general I enjoy being creative and coming up with innovative solutions to various conceptual challenges that require my unique spin on the world and how I relate to it.  But there’s something bigger going on here.

I cannot take all of the credit for the artistic deliverables I create.  Yes, it is true that I’ve consumed a lot of information--creative and otherwise--and distilled it down, mixed with my own thoughts and ideas to produce something unique to me and the way I work, and often others find my creations inspiring or useful.  However, I think for that whole process to perpetuate itself it all starts with the consumption of inspiring stuff.  I’m talking about those times when you happen into a situation where you can experience something that resonates with such creative value for you that you find yourself in a mindset where time and space slow.  A moment when, for at least that moment, everything is as it should be and the pieces to life’s puzzle seem to temporarily fit together.  That’s the sort of feeling I get when inspiration strikes.

Other peoples’ creations have long been a source of inspiration for other artistic types that generate their own creations derived by such various influences, but what’s interesting to me is the idea that each inspiration that leads to a new creation, which can in turn inspire someone else and so on is at the heart of why I love being a creative individual.  I feel like I’m paying forward the favor of others’ inspirations to me.

Posted By:  Nick Venturella

So I read this blog that I found by way of Bob Baker's LinkedIn post.  The blog is The Lefsetz Letter, by Bob Lefsetz.  The blog post I'm referring to was called "Being First."

Essentially, the post was about how these days when you release an album you don't have to have a big bang or popularity for the album right away.  In fact, these days it is increasingly more important that your creations are timeless in the sense that they are relevant when released and years later.  An explosion of popularity may happen, but don't rely on it.  Instead position your creations to be relevant over time to continue to maintain and receive a reasonable payout over several years, rather than one big payout now.

I would like to leave you with a quote from the post and encourage you to read the entire post.  This quote, I think is spot on...

"Old media, mainstream media, the movie studios and major labels, are all about creating impact today, deriving revenues today. And most of what they sell only generates revenue today.  And all of it reaches fewer people.  The reason albums no longer go ten times platinum isn’t primarily because of theft, but because there are too many options, and this you cannot change."

Posted By:  Nick Venturella