This week: The Importance of Being Genuine Edited by: Kit of House Lannister  
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It can be tempting to big yourself up. It may even seem like a good idea to "fake it until you make it".
This week's Action/Adventure Newsletter is all about why this isn't a good idea...
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Have you heard the story about Threatin yet? If not, it’s one worth telling.
Threatin was about to embark on a European tour. Their promotions manager booked the venues, and as anybody who checked things out could tell, they had a good thing going. The up-and-coming metal band had done an extensive US tour, according to their website. On social media they had tens of thousands of fans. Live footage on YouTube showed huge crowds. They had a record label, a large merch range, they’d done interviews... If the venues had never, ever heard of the act, well, that must be because they hadn’t broken Europe yet. They were assured by the band’s promoter that there was enough local support to justify the gigs.
Indeed, soon after the venues were booked, they were told that pre-sales through Threatin’s website were going amazingly well. They’d be packed! Support acts were brought in. One support act traveled 400 miles to be there. Understandable – for a not-yet-famous band, playing in a prestigious venue to a full room would be a great opportunity.
All went as it should, then, right up until the opening night of the tour, when not a single fan showed up. Threatin played to an empty room. The venue owner wasn’t impressed. They took to social media, and soon discovered exactly what was going on...
Those social media followers and likes? Bought. YouTube comments? Fake. People who’d indicated online they were going to attend the gig? They all lived in a completely different country.
The record label doesn’t exist. The agent and promotion company don’t exist. The videos of the band playing to huge crowds had the crowd footage taken from other concerts, by other bands. Threatin’s online presence is really just one guy , Jered Threatin, who’d gone through a whole lot of effort, possibly buying into the idea that you can fake it until you make it.
You can’t. The next Threatin gigs went as “well” as the first one. At one show, a couple of guys from one of the support acts stayed to watch him, as they felt sorry for him and his hired band. They didn’t know at the time why they were the only people there. They do now. Nobody’s impressed.
Not even his hired musicians , as it turns out – two have left . The gig in Belfast was cancelled, though the venue was kind enough to still run the event for the support acts and offered free entry.
Threatin set his Twitter account to private, possibly realising that even though he is now, in a sense, more famous than if he’d really had the fan support he’d claimed, it’s not always true that any media attention is good intention. No doubt people would have shown up at the Belfast gig, and subsequent gigs, but it would have been to have a laugh rather than out of admiration.
You may wonder if he actually has any talent. I checked out his video, Living is Dying , so you don’t have to. I reached the conclusion that the guy’s voice is not awful. It’s just a mediocre song, with nothing-special lyrics, which I don’t consider to fall into the metal genre. It’s a pop-rock tune on a theme that’s been done many times before. The video is somewhat unusual, in that Jered Threatin plays every single instrument and he seems to have a thing for picture frames (no, I have no idea, either).
It is as difficult to break into the music scene as it is to establish your name as a writer. I can understand, then, why it may be tempting to sell yourself as being more popular than you actually are. Threatin must have had money to burn, buying likes and followers, building websites and paying for venues. Perhaps he hoped that people would show up. Perhaps he got himself into a situation where he told family and friends that his music was taking off, and then he had to come up with a bigger and bigger story, until he had to go on a European tour, desperately hoping it wouldn’t fall apart. We may never know.
Don’t be like Jered. That is my advice. It did fall apart for him. It was inevitable.
Be careful as well when contacted by companies who tell you that they love your work and want to sign you. That’s as true in the publishing industry as in the music scene. There are a lot of scammers out there who will big themselves up yet, when it comes to it, are not at all what they pretend to be. For example, there are companies that make themselves out to be legitimate publishers, but they turn out to be nothing more than vanity press looking to make a quick buck out of you. I should know. I’ve been burned by one of them and ended up a not-insignificant amount out of pocket with nothing to show for it.
The best thing to do, if you want to make it, is to be creative. To keep going. To build up your audience over time. If you produce reliably good output, your readers will keep coming back for more. They will recommend you to others. It takes hard work and patience, but the end result is worth it. And it’s real. That’s what matters.
Good luck!
Kit of House Lannister
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Action/Adventure: November 14, 2018 Issue [#9223]
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