Expanding My Online Presence Using Posterous

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Corey Stewart

Now I am a self confessed WordPress fanboy and have been for many years but for a little while now I’ve had my eye on another blogging platform to expand my online presence with.

It’s called Posterous.

My understanding of Posterous is that it was developed to allow people to post online via email but it also has an online interface that can be used as well however, the main feature that really got me interested in exploring it more was its AutoPost function.

The AutoPost function allows what I post on my Posterous blog to appear automatically on other blogging platforms and social networking sites that I subscribe to. Once I publish a post, it will be automatically updated on the following sites:

Facebook
Twitter
FriendFeed
Identica
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
Jaiku
Plurk
Flickr
Picasa
Vimeo
YouTube
Tumblr
Blogger
LiveJournal
WP.Com
Xanga

This excited me because this system allows me to post items of interest and relevance on Songwriting, Music Business and Home Recording that I find on the web and have that information appear at multiple points online while at the same time, these multiple points all link into this site.

Essentially, I expand my online presence without too much effort while creating incoming links to Corey Stewart Online (good for SEO) plus, interesting and relevant information is being circulated to those who want to read it.

The secondary reason for doing this is that through posting the relevant news of the day based on my topics of interest plus the wide ranging ideas of others I will become more inspired myself and therefore my own blogging/songwriting activity will increase.

Everybody wins!

This is of course an experiment that I’ll be monitoring very closely. I want to find out if I get an increase in traffic numbers, email subscription numbers and Google juice but I’ll make sure I keep you all up to date with the ongoing results.

Peace,

Corey

PS: The first post on Posterous can be found HERE

A Word Of Advice – Do Your Taxes Yourself!

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Corey Stewart

I think that the end of the financial year (which in Australia falls on June 30th) is a very stressful time of the year for a lot of people.

For me it’s stressful because (being a small business owner) it’s the time where I get out my receipts folder (or shoe box as was my filing system for a number of years) and spend days pouring over every receipt I’ve collected over the past twelve months and catalog my spending and purchasing habits for the previous year into a spreadsheet which will be then sent to my accountant for processing.

If you’re wondering why I’m writing about this now to you and not at financial years end well, I am at this very moment, waiting on hold to the Australian Tax Office (ATO) for the second time today. The first time was this morning but I gave up after 46 minutes listening to the most mind numbing music I’ve ever heard.

(Somehow I don’t believe it when the recorded voice on the phone says “thank you for holding, your call has progressed in the queue, you will be answered by a service representative shortly”)

Anyway, the reason for my correspondence with the ATO is that for the past couple of years I’ve had problems with my tax, well more precisely, the getting of all of my necessary information together to send off to my accountant.

This was because I allowed a bookkeeper to get my information together rather than doing it myself as I had done in other years. It seemed like a good idea at the time but it turned out be a big (and expensive) mistake.

Now, I’m no financial whizz or accounting genius but compiling all the necessary information needed for the yearly trip to the accountants office was not that hard for me (especially being a sole trader). I just need to be a little bit organised and have the ability to set aside some time to complete all of the necessary tasks but a couple of years ago I thought to myself in a flash of inspiration, “why don’t get someone else to do it?”

I soon realised however, that once I gave all of my receipts and other bits and pieces to the third party I was then working to another persons schedule and their ability to manage their own time, events and so on.

Now I’m not going into the full story of what happened but let me just say that after two years of delays, a couple of bookkeepers, a multitude of phone calls and a lengthy time in my accountants hands later, my tax information is now complete with the result being that I owe the tax office a bit of money.

It’s my hope that I can pay off my tax debt in instalments, hence why I’m waiting on hold to the ATO and hence why you’re reading this.

Being placed on hold has given me a lot of time to think about this present situation and my thoughts are that all of this wouldn’t have happened if I done what I’ve always done every other year and finished my taxes myself. I think this time my need to be in control of my own affairs has been vindicated in a big way.

This will eventually become an expensive mistake for me to learn from, and learn from it I will.

Has anybody else had any issues with small business finances, dealing with bookkeepers and/or accountants? Let me know, I’m on hold… I have all the time in the world to listen.

I suppose I’m also being given a first hand lesson in patience and tolerance and that is what I am grateful for.

Peace,

Corey

CD Project Update #15 – Swedish Keyboards

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Corey Stewart

I’m pleased to report a couple of exciting new developments on the CD recording front for this week.

After a bit of a stop-start beginning to this year I’m going back into the studio tomorrow for the first recording session for 2011. I hope to finish off all of the main vocal parts.

The exciting part though is that the next day (February 10th), I’ll be recording keyboard parts at Chapel Lane Studios using Swedish producer and keyboard player Stig Lindell.

How all this came about was through a fortunate set of events that to me, demonstrates perfectly the power of networking.

Over the last week I’ve been laying down some bass tracks at Chapel Lane for good friend and amazing singer/songwriter Jay Jaxson’s new CD of which Stig is producing. Jay told me that there was some free time (as in availability not cost) in the studio coming up and that Stig was willing and able to do whatever music work was required.

After experiencing first hand Stig’s keyboard playing (he played some guide keys while I was recording) I jumped at the chance of using him. I asked and he said yes.

It’s amazing what happens when you just ask.

I know that getting the keyboard parts out the way will take a huge load off my mind as finding a good keyboard player with time on their hands to do some recording has been a very challenging task indeed.

What’s left are just the Electric Guitar parts of Darren Zaza plus some extra overdubs such as backing vocals and perhaps some percussion to do and that’s it.

It feels so good to get back into recording mode again. It’s been far too long.

Peace,

Corey

Experimenting With MailChimp

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Corey Stewart

: Image via CrunchBase

One of the most important things a musician needs at their marketing disposal is a mailing list and for a long time I’ve just been using the groups function on open source email clients such as Mozilla Thunderbird to manage my mailing list however, this has been a bit limiting especially when I’m sending out emails in bulk.

Thunderbird (or my ISP for that matter) wouldn’t let me do it.

Now that I’m using a Mac I thought using Apple Mail would be different but even now I can’t send out more than 20 emails at a time without getting the appropriate error messages and having the whole emailing exercise grind to a halt.

I needed a better way to manage my email list.

About 18 months ago I tried to install phpList, an open source email management system, but it seemed I needed a degree in rocket science to work it all out so I quickly gave up on that idea.

There were other email management systems that I knew about such as AWeber and Constant Contact but they cost a lot of money and I wanted to try something out first before handing over a monthly fee to a company.

Then I stumbled across MailChimp.

I heard about MailChimp through a friend of mine about a year ago. I checked it out and man, I was impressed. All the information I was after and the answers I was looking for were written in plain English and the instructional videos are very well made and easy to follow.

It took me a while to gather up the courage to use MailChimp but I thought… “New year, new email management system.”

So I went for it.

At the moment I have transferred both my Corey Stewart Online and Open Mic Network mailing lists over to MailChimp and I’ve just installed a signup form in the right sidebar of my site.

The beauty of using an email management system such as MailChimp is that they handle all of the emailing for you, none of this sending out emails in batches of 20 like I had to do pre MailChimp.

Another thing that I love about MailChimp is the reports you can generate. With a click of a button I know how many people have opened their email, what links have been clicked on and what emails are bounce-backs (which are cleaned out of the list automatically).

All lists are opt-in and the email confirmation and “thank you for subscribing” pages are handled by MailChimp as well.

The best part about MailChimp is that they have a free forever account which allows a 1000 subscriber and 6000 emails/month limit on my activity which is plenty for me at this time.

For more information go to the MailChimp website. in the meantime if you want to sign up for my mailing list please fill out the form provided in the right sidebar and click the subscribe button and you’ll be kept up to date on news and gigging information.

Peace,

Corey

Why I Chose MailChimp Over Aweber (wassupblog.com)

A New Addition To Corey Stewart Online – Articles

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Corey Stewart

In an attempt to streamline my blogging activities and consolidate my online footprint, I’ve decided to add an articles page to Corey Stewart Online.

I’ll be doing this by phasing out my earlier blogs Songwriting Zen, Orangutang Music and Corey Stewart Songwriting Tips and amalgamating all of my content into the Corey Stewart Online articles page.

This is something I have outlined in a previous post.

As well as my own content I’ll also be putting up what I would consider, really informative songwriting, music business and home recording articles that I find through my continuous online research into such topics but don’t worry, I’ll make sure I get the appropriate permissions from the original authors before putting them online.

Creating an articles page on this site and filling it with my past content is just another way that I can simplify my online activity, therefore allowing me to focus on my goals more effectively.

I’ve always been curious about article marketing and how it could help me as an online musician. Now I have my chance to put some theories to the test but I’ll tell you more about that in a later post.

BTW, If you have written or, you know of any content dealing with songwriting, music business or home recording that you want to recommend me put up on Corey Stewart Online, then please contact me.

I’d love to hear from you.

Peace,

Corey

Today I Reaffirm My Musical Goals

Posted on November 10, 2010 by Corey Stewart

Now that I’m fully back in the land of the living and feeling much better than I have in a long time, I thought that today would be a good day to reaffirm my musical goals.

And it’s this…

“To sustain a career as a full time songwriter/musician/blogger using the internet as my primary tool of promotion, networking and marketing.”

This doesn’t mean that the more traditional face to face stuff does not get neglected by the way. I actually love the cut and thrust of getting out there and networking, securing my own gigs and using the power of word of mouth advertising to create a community around me, my music and other projects that I’m involved in (such as the Open Mic Network).

Now, how am I going to achieve this? Well, I’ll do it by:

Simplifying my life I know I’ve written about this before on my blog but I do have the tendency to over-complicate and over-think aspects of my life and work which paralyses me through having too much choice.

I’ve started on the road to simplicity by finally deciding that this site is the main focus for all of my musical endeavours. In light of this I’ve just recently deleted my Orangutang Music website and redirected the URL to this site. My other blogs Songwriting Zen and Corey Stewart Songwriting Tips will follow the same fate once I export all of the valuable content elsewhere.

I will be having a closer look at ways in which I can streamline my online presence in the near future and it’s my intention to blog about it.

Focusing on my activity As well as over-complicating and over-thinking aspects of my life I also fall into the habit of doing far too many things at once under the guise of needing to “diversify my income.” The old jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none thing gets really boring after a while when you realise that you don’t get anything achieved by adopting this business model.

I know I can do a lot of things but I need to be mindful of what I’m really doing every time I decide to take on another job here, another role there.

Which leads on nicely to the last point…

Internalising my efforts I admit it, I’m a people pleaser. In the past I’ve done anything for anyone because I wanted to be seen as the “nice guy” in any situation and would do whatever I could to protect that stance, even at the cost to myself.

Well, there will be no more of that. Helping others is fine as long as it doesn’t get in the way of my own stuff.

I mean for starters I am my own web development, online marketing and music business consulting client and will work with myself as such. I’ll take on my own advice and will walk the walk that results from talking the talk (and some of you out there know how much I love to talk about the music business).

If I have time spare to work with anyone else in the same capacity I’ll do so and I’m always open to those opportunities but, at the same time, if I don’t, I won’t, simple as that.

I hope you’ll understand that if you’re the one doing the asking.

My live shows (mainly my covers gigs) and the Open Mic Network sustain me financially and give me the freedom to work on my other stuff during the day and that includes working on my health as well.

It’s my hope that I can achieve some sort of balance in my life so I can be the best person I can be for myself and for everyone else around me.

I’ve had my break and now it’s time for me to get back into it but this time I’ll be working smarter, not necessarily harder.

Peace,

Corey

So You Want My Job: Songwriter (artofmanliness.com)
Creating a Life on Purpose (psychologytoday.com)
How Old Is Too Old??? Upcoming Artists Want To Know!!! (current.com)

SCALA – I’m A Member And You Should Be Too

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Corey Stewart

For those of you who don’t know, SCALA stands for Songwriters, Composers and Lyricists Association and it was formed in 1987 which makes 2010 its 23rd year of helping songwriters be the best they can be.

I’ve been a proud member of since 1992.

My first ever solo show was at SCALA. It was a Wednesday night, July 29th, 1992 at the Duke Of Brunswick Hotel and I clearly remember how intensely nervous I was.

As a result of those nerves getting the better of me that night I put in a terrible show and afterwards, I was ready to give up (yes I was that bad) except for the amazing support and encouragement of SCALA’s president Rob Childs and the rest of the crew.

I would even go further to say that I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today if it wasn’t for the existence of SCALA in my life. Period!

Over the years I have seen SCALA develop into an organisation that really has the development of emerging songwriters as its primary focus. It provides for its members:

A place to showcase your songs
A website
A song competition
An opportunity to get you song onto CD
A songwriters circle/workshop
An informative newsletter every three months
A message board to find collaborators

Not bad for an organisation running on limited funds and with virtually no volunteer base for the past 23 years.

For a number of years now, I’ve been a member of the SCALA board as well as a resident songwriting judge for its FOOM (Festival Of Original Music) song competitions. I relish in the opportunity to give back to SCALA what it had originally given to me when I was first starting out.

Time, effort and support, the very things that SCALA can give to you now, if you decided to become a member.

I don’t get any money for promoting SCALA, I’m just writing this because I really do believe in the power of community and the grassroots support for the next generation of talented songwriters and artists out there. I mean, my own efforts in running the Open Mic Network has been largely inspired by my involvement with SCALA.

The more I walk on my musical path, the more I realise that we are all in this music business thing together and organisations like SCALA just make the journey a little easier for those who choose to take that first step.

Peace,

Corey

PS: Here are some SCALA links for you to check out – Website | Facebook | MySpace | Twitter

Help! I’m Paralysed By Too Much Choice?

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Corey Stewart

: Image by Kev Gilmour via Flickr

This post is about the hazards I’m encountering in trying to build a co-ordinated social networking presence after years of adopting the ‘shotgun’ approach to my online marketing (you know, throw it all up against a wall and see what sticks).

One of the really big jobs (as an online focussed musician) I have ahead of me at the moment is to try and co-ordinate a focussed and strategic web presence for me and my music. In theory this would be done through my website, blog, social media and (very soon) video.

For me to do this properly I need to first of all ascertain how much of me is on the net in the first place.

What I’m finding out is that there’s bits of me all over the place but none of it working in an efficient, streamlined and coherent manner. Therein lies the challenge for me as on online musician/marketer, corralling all of my online bits into a solid web presence.

At the moment I have a bit of a problem and the more I look into this, the more it looks like that finding a solution to this problem is like unscrambling an egg, and we all know how hard that can be.

At this very moment I don’t know where to start, I have so many choices in front of me that I get paralysed by them. It’s happened in the past, give me too many choices and I won’t choose anything.

I know that in a situation like this you need to start at the beginning however, when you don’t know where a clear beginning is… Anyway, I’m thinking the short answer to all of this is to “just start somewhere” and work my way in whatever direction it takes me. I just need to trust that by starting somewhere I’ll see the forest for the trees.

My starting point will be FaceBook!

I’ll blog my progress but it does comfort me to know that if I do stray off target I have you to guide me back.

Peace,

Corey

To Funk Or Not To Funk? That IS The Question

Posted on July 24, 2010 by Corey Stewart

: Image via Wikipedia

For a while now I’ve been thinking about starting up another funk project. I’ve been testing the waters and keeping one eye and ear out on the scene for a little while to see if the concept of getting a groovy, funky band together again has some merit.

Jeez, I must be some sort of masochist, a glutton for punishment. Another band?

Well, what can I say, I’m a bass player and I’ve always loved getting down and funky. I love the groove, especially when bass and drums merge their respective sounds into one seething mass of funk. I’m always in search of “the one” and generally, I find it.

For those who don’t know me let me shed some historical light on my forays into the world of funk.

It all started in 2000 when a mate of mine asked me to join a band called FunkStar.

The band was initially formed because this mate of mine managed to negotiate a regular Wednesday night gig at a club called the Enigma Bar and he needed a band to fill it. I accepted his offer and FunkStar was born.

However, we scored our first gig at the Rhino Room even before we had out first rehearsal which meant we had no songs to play with so, in a week and a half we scrambled together three rehearsals and hastily jammed out 15 songs.

Phew, talk about pressure but we played the gig and it was awesome.

One of the things we did really well that night was jam endlessly to make the songs longer than they should be and the rest of the time, just make shit up. It worked a treat and that became the FunkStar formula.

Back then there was a real funk scene in Adelaide and FunkStar rode the crest of the wave. We played everywhere wore lots of orange and our live shows were known for their unpredictability. We were unstoppable but sadly, in 2001 FunkStar broke up and I was left holding the baby so to speak. I was devastated.

In 2002 I decided to reform FunkStar with new members and try to pick up where the first band left off but after slogging it out for about 12 months FunkStar (Mk 2) disbanded.

I then tried the funk again in 2003 with a new band and a new name (Orangutang). We were going for a more edgier but jazzier sensibility but that also lasted about 12 months. I wasn’t having a good run.

After all that I decided to give my funk ambitions an indefinite rest, until now.

I’ve been noticing a resurgence of the funk in Adelaide over the last 12 months spearheaded by the landmark venue for all things funk, the glorious Crown and Sceptre Hotel which has been hosting funk bands on a Friday and Saturday night.

Adelaide has a lot of cool venues and I really think there is room for another groovy, funky outfit to grace its stages.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the funk project concept has some merit but I’m still dipping the toe in the water at the moment. Right now there’s so much to do with so little time but I’ll let you know what I come up in the very near future with so watch this space.

Peace,

Corey