Announcement: On next week's Drowned in Sound podcast I'm going to be answering your questions. So if you have any queries about:
- recent DiS coverage
- music-related stories in the news
- need some career / social media / music / media advice
- wanna know what I think of the new Deftones track
- my hot take on why we've left Spotify...?
- or whatever you like
Please reply to this newsletter to take part.
Last week's guest on the Drowned in Sound podcast was Mary Spender who has had over 100,000,000 streams on YouTube. She told us about how she is converting a percentage of her audience into record buyers and Patreons, as well as the time and dedication it takes to grow a big audience online.
This week's guest Isobel Anderson has had well over 25 million Spotify streams over the years. However, as I'm sure you know, whilst that may sound impressive, you need those kinds of plays every year if you want to live off of your music.
Alongside her music, Isobel runs educational courses, hosts a brilliant podcast, builds community platforms, and does some consultancy work.
Mary and Isobel's stories are successful and inspiring in different ways. They were both kind enough to share a lot of their wisdom and advice with me, you, and the rest of our listeners. Hearing these conversations back to back, the similarities and differences to their stories really underscore the reality of what having a sustainable career as an artist or "content creator" (or both!) looks like in 2025.
Mary and Isobel's approach to the internet
To distil their approach down to a sentence: they both provide things of value to others - this is and will always be the best way to build a community. Whether it was in a small village thousands of years ago or in our algorithm-driven online abyss, creating things that are genuinely useful is essential for anyone wanting music as their full-time career.
It's very similar to my reality of managing artists, doing consultancy work, guest lecturing, alongside running Drowned in Sound. These multiple "revenue streams" have been my reality for much of the 25 years of running what many would presume is a successful media empire. The reality is that I'm often working 6 or 7 days a week, and going down a lot of dead ends... no, you spent nearly 3 hours trying to get one line of CSS design code to look nice on the redesigned Drowned in Sound website!
Anyways... aside from the brilliant name, what I love about Isobel's approach is how Girls Twiddling Knobs grew from pure frustration. She was tired of being the only woman in music tech rooms, so she built something better. Now thousands of women use her platform.
I'm so glad she was happy to have this conversation with me, one that many would feel uncomfortable being so open about. We discussed:
- How to price creative work when battling imposter syndrome
- Why mission-driven businesses can be so disruptive
- The "10% edge" philosophy - in that you only need to be one step ahead of who you're helping
- How to start before you feel ready (because you never will)
"You cannot avoid having multiple revenue streams. That's a reality. So embracing that now will help you stand the test of time as a musician over the next couple of decades."
This episode will likely change how you think about:
- Pricing your creative work
- Building community over chasing clicks
- Turning industry frustrations into business opportunities
- Valuing your time when the world expects free content
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