H O W T O G R O W A S A N

I N D E P E N D E N T M U S I C A R T I S T

YOU DON'T WANT IT

BAD
V E
O ONR 1
ENOUGH
NAVIGATING THE
NEW MUSIC
BILLI MS INDUSTRY
STR EA INDEPENDENTLY

NIC D
M U S I C A R T I S T ,
E N T R E P R E N E U R & A U T H O R
 Table of Contents

Forewords 2
Introduction & Credentials 7
Chapter 1 - You don't want it bad enough 14
Chapter 2 - How hard are you willing to work? 19
Chapter 3 - How do I get into Spotify Editorial 31
Playlists
Chapter 4 - The importance of building a team 46
Chapter 5 - You're letting your excuses win 57
Chapter 6 - The minivan studio 64
Chapter 7 - People are afraid to fail 69
Chapter 8 - Workflow 72
Chapter 9 - Your content is selfish 78
Chapter 10 - How I choose which songs to release 83
Chapter 11 - Are you working in the wrong direction 85
Chapter 12 - The outliers 87
Chapter 13 - How to deal with hate & negative 92
comments

Extras
General Advice 94
Side Thoughts 103

P A G E 1
 Foreword number 1
Written by Connor & Brea Price

There’s hundreds if not thousands of music “gurus”

online claiming they can teach you how to make a
living off of music. The majority of those gurus have
never done it themselves, preach outdated
methods, or have done it years ago and don’t
understand the current climate. Nic D is the only
teacher who is simultaneously succeeding as an
independent artist in a big way. In December of
2021, Connor had under 75,000 monthly listeners
on Spotify. We connected with Nic through TikTok
and had an hour long conversation over FaceTime.
During this call, Nic gave us a few pieces of advice.
The next day, we decided to ditch our old methods
and implement his strategies. Now, less than one
year later, Connor has over 6 Million monthly
listeners. Nic has proven, and is helping others
prove, that you don’t need a traditional record label
to have a career in music.

P A G E 2
While his methods and ideas may seem to go
against the grain, that’s exactly why they work.
Every move a traditional music label makes, Nic
preaches the opposite. Label artists sacrifice
streams for a long-winded pre save campaign? Nic
drops the song right away and gets immediate
streams. Label artists wait months between
releases? Nic releases music almost every week.
Label artists spend thousands of dollars on cover
art, fancy music videos, multiple writers and
producers, and paid marketing? Nic finds ways to
do most of it himself and keeps a small circle of
people to work with. This maximizes his profit.

Long story short, if you feel like you aren’t moving

the needle with your music, this book is for you. Nic
D single-handedly changed our lives, and we hope
he changes yours too.

P A G E 3
 Forward number 2
Written by Kyle Beats

It is very clear to me that Nic is one of the first

REAL pioneers in this new world of content &
music.
If you don’t know me, I am a YouTuber Music
Producer who has gained almost 1,000,000
subscribers and made millions of dollars with both
paid and organic marketing.
I’ve been known as one of the best marketers in my
niche (I literally have had YouTube videos made
about me saying I’m a “Genius Marketer”) and this
book completely changed my mindset around
music marketing.
This not only taught me how to build a catalog,
promote songs, etc.
It taught me how to build the life I want around
music.
If you are an up and coming musician this is a
MUST read. Dare I say it should be your best friend
you read over and over the next 10 years.
Nic makes everything so digestible so that anyone
can make it as an independent artist. He can help
any musician regardless of experience get further,
faster in their career.

P A G E 4
 Forward number 3
Written by Wendy Day

Finally!
Someone with real life experience at making money
with his music is sharing the inner secrets
he’s used to succeed. Aside from this being an
extremely easy book to read—and let’s admit
that we all want it easy, Nic D uses real world
examples of his own discovery process of what
works and what doesn’t on the path to success as
an independent music artist.
I’ve been in the music industry for 30 years and
have seen artists struggle to succeed, and I’ve
seen artists try to take shortcuts to get to the prize
— a successful career in music. Nic D shares
exactly how he’s been able to feed himself and his
family (and some!) with his music. He
reminds us that there are no shortcuts and that to
succeed will take work and lots of content.
But the biggest take away from his book is that if he
can do it, you can absolutely do it. It’s about
putting in the work, standing out, and having a lot
of great music for fans to discover. And finding
fans and building a fanbase is of paramount
importance.

P A G E 5
 I noticed Nic D about 2 years ago on TikTok. I
found his content engaging and fun. I immediately
liked him, which led me down the rabbit hole of
discovering his music. When I met him, I was
even more excited because he is exactly who you
see on social media. I call it ‘living out loud:’
he’s authentic and sharing himself with the world.
It’s what artists who are serious about a
career in music do in order to succeed. There are
truly no shortcuts! It’s just work. But it’s fun
work!!!
Nic D, thank you for sharing so much of yourself
with other artists. One of the most heart
breaking things I see everyday is artists giving up
because they don’t think their music is good
enough, when in reality they just didn’t understand
how to market and promote it and reach the
fans. You’re laying it all out in this wonderful
blueprint to success. Keep up the great work. And
keep out-working everyone else! You rock!!
Wendy Day, Founder

Rap Coalition
Artist Centric
The Cheat Code Podcast

P A G E 6
 Introduction & Credentials

My name is Nic and my artist name is Nic D. I am

a fully independent artist currently doing over 1
million streams every single day. At the time of
publishing this, I’ve done around 1 billion streams
across all platforms. I have never had a manager, or
a publicist, or a distribution deal or any of the other
typical stuff you hear about artists having. I don’t
tour. I have had 5 songs on the Spotify top 50 viral
charts. I’ve had 2 albums debut in the top 10 on
Spotify. One at number 7 and one at number 8. One
of the albums was a solo release with 17 brand new
songs. Meaning no singles were released prior to
the album's release and then added to the album
when it came out. The second album was a collab
project with my friend Connor Price. Those albums
were released a month apart from each other in the
same year and I, along with Connor, were the only
independent artists on both lists. I’ve created
thousands of pieces of content, garnered millions of
views, fans, followers and I have helped many
artists make a living making music.

P A G E 7
 Now, for some back story. Let’s start around the
time when Covid hit.

As soon as Covid hit, I knew we would be

struggling to make ends meet. My media company
was my family’s sole income, and our paychecks
depended on the year to year wedding income we
booked. And with Covid, all of that wedding income
we were depending on, was disappearing day by
day. We knew we weren’t going to keep deposits
from couples who had as little control over the
situation as we did, so we were transferring
deposits to new dates, which effectively was going
to leave us incomeless for an entire year. There
wasn’t enough in our savings to live for an entire
year, so when the housing market started looking
really good, we decided to pack up and sell our
house and move back into the basement of my in-
laws.
You see, I was married, had a kid, and had
another full time job in addition to making music.
On top of that, I owned the media company, so the
hours were definitely more than a full time position.
There were a lot of late nights, some stressful times
and some tough conversations.

When I started doing music seriously, trying to make

a career out of it, I was 27.
27 years old.

P A G E 8
 Typically in the music industry, by 27, your
chances of starting a music career are essentially
non-existent. At least that’s what they want you to
believe. Where most people’s careers end, was the
beginning for me. I say that to say, you have time.
It’s not too late and you don’t need to be in a hurry.

I started doing music as a hobby when I was a

freshman in high school in 2005, and those first
songs were not that good. I was just doing it for fun,
and I had no idea what I was doing at first. But
those years, where I messed around making those
songs with my friends, and those videos that I
sometimes cringe watching now - THOSE YEARS
built some of the skills I needed to succeed. My
media company helped me build some of the skills I
needed to succeed. Being married helped me build
some of the skills I needed to succeed. Living life
gave me enough topics to write songs about. And
being a dad gave me the confidence to ensure that I
could do this career in a way that put my family
first, because that was most important to me.

P A G E 9
 In that first year when my wife, my young son
and I moved back into my in-laws house, during the
winter when my media company had a good 2-3
month break, I asked my wife - instead of going out
and trying to find “winter” jobs - if I could pursue
music. For real. As a career. And asked her if I had
her full support. And she said yes. But that “yes” was
years in the making - I even made a song about the
“wedge” music always seemed to drive in between
us up until then. You see when you’re married and
have children, a decision to pursue a career in
music doesn’t only affect you, it affects your entire
family. In fact, almost none of your decisions when
you're married with children affect only you. There
needs to be compromise and balance and I knew
that if I didn’t have her full support I wouldn’t be
able to truly give it everything and be able to focus
on what I knew I could do. I NEEDED her behind
me.

That first year (2019), I released 24 singles with a

music video for each. 24 singles and 24 music videos
- which was a ton of work and a ton of hours, and I
still wasn’t making enough money to make a living,
and from that perspective maybe I should’ve
stopped there, but I believed in myself that I could
make it work, I knew I could make it work, so I kept
going.
And going.
And going.
P A G E 1 0
 Then, I finally had a moment. The first defining
moment of my music career. It didn’t come until my
84th released song. Eighty-fourth song. That was a
full two years after I started. And during my time of
creating what felt like endless content, writing
hundreds and hundreds of songs, I learned a lot. I
know what works now, I know why and how it
works and I’ve decided to share a bit of what I’ve
learned with you.

I say all this for all of you who feel like you're too
old to start, or for those who’s last few ideas haven’t
worked, or for those who have felt like all they’re
doing is taking loss after loss. More stuff will NOT
work than will work. Not every idea you have will be
a good one. You will win some, and you will lose
most. Keep going, keep trying, keep throwing darts
at the dart board, keep taking swings, just keep
moving forward.

P A G E 1 1
 How to make it as an independent artist.

You have to start with what your definition of

“making it” is.

Do you want to be famous? Do you want to be a

superstar? Do you want to be rich? Are you happy
with simply making a living doing something you
enjoy? What does “make it” mean to you?

P A G E 1 2
 My goal was never to be an A-list celebrity. I
wanted a flexible life. A life where I wake up every
day and get to do whatever I want to do. Whatever
makes me feel good. I want to make a living doing
things that I love.

I’m forewarning you, some of the things I say in this

book are the complete opposite of what most
people will teach you. They’re the complete
opposite of how most people create and release
music. They are the opposite of how most people in
this business think. They are the opposite of the
“industry standard”. But they work.

I speak a bit bluntly in this book but it’s only

because I’m attempting to drill these points home
and I want the best for all of you.

Let’s get into it.

P A G E 1 3
 CHAPTER 1

YOU DON'T WANT

IT BAD ENOUGH
It's the truth.

P A G E 1 4
 It’s the truth. Most of you, no matter how much
you talk about what you want out of life, that’s all
you’ll ever do. Talk about it. You think you want it,
but you don’t, and that’s ok, as long as you’re honest
with yourself about it.

I wear many “hats” but one of my main “hats” is

being an independent music artist. “Independent”
simply means I’m not associated with or signed to a
music label. I also don’t have a manager or
management, I don’t have investors or a publicist,
and I don’t have a tour manager because I don't do
live shows.

I get so many messages asking me how to “make it”

as an independent artist or even as a music artist in
general. Most of the people asking me the questions
aren’t looking for an answer, they’re looking for a
shortcut. They want the easy route, the cheat code.
I could talk myself blue in the face, and I have, and
they’ll nod and thank me for my advice, but they
will do nothing with it. They won’t implement it.
Why? Because it’s not easy. It's not the answer they
were looking for. It’s work.

P A G E 1 5
Shortcuts sell because everybody
wants one.

Shortcuts don’t work because

there aren’t any.

P A G E 1 6
 It’s like they’re waiting for me to give them some
magic button that starts their career for them and
blows them up over night. Spoiler alert - there isn’t
a magic button. It takes work and commitment. It
takes showing up everyday for a long ass time
before anyone gives a shit.

Nobody cares until everyone does.

There are over 100,000 songs uploaded to Spotify

every single day. That’s more than 1 song every
second. So when you release music and you want to
do it as a living, you need to stand out and separate
yourself from the almost 1 million songs uploaded
every week.

Almost 1 Million songs are uploaded to

distributors every week. Let that sink in.

How are you going to stand out? What’s going to

make someone care about your song? What are
YOU going to DO to separate yourself?

P A G E 1 7
 People get where they are because of their
actions, not because of their talents. Music is no
different. I’m here because of my actions. I’m not
here because I’m talented. I’m not here because I
have good ideas. I’m not here because I’m the best
singer. I’m not here because I’m a good songwriter.
I’m here because of my actions. My actions got me
here. What I DID got me here. What I CHOSE to do
with my time got me here. I acted on my ideas. I
worked to get better everyday. You need to be
willing to do the same. You can’t just upload a song
and hope for the best. It doesn’t work like that.
There are only so many artists that break through
into an audience of people outside of their friends
and family.

You need to work harder than the people who

uploaded the other 100,000 songs to Spotify the
same day you did.

P A G E 1 8
 CHAPTER 2

HOW HARD ARE

YOU WILLING TO
WORK?
Harder than me?

P A G E 1 9
 Oftentimes what you
believe to be true is more
powerful that what
actually is.
Making good music isn’t enough. There are so many
talented people that will never make a living off of
their music. Why? They don’t know how to market
it and they’re not willing to learn how to. They don't
want to invest the time into learning how to. In
other words… “They don’t want it bad enough”.
They think that because their music is “good,” that
people will somehow just find it. They don’t treat it
like a business. If you don’t want to run a business
and you do simply want to create and release music
for fun then by all means do it! More power to you.
If you’re happy that’s all that matters. But if you
want to make a living making music you have to
think and operate like a business.

P A G E 2 0
I’ve dabbled with music since high school but I
didn’t start pursuing music as a career until January
2019. The moment I made the decision to make
music my career, I became a small business and I
had to think like a business owner. If you’re an
independent artist and you want to make money
from your music, you have to think of yourself as a
business owner and you have to move like a
business would.

P A G E 2 1
Independent Artist Small Business Owner Roles
Some of the many

Creating the music

Marketing the music
Accountant
Social media management
Content creation
Video Editor
Graphic Designer
Customer service representative
Packing and shipping merchandise
& much more

P A G E 2 2
 Let me ask you this.

Do you believe you have what it takes to be a

successful independent music artist? Yes or no?
Most of you probably said yes, otherwise I’m not
sure why you purchased this book.

What if I asked you this, “Do you believe you have

what it takes to own and operate a successful and
profitable small business?” The question is the same,
but it holds an entirely different weight. You may
not have been as quick to answer or you may have
at least had to put a little more thought into your
response.

“Independent” is the key word here. Being a

successful independent artist is far different from
being a successful music artist. Artists on labels
have teams around them helping and assisting them
in their every move. Sometimes even making
creative decisions for them. Leaving the artist the
ability to simply be the artist. In turn, of course, the
artist gives up a large percentage of the money
generated from their music and oftentimes they
also give up a percentage of their merchandise,
ticket sales, feature fees, brand deals, etc. If that
sounds like something you’d be into, you’re reading
the wrong book.

P A G E 2 3
 There are also, in my opinion, different types of
independent artists. There are truly DIY (do it
yourself) independent artists; artists who really do
it all themselves. Then, there are independent
artists who hire management companies, sign
distribution deals, or partner with independent
labels. Technically these artists can still claim
independence because they own their Masters and
they’re not signed to a label, but they have a huge
team working for them or with them at all times.

At the beginning, you will have no one to help

you. No one is going to hold your hand and
introduce you to the curators of Spotify editorial
playlists. No one is going to give you the email or
submit your music to blogs for you. (Do people still
blog?) Artists aren’t going to respond to your DM’s
about a feature request. No one is going to hold you
accountable and keep you focused. You have to do
these things for yourself. Build up your worth
before you ask somebody for something OR the
even better option, build up your worth to the point
where people come to YOU and ask YOU how they
can help.

P A G E 2 4
 “Insanity is doing the same
thing over and over again and
expecting different results.”

-Albert Einstein

P A G E 2 5
 Scenario 1: You’ve been here before. You work
really hard on a song, you buy a beat, get some
studio time, you spend money to have it
professionally mixed and mastered, you get a dope
cover art designed for it, you shoot a music video,
and then…. you post it to the same 500 people that
have been following you since highschool. Most of
whom, don’t even take your music seriously
anyway. Hoping that somehow a “good feeling”
about it will make a song blow up. “This is the one, I
know it” or “this one’s gonna change our lives.” YOU
GOTTA WORK FOR IT. Nobody is gonna share your
stuff. Nobody cares until everybody does. YOU
gotta do it. You gotta blow yourself up. Don’t expect
anything from anyone.

You tell me that making music for a living is what

you want. You tell me you’ll do anything to make it
happen. But, if I asked most of you what you did
today, it would expose you.

P A G E 2 6
Scenario 2: What did you do today? “I started a
song, watched Netflix, played video games, went to
Chick-fil-A, hung out with my friends, and played
basketball.”

You expect me to believe that what you want is

to make music for a living? You don’t want that,
what you wanted to do was hang out with friends
and chill. You might enjoy making music, but
making music because you like to is VERY different
from wanting to make music for a living.

“I was gonna make a song but I played some

video games instead.” You know who’s not playing
video games? The person who wants to make a
living making music. If you’re reading this book,
you’re most likely not in a place where you should
be prioritizing video games over working on your
craft. I’m not saying you can’t enjoy your life and do
fun things. But you can’t expect to get where you
want to be without some sacrifices. In my free time,
I worked. In my down time, I worked. I didn’t play
video games, I made songs. I didn’t buy shoes, I
bought beats. I didn’t scroll other people's content,
I MADE my own content.

P A G E 2 7
Create more, consume less.

P A G E 2 8
If you wanted to make music for a living your
answer would be more along the lines of this.

What did you do today? “I wrote 3 songs, submitted

one for release, made 2 pieces of engaging content
to post, watched YouTube videos on how to run a
small business, I watched interviews on my favorite
artists come up stories, I connected with some new
producers, I watched a tutorial on engineering, and
designed the cover art for the other 2 songs.”

Do you see the difference between the 2 answers?

One of them backs up the statement “I want to be a

successful independent music artist” and the other
exposes what you actually want.

P A G E 2 9
 Invest in yourself
Stop buying stuff you don’t need.

For the first 3.5 years of pursuing music as a career,

I never paid myself a dollar of my music income, I
used it to grow the music. Most people won’t invest
in themselves. They make $100 off their streaming
and end up spending $75 on clothes, $15 on fast
food and $10 on whatever else, which leaves
nothing to grow the music. Live below your means.
New shoes don’t make you a better music artist. A
new car doesn’t make people take you more
seriously. That stuff is in your head. Stop trying to
impress people who don’t care about you.

You wouldn’t worry so much about what others

think of you, if you realized how seldom they do

- Eleanor Roosevelt

P A G E 3 0
 CHAPTER 3

“HOW DO I GET
INTO SPOTIFY
EDITORIAL
PLAYLISTS?”
Step 1: Stop trying to.

P A G E 3 1
 I cringe when people ask me this, because
they’re not looking to get into playlists, what they
are looking for is a shortcut. Playlists are not the
answer for a career in independent music. I was
making a living off of my music before I got into my
first Spotify editorial playlist. Playlists are not what
you need. What you need is fans. Don’t get me
wrong, playlists are helpful in getting your streams
up and I’m grateful to Spotify for adding my music
to them, but they are not helpful in gaining fans.

At the time of writing this, I do 30M streams a

month and 2 PERCENT of those streams come from
editorial playlists.
2 percent.

I’ve heard stories of people who got in editorial

playlists, started to see an income from music and
then quit their job. Thinking that they had “made it”.
Then, when their song was removed from the
playlists their streams dropped, which in turn
lowered their revenue, they had to go try to get
their job back 3 months later. People in playlists
aren’t your fans. They don’t care about your next
release, they don’t care about your merchandise,
they don’t care about your tour, they don’t care
about your music.

P A G E 3 2
 The truth about Spotify Playlists.

So many artists put far too much weight on getting

into Spotify Playlists. They submit their song 3-4
weeks in advance because that’s what they think
they have to do.

Here’s the thing: there are over 100,000 songs

released every day on Spotify and there are only so
many editorial playlists. It’s like hitting the lottery
to get into Spotify Editorial playlists. You have to
stand out from those other 100,000 songs on your
own.

All pitching your song and waiting 3-4 weeks for

your release does is hold up your flow and makes
your fans wait. You have to feed your fans. And if
you don’t have fans yet, that’s an even better reason
to release more frequently. We are in a time where
content, yes, including music, gets consumed and
forgotten about very quickly. You have to stay in
front of your audience. No one wants to watch you
promote the same song every day for a month or
more. Release weekly if you can.

P A G E 3 3
 Your song doesn’t have to blow up the day it
comes out

Your song doesn’t have to blow up or even perform

well the day/week/month/year it comes out. It
can blow up at ANY time. You can promote your
song at ANY time. A song that’s old to you is brand
new to someone who’s never heard it before. And if
you’re reading this book, I’m assuming most people
haven’t heard your song before. RELEASE MORE
MUSIC. One of the biggest upsides to releasing
music more frequently is that it gives you more
options for songs to create content for. Your music
catalog is like having a bag full of content topics you
can reach into at any time. Reach in, grab one, and
get to work.

P A G E 3 4
 Your old songs are brand new to people who’ve
never heard them.

Promote your past catalog. You don’t always need

new music to be able to create new content. Create
content with your old music. It may be old to you,
but it’s brand new to people who have never heard
it. For example, I released my song “Icee Pop” on
September 3rd 2021 & it did great for me at the
time. At the time, it was my best first day streaming
numbers ever. Over the next few months it still
performed well and was averaging 20-25k streams a
day on Spotify. One day in early January 2022 I was
sitting in a hotel on a family vacation and I was
scrolling through videos on my phone trying to find
something to post on TikTok. I was on vacation, but
I still want to make a post.

continued

P A G E 3 5
I needed to be consistent. I came across an old
video I filmed for TikTok for Icee Pop. I posted it.
That video went on to do almost 6 million views.
Not only does that video get millions of views, it
inspires my next wave of viral content for Icee Pop.
Because of my content performing well and
because MY SONG WAS OUT ALREADY BEFORE I
PROMOTED IT, (please don’t get me started on
people promoting their music before it’s out) my
streams on Icee Pop go from 25k a day to 44k the
next day to 54k to 69k to 77k to 380k a day and so
on. All stemming from a video that was just sitting
on my phone for months. A video that I had never
posted that I filmed back in September 2021 when I
released the song. A video that I didn’t post because
I didn’t think it was good enough and because I
thought I could do better.

P A G E 3 6
 What should you do when you have a song going
viral?

Most people would tell you to focus all of your

energy on that one song to maximize its potential
reach. Why? I’ll never understand. What did I do? I
released another song the same day. Why? People
are finding me for the very first time. They want to
hear more and they want to know what’s next. I
have attention, what am I going to do with it? Am I
going to frustrate people by shoving one song down
their throats because it’s finding some success or
am I going to give people what they want and give
them more music. Most people's first mistake is
that they don’t give people what they want. They
think they know better and they are trying to
impress the wrong people. It’s simple. Keep the
viewer happy. Keep the listener happy. There is
built-in feedback in your comment section. Listen.
So, what happened when I released a new song on
the same day that Icee Pop started to go viral? It
also went viral. That song was my song Serotonin.

P A G E 3 7
Serotonin and Icee Pop were on the Top 50 chart for
the most viral songs in the United States on Spotify
at the same time. They charted the iTunes pop
charts together as well.

P A G E 3 8
 What can we learn?

Listen to the people who hold up your platform.

There is no platform without the people who hold it
up. Stop thinking you know better. Stop trying to
impress people who don’t care about you. Give your
fans what they want.

Post it, Content is king.

P A G E 3 9
 My biggest song to date is “Fine Apple.” It’s not
huge, but it’s done great for an independent artist.
It’s been streamed over 50 million times. Let me set
the scene. It’s January 2021, and my friend Cakes is
coming to town. Cakes helps me with a ton of stuff,
but the main thing is he is a videographer and films
most of my music videos and helps me film tons of
other music related content. We also host The FRDi
Show together. Anyway, we’re facetiming that
morning, trying to decide what we’re going to do
for content. We decided I’m going to write a song,
record it, send it for mix and master, film a music
video and release the song and video all in 12 hours.
Welp. That was the day I made “Fine Apple”. Now it
didn’t blow up like crazy until May 2021, but
regardless.

P A G E 4 0
 While we were making it, we decided that the song
was super good and we didn’t want to rush the
music video, so we didn’t do the video that day. I
did, however, release the song that day. So, because
I submitted it for release and set the release date
for the same day I was not able to do any type of
playlist pitching for it.

A song I made and released in one day.

A song I didn’t submit to playlists.
A song I didn’t run a pre save campaign for,
is my current most streamed song.

It’s almost like all of the stuff people tell you “you
have to do to succeed in music” is nonsense. You
don’t need to set your release date 3-4 weeks in
advance, you don’t need to release on Friday’s only,
you don’t need to bank on playlists, you don’t need
to do any of that. Make your own rules. You just
need to make good music and make even better
content.

P A G E 4 1
 Something I believe to be true

The song you think you will blow you up will

probably flop & the song you don’t even want to post
will probably blow you up.

For example, I have a song called “Mona Lisa.”

“Mona Lisa” used to be called “In the meantime”
because I made it so I could have something to
release while I planned a release for a different song
I thought was going to be huge. I had a song that I
thought was going to be huge and I wanted to plan
the release out perfectly and film a music video for
it but I didn’t want to not release anything while I
did that so I made a song to release in the
meantime. The song I made in the meantime was
“Mona Lisa.” “Mona Lisa” was my first song on
tiktok to get over 1 million views. A SONG I MADE
JUST SO I COULD DROP SOMETHING, WHILE I
WAS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO BLOW UP
A DIFFERENT SONG. Do you see what I’m saying?!
You have no idea what song is going to resonate
with people. By the way, the song I thought was
going to blow up, flopped heavily.

P A G E 4 2
Most people try to make a living off of 1-5 songs.
Let’s call a living $3,500 a month. To make
$3500-$4000 a month is about 1 million streams.
That would make it roughly 35,000 streams a day. If
you only have 5 songs out, those 5 songs need to
average 6,500-7,000 streams each a day. If you have
100 songs out, each one of those songs only needs
to average 350 streams a day each. Which seems
more achievable? It’s a volume game.

Would you rather have 100 at bats

or one swing?

Would you rather have 100 at bats or one swing?

What are the best odds? Putting 1 song out a month,
or even less frequently, and trying to blow it up or
releasing 24-52 songs a year and getting one of
those to blow up. You have to feed it to the wolves
and let them decide what’s good. Far too often
people put all their energy and resources into one
song. Why do that when quality is subjective?
Quality is subjective means the song you love, other
people might hate, and the song you hate, other
people might love. The song you think will blow you
up could completely flop and the song you don’t
even wanna release could blow you up. You get my
point.

P A G E 4 3
Throw more darts, hit more
bullseyes.

P A G E 4 4
 This is the guaranteed way to get your song in
Spotify playlists

Blow the song up on your own.

Everyone is looking for a shortcut. You know why

shortcuts sell? Because everyone wants one. You
know why shortcuts don’t work? Because there
aren’t any. You gotta do the work. The problem is,
most of you don’t want it bad enough. Once you
start driving traffic to your music organically,
Spotify notices and adds your songs to playlists
anyway. My song Icee Pop released with no
Editorial Playlists and 3 months after I released it, I
created some content for it that started to go viral.
After it started going viral and there was traffic to it
organically, Spotify added it into a bunch of
Editorial Playlists.

Playlists are not going to blow you up. You have to

blow you up.

I’m not saying Playlists are worthless. I’m grateful to

Spotify for when I get placed in them. I’m simply
saying don’t rely on them. Don’t bank on them. Go
do the work and make it so Spotify can’t ignore you.

P A G E 4 5
 CHAPTER 4

THE IMPORTANCE
OF BUILDING A
TEAM
Surround yourself with like-minded people

P A G E 4 6
 You’re the average of the 5 people you spend the
most time with.

If the people you spend the most time with play

video games all day, what are you most likely to end
up doing? If the people you spend the most time
with drink and do drugs, what are you most likely to
do? If the people you spend the most time with
aren’t motivated and don’t have any goals for their
life, it’s going to be much harder for you to separate
yourself from that.

Surround yourself with people who are chasing

something, who want something more, who have
goals, who work hard, who are inspired, who are
inspiring, who are motivated, who are hungry, who
love people really well.

P A G E 4 7
If you read that and say to yourself, “I don’t have
anyone around me like that” or “I don’t know
anyone who’s motivated” or “nobody where I’m
from is doing anything productive,” then you’re
already losing. You’re making excuses. YOU DON’T
WANT IT BAD ENOUGH. I’m from a small town in
Virginia. I didn’t let the fact that I’m from a small
town limit my opportunity. I’ve never been to LA.
I’ve never been to a professional recording studio.
I’ve never been inside of a label building. I’ve never
cared to network with big names or people who
claimed to “have the answers.”

P A G E 4 8
If there really are 0 people (which I highly doubt)
around you who have any of those qualities
mentioned above.

Here’s a cheat code for you.

Do it with the content you consume. There is a lot of

truth to “you are what you eat.” The same applies to
“you are what you consume” or more specifically
“you are the content you consume.” So what can we
do? Unfollow everyone on social media you
compare yourself to. They’re only posting their
highlights anyway. So when you watch someone’s
highlights you’re comparing everything in your
existence to only what someone wants you to see
isn’t really a fair comparison in the first place.

P A G E 4 9
“Comparison is the thief of joy”
- Theodore Roosevelt

P A G E 5 0
Unfollow everything that keeps you distracted on
social media apps. Only follow people or accounts
who inspire you to be better. Motivational
accounts, personal development accounts, business
development accounts. Accounts that push you
towards your goals, not distracting you from them.

The biggest mistake people make when trying to

build a team is they don’t try to build a team. They
try to join a team. They try to prove their value to
people who are already doing it, instead of building
with people from the ground up.

P A G E 5 1
 How I built my team

I put my head down and worked, and I didn’t ask

anyone (outside of my close friends, mainly Mark
and Julie Dennis) for anything. Literally. I filmed my
first music videos by myself using a tripod. I edited
everything myself. Sometimes I would ask Mark to
come and man the camera to make sure it was
recording, do some slight handheld filming or even
just to affirm my ideas and hype me up a little bit.
Side note here, because he deserves it: Mark is one
of those kinda friends that no matter what you ask
for or when you ask for it (except for taking off
work to go on vacation. This man’s kryptonite is
taking a day off work), he’ll be there. He’s a loving
and supportive husband. He’s father to 2 wonderful
girls. Actually he’s more than a father, he’s a Dad.
Any man can be a father, not every man is truly a
Dad. He’s also a really dope rapper (Twizz) and has
blessed me with a bar or 2 here and there.

P A G E 5 2
Ok, where were we? Ah yes, building a team. I was
DIY’ing everything and then, as it happens, people
were placed in my life to fill the areas I needed
filled. Maybe by happenstance, by the grace of God,
or maybe because they saw how hard I was working
and wanted to be a part of it. Or maybe I just got
lucky. But, as the old saying goes…

The harder I worked the luckier I got.

What looks like sudden success is often years in the

making. Years of failures, years of not being good
enough, years of learning, years of trying. Here’s the
real secret: The harder you work, the more
opportunities present themselves, the more ideas
come, the more people take notice, the more
chances arise, the more wins you get, the more
home runs, the more bullseyes. Then after you’ve
put years and years into getting better and learning
from failures, one day, you start to fail less. It
becomes easier. And because people on the outside
don’t see all the work, it looks easy, so they assume
it was.

I really have trouble staying on topic. So, I’m just

going to wrap this up quickly in a long story short
kind of way.

P A G E 5 3
 How I connected with my Videographer

I DM’d Cakes on instagram (my now close friend

and talented videographer) and complimented him
on some things he was doing. We learned we both
had media film companies (Perfect Form Video) that
mainly did weddings, so we connected on that level.
When we learned we live 2 hours from each other, I
invited him to my house. We hung out, I played him
some of my music, we ate food, then he left. The
next time he came we ended up filming 2 music
videos in the same day. After that we never
stopped. We went on to launch The FRDi Show
together and we have created hundreds, if not
thousands, of pieces of content. He wasn’t someone
who I schmoozed over to help me or someone I
tricked into liking me. He believed in me and
WANTED to help. We created a genuine
relationship.

P A G E 5 4
 How I connected with my Producer

Graham, 100Graham, DM’d me on instagram and I

told him I didn’t need any beats. Later, I asked him
if he had any guitar beats, and he sent me a beat
pack. I liked a particular beat in the pack he sent
and I wrote “Fine Apple” on it. After that we never
stopped. Graham is also one of the most genuine,
loving, and hardest working people I know. He’s
also no longer only a producer, he started releasing
his own music and in less than a year garnered 1.5
MILLION monthly listeners on Spotify. He credits a
lot of his success to some of my tips and advice I’ve
given over the years on my podcast “The NDPNDNT
Podcast.” A lot of the same tips I speak about there,
I’ve put into this book.

P A G E 5 5
 How I connected with my Engineer (Mixing &
Mastering)

I heard about Pablo somehow, I reached out to him

for some mixing and mastering. I told him my
budget and he was willing to work with it. He has
now mixed over 200 songs for me. He works
effeciently and does an incredible job.

The common characteristic between all of these

people is that they’re all simply good people and
they work hard. I tend to gravitate towards that. I
don’t care who’s the best at what they do and I
never have. I’m more impressed by how people
carry themselves, how they treat others, and how
hard they’re willing to work. No one on my team
was popular when we started, none of them were
overly successful, they were willing to work and
believed in the vision.

Everyone I started with are still the people I work

with to this day. I’ve never thought once about
replacing one of them with someone else just
because someone else may be famous or they
worked on big songs or because they have
connections.

P A G E 5 6
 CHAPTER 5

YOU'RE LETTING
YOUR EXCUSES
WIN
If it's important to you, you'll find a way. If it's not, you'll find an
excuse.

P A G E 5 7
“I don’t have time.” - The greatest lie ever told.

If you have the time to talk about how you don’t

have the time, you have the time.

“Life’s just so busy right now, I don’t have time.” If

something is really important to you, you’ll make
the time. Time will never be an issue for a priority. I
cringe whenever people tell me they don’t have
time for something. If this is something you
struggle with, read the book “The War of Art” by
Steven Pressfield.

If you have time to consume music, you have time to

create it. If you have time to consume content, you
have time to make it.

P A G E 5 8
It all boils down to this simple question. How bad
do you want it? I’m a husband and a father, those 2
things will always be my number 1 focus. I also
owned and operated a media company until this
year, as well as co-host a podcast. I’m part of
another company called Grouped. Grouped is a
platform designed by artists for artists. I personally
think Grouped is the future to monetizing your
music career. Go check it out if you want to.

For the first 2 years of pursuing music, I wrote and

recorded music in my free time. I provided for my
family first, and when I had a free hour or even a
free 15 minutes, I would work on music. I personally
rarely listen to other artists' music. Not because I
don’t enjoy music, but because I would rather use
that time to create my own.

P A G E 5 9
If you have time to listen to
music, then you have time to
work on music.

P A G E 6 0
I would always find slots of time to write songs.
Oftentimes the weddings that I was photographing
were over an hour away from where I live. Instead
of listening to other artists' music while I would
drive to the weddings, I would listen to
instrumentals and write my own music. While I was
editing the photographs and getting them ready to
deliver to clients, I would listen to instrumentals
and write songs. While I waited for the photos to
export, I would record the songs that I just wrote
while editing the photos. If it’s important to you,
you will find the time.

P A G E 6 1
Create more than you consume.

P A G E 6 2
How can you implement these tips to become more
productive & efficient with your time? Instead of
listening to someone else’s music on your drive to
work, listen to instrumentals and think of melody
ideas. Instead of watching YouTube on your lunch
break, write songs. Instead of scrolling social media
on the toilet, think of content ideas. I could go on
and on, but I think you get the point.

It’s not easy, but it is straightforward.

P A G E 6 3
 CHAPTER 6

THE MINIVAN
STUDIO
No excuses

P A G E 6 4
I recorded over 50 songs in the back of my minivan.

No excuses.

2020. The year COVID hit. My photography work

had basically come to a stop because large events &
gatherings weren’t allowed. I mainly photographed
and filmed weddings at the time for my income, so
you can see where there might be an issue. I saw it
as a blessing (even though my wife may not have at
the time). A unique opportunity to put more time &
energy into music while my photography business
was at a stand still. Because of the mandated
quarantine lockdown I wasn’t going into my
photography studio where I also recorded my
music. Side note, because I feel it’s important: I
bartered with the owner of the building to have the
studio free of charge. I know a lot of you reading
this feel like you can’t afford some of the
opportunities, but what you can do is improve your
skills and stack skills so that you have something of
value to offer others. The barter system. Where no
money is exchanged but both parties still benefit
from the deal.

P A G E 6 5
 So, because I wasn’t going into the photography
studio because of quarantine, I needed to record at
home. I was recording songs on my couch
(Intentions), at my kitchen table (Canary Yellow),
and in my shed (Good Enough). When it got late and
I wanted to record, I ran into an issue - I couldn't
because my wife and son were sleeping. I didn't
want to be loud because I didn’t want to wake them.
Fun fact: I did actually record “intentions” while
they were sleeping which is why it sounds like I’m
singing in a whisper in that song.

Instead of saying “I can’t record right now because

my family is asleep,” I said “where can I record
while my family is asleep?”

A question opens your mind to finding solutions to

the problem, whereas a statement closes your mind.

P A G E 6 6
So, in thinking of where else I could record, I
decided to start recording in my minivan. I went
outside, turned my van on so that I’d have heat,
folded down the 3rd row seating and crawled in the
back. I set my laptop up on a bin of my merchandise
that had been left in there and started working.
Funny enough, most minivans have an AC power
plug in the back, so I had a power source for my
laptop as long as the van was running. I would
always make sure to park close enough to the house
to be able to connect to the Wi-Fi. After a few days
of doing this, it actually became my favorite place to
record. I even ended up building a desk out of scrap
wood I had in my shed so I didn’t have to balance
my laptop on the merch bin anymore and I ended
up recorded over 50 songs in the back of my van. If
you were to solo the vocal track to those songs you
would be able to hear the hum of the engine or the
sound of my chickens clucking in the background.
(Yes, my wife and I have chickens.)

P A G E 6 7
You have to restructure your mind to see the
opportunity in the curve balls that life can and will
throw at you. I’m the type of person to only see
solutions, never problems. You can’t control what
happens to you, but you can control how you
respond. Imagine if I’d have said “there’s no place to
record, so I guess I’ll just take a break from music”
or even “I can’t record in my van, it’s
uncomfortable.” Both of those translate to “I don’t
want it bad enough.”

Grab life by the balls and go get what you want.

P A G E 6 8
 CHAPTER 7

PEOPLE ARE
AFRAID TO FAIL
I wish this weren't true.

P A G E 6 9
 The poison that plagues so many of us. Failure.. or
rather, the fear of it.

People are afraid to fail. They are so afraid in fact,

that it keeps them from even trying. They are afraid
of wasting money on pursuing something that
might not work out.

Change your perspective.

If you spend $100 on something and it works, great.

That’s $100 well spent. If you spend $100 on
something and it doesn’t work, most people will see
that as a waste of money. I still see it as $100 well
spent. I see it as you spent $100 on a lesson that
taught you what not to spend $100 on. Most people
won’t even spend the $100 in the first place, out of
the fear that they’ll lose it. So they stay stuck in the
same place wondering what to do instead. If I told
you “the first 4 times you spend $100, you will make
nothing back, but on the 5th time you spend $100
you’ll make $1000 back.” How quickly would you
spend that first $400? You’d probably spend it
immediately. Your “yes” is coming. You just have to
get through your “no’s” first. People are so afraid of
the no’s that they do nothing and they never get the
chance to get a yes.

P A G E 7 0
Failure only happens when you stop. When you
quit. A little mental cheat code for you…

If you never quit, you can never fail.

Often what you want is on the other side of fear.

If I said “Hey, go film yourself performing your song

in front of that group of people over there.” Most of
you would probably say “no way! I’m too
embarrassed.” Or “I don’t have the confidence for
that.” Now what if I said “I’ll give you 50 thousand
dollars if you go perform your song in front of that
group of people over there.” Most of you wouldn’t
give it a second thought. That’s what a viral video
could turn into for you. It can turn into real money.
Now I’m not saying go perform in front of people
and you're guaranteed to go viral. It was just an
example to show you that when you step out of
your comfort zone into a place that’s a little
uncomfortable, you get closer to what you want.
Replace the “go out in public and sing your song”
with whatever it is that’s holding you back.
Whatever fear that’s keeping you from moving
forward.

P A G E 7 1
 CHAPTER 8

WORKFLOW
Workin & Flowin

P A G E 7 2
 Outsourcing. (My opinion)

I know artists like Russ, “produced, mixed,

mastered, engineered by Russ,” have found success
in doing everything themselves. Here’s my take: I
don’t produce (I know what sounds good when I
hear it), I don’t engineer, I don’t mix, and I don’t
master. Don’t get me wrong, I can get a solid demo
mix and I throw ideas out for production and mixes,
but I’m not the guy doing the work. Why? Because
having someone else do it enables me to be able to
create faster, which in turn, enables me to release
more frequently and spend more time creating
content to promote the music. Content is king.

P A G E 7 3
I write my own lyrics and I record myself. Outside
of that, I’m fairly hands off. As in, I’m not the one
doing the work. I’m definitely a part of the process,
but I’m not spending nearly as much time as I would
be if I was doing it all by myself. Another reason I
don’t do it myself is because I found people that are
better at those things than I am. I’m aware of what
I’m good at and I focus my energy there. I found
this quote by Gary W. Keller in one of my journals
from 2016.

“You need to be doing fewer things for more effect

instead of doing more things with side effects” - The
ONE Thing, Gary W. Keller

My take away from the quote is, we need to focus.

We need to hone in on what we are best at and do
that. Our most valuable asset is time. “Where is my
time best spent?” should be something you ask
yourself daily.

P A G E 7 4
 Content: this is the key.

Content, content, content. Content is king. Good

content is more important than a good song. Yes,
good songs are still important BUT, great content
has the power to make a good song great, and on
occasion, excellent content has the power to make
a bad song good. The reverse is also true, bad
content has the power to make a good song bad, or
at least the power to make someone's perception of
the song bad.

P A G E 7 5
Short form content is what you should focus your
energy on. If you don’t know what short form
content is, it’s short videos, 0-60 seconds or so,
promoting your music. Most artists gravitate
towards creating music videos to promote their
music. I think artists like music videos because they
look cool and they make the artist feel more legit or
something. They're aesthetic and feel artsy to the
artist. They’re not necessarily great for getting new
people to come across your music. They are good
however, for creating a deeper connection with
people who already care about your music.
Generally speaking, people have to hear the song
before they care about the music video for it. If you
don’t have a large audience yet, and even if you do,
music videos (majority of the time) are not going to
be where people find out about you.

P A G E 7 6
The main thing for me when thinking about
whether or not to do music videos is that, to me,
the ROI on music videos isn’t worth it. What is ROI?
ROI stands for, Return on Investment. The amount
of money spent to create a music video and then
the money made from the revenue a music video
generates. If you upload your music video to
YouTube, which I’m assuming most of you do, the
ad revenue from your music video will rarely even
break even with how much you spent to create it.
So, why do people do them? If you do them for you,
because you truly enjoy the process of it, then by all
means continue. If you do them because you think
you’re supposed to, stop. Your time, energy, and
money are far better spent elsewhere. For example,
spend your time, energy, and extra money creating
short form content. That’s exactly what I would do.

The best part about short form content? It usually

costs 0 dollars to create, so the profit margin on
short form content can go only, well, up.

P A G E 7 7
 CHAPTER 9

YOUR CONTENT
IS SELFISH
and lazy

P A G E 7 8
Find unique ways to create content around your
music so the viewer doesn’t feel like you're
promoting them something. People will always care
more about it when they think they found it and not
when you show it to them.

Most people's content is selfish and lazy because

they’re not trying to provide the viewer with value.
They’re trying to GET attention without GIVING
value first. Which is why most people's content
doesn’t perform well. You need to switch your
mindset from “how do I get more people to listen to
my song?” to “how can I entertain the most people
while implementing my music at the same time.”
Give the viewer value by entertaining them. They’re
on an entertainment app. They are there to be
entertained. They’re not there to be sold to. Provide
the viewer with the value of entertainment. You
can’t simply expect them to like your song cause
you think they should. Making good music isn’t
enough. There is far too much competition for
attention for you to be lazy with your content.

P A G E 7 9
I saw a video clip of Bradley Beal talking to an AAU
basketball team once. He was talking to them about
what it takes to get into the NBA. It’s a video clip I’ll
never forget. After hammering home points about
why they don’t want it bad enough he finished it
with this: “If you want to get into the NBA, you
gotta guard me and can’t none of y’all guard me.”
Hearing him say that gave me the chills. Because it’s
true, none of them can guard him. What he was
saying was, in order to be in the NBA, you have to
be better than someone else who’s currently
playing. You have to be good enough to take
another player’s job. There are approximately 450
active players in the NBA. Each team is allowed 15
active players. Think about how hard you’d need to
work if you want to be in the NBA. It's the same
with Music. You’re in a space where you’re fighting
for attention. There are millions of artists trying to
make it just like you. There are 11 MILLION artists
on Spotify alone. You have to outwork all of them
AND create content that takes attention away from
someone who’s already doing it. Attention is
currency. What are you doing to separate yourself
from the pack? Do you want it bad enough?

P A G E 8 0
Not only is your content selfish, you’re not
responding to your comments.

Why?

Be active and respond to comments, I would spend

the first hour responding to every comment that
came through. People take the time to comment,
take the time to comment back. It’s such a small
gesture and it goes such a long way. When my “Fine
Apple” videos were going viral, I responded to
thousands of comments. You know how often
people comment on videos and never get replied
to? Be the person that replies. You’re not too cool
to respond. You’re not too busy to respond. You’re
choosing not to respond.

P A G E 8 1
Benefits to responding to comments: outside of it
simply being a nice thing to do..

You are creating a personal connection to your

fans.
People will be more likely to buy your
merchandise.
People will be more likely to continue to
comment and engage with your posts because
they feel seen and they feel like you care.
There are also some algorithmic benefits to this
as well. When you respond to a comment, it
brings people back to your video, which tells the
algorithm not only did this person like this video
and watch it once, they came back to it to watch
it again.
It makes people feel good.

P A G E 8 2
 CHAPTER 10

HOW I CHOOSE
WHICH SONGS TO
RELEASE

P A G E 8 3
I don’t usually release songs in order of my
favorites. I tend to release them based on which
songs I have ideas to create content around. If I
don’t have ideas for content, there’s no point in
releasing it. It could be my best song but if I don’t
know how to promote it, it’ll fly under the radar.

P A G E 8 4
 CHAPTER 11

ARE YOU
WORKING HARD
BUT IN THE
WRONG
DIRECTION?
More common than you may think

P A G E 8 5
There are a lot of people who are very talented who
aren’t working in the right direction. One example
would be my friend Connor Price. When I met him,
he had 75,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. He was
obviously talented, making great content and it was
performing well, he was just a bit misguided. He
was working in the wrong direction. He was doing a
lot of remixes and he was rapping over other
popular song’s instrumentals. The problem with
remixes is that people aren’t engaging with your
content for your original music, most likely, they
already like the song you’re remixing and just
wanted to hear your version of it. The trouble with
building a following from doing remixes or covers is
when you do that, most times, most people will not
care about your original music when you release it
or talk about it. They didn’t follow you for your
original music, they followed you because you're
the guy who covers their favorite songs. So, I gave
Connor some advice for content, told him to never
do another remix again and 3 months later he had 1
Million monthly listeners on Spotify. At the time of
writing this, 1 year after I connected with Connor
he has 6.5 Million monthly listeners. Update: he got
up to over 8 million monthlies after his wife and
manager Breanna’s genius idea for the “Globe
Series.” Wild.

P A G E 8 6
 CHAPTER 12

THE OUTLIERS
More important than you may think

P A G E 8 7
Years ago I read the book “Outliers” by Malcom
Gladwell and have since started looking for them in
my everyday life.

One outlier about my success in music that I think

gets overlooked is me starting the FRDi Show with
my friend Cakes. The FRDi Show is a podcast where
I have funny conversations about mostly nothing
with my friend Cakes.

Why would this play any part in the success of my

music career?

P A G E 8 8
The FRDi Show blew up rather quickly. If I’m not
mistaken we gained 1M followers on Tiktok in the
first 3 months of posting. Where other people were
filming podcasts and repurposing clips for Tiktok,
we filmed natively for Tiktok and repurposed for
other platforms. The clips of our podcast felt native
to the platform we were trying to blow up on and I
think that gave us a leg up in the beginning. Now,
how does this have anything to do with my music
career? When people saw The FRDi Show, they saw
Cakes and Nic. They didn’t see me as the music
artist, they saw the human being. People were able
to connect and relate to me as a human being. If
they liked me there, they liked me as a person.

P A G E 8 9
So when clips of The FRDi Show were going viral
left and right, my face was all over the platform.
Then when I would post a clip of my music content
on my personal music account on Tiktok, people
would recognize me from The FRDi Show and I
would get comments saying “aren’t you the guy
from the podcast?” What did this do? Instead of
seeing my music posts and thinking “I don’t know
this guy” swipe. There was a familiarity there to
keep them on my post. They recognized me from
somewhere. When they were able to place where
they recognized me from, “wait, isn’t this the guy
from the podcast? I love that guy,” they became an
instant fan of my music. So my conversion rate for
someone hearing my music for the first time and
becoming a fan was incredibly high.

P A G E 9 0
You can see other examples of this with DJ Khaled
and Tory Lanez. Tory Lanez hosted “Quarantine
Radio” on his instagram live over the quarantine we
had due to COVID. It was simply him going live on
instagram and having his friends, fans, and other
artists join him in the live. It wasn’t a produced
show, it was simple. It was him hanging out. People
were able to get an inside look as to what Tory was
like as a person. They were able to see his
personality. They were able to connect with him as
a human being and not some mysterious,
untouchable, unreachable, public figure. It took
Tory 10 years to get 5 million followers on
instagram. It took him the length of quarantine to
get this next 5 million. People want something to
relate to. They want to feel like they know you. DJ
Khaled was able to do something similar on his
infamous Snapchat run of 2015-2016.

Another outlier is I think I blew up in a time where

people craved something positive, something light
hearted and loving. I think people were
subconsciously tired of all of the negative and
depressing options for music to listen to. So when I
provided them an option for lighthearted love songs
to listen to, a lot of people gravitated towards it.

P A G E 9 1
 CHAPTER 13

HOW TO DEAL
WITH HATE &
NEGATIVE
COMMENTS

P A G E 9 2
Personally, I always respond to hate comments
when I see them and I always respond to the hate
with love. For example, if someone comments on
my post saying “song is trash”. I respond with
something along the lines of, “sorry you didn’t enjoy
the song!”. Most of the time, the person who left
you the negative comment will switch up their
position and say something like “It’s just not my
style” or “songs actually fire, I was just bored”.
Rarely will someone double down on their hate
towards you when you respond with love.

2 things to remember when you see hate or

negativity on your posts

1. You will never be criticized by someone who is

doing more than you.
People who are doing more than you are too busy
working to care enough about what you’re doing to
leave hate on your posts.

1. People hating on anyone already gave up on

their dreams.
People who are still pursuing their dream have
nothing but respect for others who are pursuing
theirs. They are happy to see them chase
something.

P A G E 9 3
GENERAL ADVICE
Some great stuff in here

P A G E 9 4
 Be undeniably you.

Be undeniably you. Create music that means

something to you, and not what you think people
want to hear. People crave authenticity. Be honest
and genuine. Don’t chase trends, if it’s currently a
trend, you’re already too late. Write about what’s
real for you and the right people will gravitate
towards that. I know people with 20 thousand
followers making 6 figures a year off of their music.
How? Because those 20,000 followers genuinely
care. They are more than casual listeners. Have you
ever heard of the 1,000 fan rule? I didn’t come up
with it, and I’m not sure where I came across it but,
it’s a wonderful reminder that you don’t need
millions of people following you to make a living
making music. The 1,000 fan rule is as follows: If
you can get 1,000 people to give you $100 dollars a
year, that’s 6 figures a year making music. That $100
per fan can be $15 on a show ticket, $50 on a
hoodie, $15 for an album, and $20 in streaming
revenue. Thinking about it in this way makes you
realize how attainable it is to do music for a living
and helps you gain the confidence to believe you
can do it.

P A G E 9 5
Speak it into existence. I don’t mean that you simply
say it and then it magically happens. I mean talk
about it. When you talk about it, it keeps it at the
forefront of your mind. It becomes real. You see it
clearer. Tell people about it. When you tell people
about it, it helps to hold you accountable. Next time
you see the person you told, most likely they’ll ask
you about it. Never stop thinking about it, never
stop acting on it. Write it on a sticky note and tape
it to the fridge. Set it as your phone wallpaper. Get
it tattooed to your forehead. (Not really, but you see
what I’m getting at.)

It’s supposed to feel a little uncomfortable. Often

what you want out of life is on the other side of that
lack of comfort and fear.

P A G E 9 6
 ”Successful people do what unsuccessful people
aren’t willing to do.”

Now, “success” is subjective. Success doesn’t have

to mean something financial or career oriented at
all. Success can mean many things to many people.
People often default their definition of success to
being rich or having a “good” job or living in a big
house. I’m not sure why. Success to me is having a
flexible life. A life where I can be available to live
how I choose and spend time with my family while
pursuing the things that I’m passionate about.

P A G E 9 7
 It’s such a simple question and I’m sure you’ve
seen it or something like it before but, what would
you do if money weren’t an issue. What would you
fill your days with? Money aside, hypothetically, you
don’t need it. What are you doing every day? Where
are you going? Who are you visiting? Are you doing
crafts? Sailing? Basketball? I know I’d be doing
exactly the same stuff I’m doing right now. I’d be
making music, spending time with my family,
playing golf, learning new things, etc.

Why do we put this pressure on ourselves to stack

up to society’s version of success for our own lives?
Who are you trying to impress? Most likely it’s
someone you don’t even like. You shouldn’t need a
break from your work. I wake up excited to work
every day. I look forward to Mondays. To be honest,
most day’s I don’t even know what day it is. Why?
I’m pursuing something I’m passionate about.

P A G E 9 8
Whether you believe me or decide to ignore me and
learn it on your own, I believe this to be true:

You will never find

your happiness in the
results.
You have to love the process. The journey, the
grind, the work.

P A G E 9 9
That doesn’t mean you can’t set goals and reach
milestones. The thing about milestones is, they
never stop unless you do. You think your next
milestone is the answer, it never is. The journey is
the answer. Waking up everyday and knowing more
than you did before is the answer. Never stop
pursuing but please, stop looking for the answer in
the results. Reaching milestones and hitting goals
feels good, I will always set goals for myself. You
should too.

The thing about goals though, is the goal posts

constantly move.

P A G E 1 0 0
 Here’s some tips for setting goals:

You have to give them a deadline. If you don’t give

them a deadline they are just “one days,”
“somehows,” and “could be’s.” They’re floating
around aimlessly in your mind causing stress and
not directing your day to day actions. GIVE THEM
A DEADLINE. How many times in your life have you
had weeks to do something only to put it off to the
last minute? Whether it be writing a paper for
school or even something as simple as doing the
laundry. Let’s use the “writing a paper for school”
example. The paper is due in 2 weeks. You
procrastinate until the night before it’s due. You
write it all in 2 hours and it’s just as good as it would
have been if you spent the entire 2 weeks working
on it. Why is that? Because we are capable of more
than we think we are and when we have deadlines it
takes procrastination out of the equation. Now,
creating your own deadlines does require some
discipline because no one is going to hold you
accountable for you. You have to do that for
yourself.

P A G E 1 0 1
 Stop taking advice from people
who have never done what you’re
trying to do.
Most people teaching you how to make it in music
have never made it in music. I’m not saying some of
their general mindset tips won’t be applicable but, if
you want to learn how to skydive, would you trust
someone who’s never been skydiving? I’d hope not.
Now, this also applies to people in your family, or
even your friends. If you’re thinking about doing
music as a career and you're weighing in the
opinions of people close to you who have never
done what you’re trying to do, please don’t.

P A G E 1 0 2
SIDE THOUGHTS
Some quick gems

P A G E 1 0 3
 For those of you who feel like they may be too old
to start. I didn’t start pursuing music as a career
until I was 27 years old. I was married with 1 child at
the time. (My wife and I now have 2 kids.) At the
time of writing this book I’m 31.

Not every idea you have will be a good one. Not

every idea you have will work out. You win some
and you lose most. Keep going, keep trying, keep
throwing darts at the dartboard, keep taking
swings, just keep moving.

I’m not where I am because I’m talented. I’m not

here because I have good ideas. I’m not here
because I’m the best singer. I’m not here because
I’m a good songwriter. I’m here because of my
actions. My actions got me here. What I DID got me
here. What I CHOSE to do with my time got me
here. I acted on my ideas. I worked to get better
everyday.

You have to be ok with seeing little to no results for

a long time.

P A G E 1 0 4
 Only promote your original music, release
frequently, and create selfless content
implementing your music.

It’s not easy but it is straightforward.

When you make content, assume that everyone

who is going to come across it has no idea who you
are or what you do and they’re in a hurry. Act like
every piece of content you make is a first
impression to someone and you’re trying to win
them over.

Be so consistent it’s impossible to ignore you. This

is the single most important thing. This was my
whole game plan. Be constantly in front of people.

P A G E 1 0 5
Now put this book down and go get to work.

-Nic

P A G E 1 0 6