Don’t do it for the money! That’s for sure. Unless it’s a long term mirage in the desert of UK inequality or US inequality for that matter. We’re in a rigged game whatever the constant flow of sponsored marketing propaganda online or whatever hopeful zealots trying to hang onto the coat tails of the rich, might tell you. It’s easier and more realistic simply to be born rich. Honestly.

Do it for love. I mean it. Yes, keep the fantasy alive. One day this will be a Netflix series, ok, so maybe one of the next books along which are a marketable sci fi. Do it because you love books and you love writing.

Do it because you wish to express meaning and share ideas. Because you think you can be entertaining anyway without resorting to the “adult colouring book” mentality.

And accept that a million other people are trying to do the same thing as you at the same time. Try not to think about that or you won’t even start the first page. So you are doing your book for love and hope. You’re doing it for your own self preservation of mind in a sell-out world of online cheap gimmicks.

As a musician, I honestly believe there are reasons why there are virtually no memorable indie acoustic hits from the 21st century and why I play live gigs weeks after week and all my setlist belongs to the previous century. It’s relevant to writing a book, any book, and I’d like to share these thoughts.

One reason, beyond the millenium, is the individualised marketing plan where each new songs has no lyrics of any substance and no drive to give a damn about such irrelevances. First thought is unique selling product with a marketing strategy. First question, before the song even begins to emerge from the brain – what sells!

The audience knows the con and the emotions don’t connect. Esepcially if you can’t hear anything but a set of words which are a blatant design to trap your interest with no moral duty bound need to be honest. That’s why AI generated songs and text feel like a bunch of wire-puke. You can feel it. You can hear it.

If an AI song does trick you into feeling emotions, or an AI girlfriend/boyfriend, it’s a lie. It has no human feelings. It’s a generated, calculated response. All it needs is results. You should feel cheated.

If you pump out copy with the same mentality it can only thrive on a mass hypnosis of people online who don’t know any better. For the rest of us. In terms of soul you hamstrung yourself from the beginning by even starting that way.

It’s like telling somebody you love them to see what you can get out of them. You don’t love them. That’s the point. You don’t mean it. Not ever.

But everybody want to listen to the songs that have real emotion and words at a party. The songs that mean something to them. The songs we all share. Because they can tell the difference.

And it’s not just the demographic. Gen Z don’t have a pop culture like the 60s-90s. They don’t have a shared music identity. They’re not so markedly tribal about their cultural traits or genres. I would argue that’s because the richest boomers run the world and dominate the cultural agendas through advantage and power. We have to follow what they want. But there you go.

Or maybe it’s because older generations have the disposable income to have private parties and buy me as entertainment to put at the bottom of the garden. So I play what they probably like. That’s it really.

So as far my thinking goes, if you write a book with the unique selling point as the start off it’s probably damned to be without soul and honesty. You’re going to fix it to fit. Maybe? Is that true?

I’m aware of sales and entertainment, but like this blog, when faced with ridiculous odds of trying to be heard without a budget, without financial backing, without a marketing strategy. The I think …fuck it…I’ve nothing to lose.

Better to die with a half-written book from the heart than write hundreds of unpaid blogs in the hope that cheesy “how tos” and adult colouring books will eventually get you a following and you’ll eventually get enough of a following to qualify for the afiliate marketing programme.

You might as well go to work and get paid for doing something useful. Accept that ther real reason you haven’t got much disposable income is because it’s fixed that way. We don’t get paid enough.

That’s not what YouTube Influencers tell you but that’s what I’m choosing to do. Let me know what you think you should do. Be glad to hear it.

PS. My book is called The Music Workers Diary, probably. I’ve done the research because I lived it. I’ve written large chunks, by hand, in note books and I’m starting to put it altogether today. I’m putting up excerpts on WordPress. Maybe Medium too.

Good luck with your songs and books. Keep them soulful.