ArthurPope.com

This is a note I wrote specifically for Facebook, but it is equally suited for presentation here. Please leave any thoughts you have in response in the comments. Thank you.

Let’s try this instead…

As you all know, I am pursuing a career as a singer/songwriter. I know I have this gift. I want to use it to it’s fullest because… well, I love doing it. Not only that, but I want to use it to sing about Jesus in both subtle, as wel as explicit ways. I want to create more musical art that speaks to people and impacts their lives. Again… I love doing it. I feel and think that at this time in my life, it is exactly what God has for me to do.

I dream that some day in the near future, I will be able to do this thing I love doing as my career. As my source of income. As my life’s work, even if only for a time. That way I could devote much more time to it. Time I desperately wish I was already able to devote to it.

Friends, please read this carefully:

I need you to help me if I am to succeed in this endeavor. You. The person reading this right now. I need your support or this may never happen. I hope you will give me that support by way of action (not money) now.

You always hear bands thanking their fans and declaring how they “couldn’t have done it without them.”

It’s true. The bands only business is their fans. Without fans, their music is useless to them.

So before I go any further, thank you. If you have ever given me moral, financial, practical, or any other kind of support or assistance in the past, thank you. I truly appreciate it.

So why should you help me? Presumably, because you like my music. If you are a fan of my music and want to keep hearing it, that means I need to have time to write, practice, and produce it. In practical terms: the more funds I get through it, the more time I can spend doing it, and the more music you get to enjoy. If you are really a fan of my music, I need you to help me by doing what I ask in this note. Like every other artist, I can’t do anything without you.

I’ve gotten to the point where I have written enough songs to put out a product. I have done this. I could sell this product as an album, but I don’t feel it quite deserves that title. Therefore, I am calling it a demo.

Now, I could go down to The Loop with a backpack full of compact disks, guitar in hand, and sing my little throat off on the street, all in order to give away a couple cds with my website url written on them to people who probably won’t do anything about it anyway (in fact, I am going to do this).

I could play at coffee shops and schools where I sell copies for somewhere between $1.00 and $5.00 (I plan on doing this too) (actually, I’m scheduled to play at SIUE on October 12, if anyone can give me a ride).

These are things I can and will do in order to get people to listen to my music. I want people to hear my music, so I will be going where people are, and playing my music. I will reach a few people this way. This will ensure that I will gaina few new fans every now and then.

But I am skeptical that these things will form a career on their own. After all, I am just one man. If everything about my music career came directly as a result from actions I took, I would not have a career at all, being it’s worst bottleneck for spreading the noise.

So I make this appeal to you now:

If you call yourself a fan of my music, and you want me to record more, and play more, and give more of it away, I need every single one of you do follow these steps for me.

I urge you, don’t think that everyone else has already done this so what you do won’t matter. They haven’t. I am not talking to everyone else right now. I am talking to you. I need your help now. Please assist me in getting this fabled thing called my music career off the ground.

EVERYONE- do this:

1. Pray for me. Pray that I will follow Christ’s leading, and that I will follow through in pursuing what I feel convicted to pursue. Pray for success in the ways He measures success. Pray that I will write things that are true and pleasing to the Lord. Pray that people will be impacted in positive ways by what I write and sing.

Number 1 is pray. Why this is important is obvious.

2. Go to http://www.fromthornstoroses.com and download my demo (album to those with less discerning ears) for free.

Really. Do it. Don’t just go and check it out. Don’t just play the samples. Don’t pay to download it. Click on that button that says “Tell 5 Friends”. Fill out your information. Look up the email addresses of the five most likely people to respond by downloading the album themselves that you know, and put them into the form. No one sees these email addresses. Your friends will not get spam because of this. Neither will you. I get your information, and that is all anyone sees of it. When you are prompted, write a personal note to your friend telling them what this is and why you are sending it to them. Don’t just send the emails to make me happy. Convince them to download it themselves.

Now, if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, then don’t. But I assume you do, because if you are like me (and most other people I know), and you like something, and want it to succeed, you tell people about it. I tell people about bands I like all the time. I love sharing things I love. That is all I’m asking you to do. You already do it anyway.

If you feel as if I am trying to use you as free advertising, think of this:

Some people would sue you for doing what I’m asking you to do.

I am giving you music for free, and I’m asking you to give it away for free.

How is that not a fair trade? You get free music. You friends get free music. I don’t have to pay for advertising. I get more fans. We all win.

TO GO AN EXTRA MILE- do this:

1. well… tell even more people about the album/demo. in any way you can.

2. If you have a blog; MySpace, Facebook (you have that), WordPress, TypePad, Xanga… write a post talking about it, maybe reviewing it, and link to http://www.fromthornstoroses.com

Or even better, embed the widget in the post or somewhere else on your website.

3. Subscribe to my blog at http://arthurpope.com either by email or via rss. I will be posting a lot in the near future. I promise it will be interesting and stuff.

4. Leave comments. On anything. Everything. This Note. My blog, especially. I want to hear your feedback on things I do, and I will communicate back with you.

A final note:

Really… I need as many people to go through the “Tell 5 Friends” process as I can get.

In addition to simply increasing my fan base, the more people who download the album through NoiseTrade (the service I am using to give it away (created by Derek Webb and friends)), the higher it will rank in NoiseTrade, and the better my “success” will look on paper to those whom it might matter. For instance: if I were to be approached by some random record label who somehow wasn’t evil, and they wanted to know if I had any fans, I could point them directly to the number of people have downloaded my album during the last x number of whatevers.

So please, married couples, other kinds of couples, siblings, other family members, roommates, any number of situations where you can share my music outside of the “Tell 5 Friends” mechanism, by all means, share it. Share my music with as many people in as many ways as you can. But also encourage everyone to download it for free themselves, through NoiseTrade. It will be so very valuable for me, and it will cost them maybe five minutes of their time.

Thank you all. I cannot do this alone.