this is matt

Hey guys, I switched over to Bandcamp for my music store. It’s nice because I don’t have to really do anything except upload music. Check it out and let me know what you think. Also, tell all your friends!

The album is out! Go forth and purchase it! Especially if you are a writer of fiction — I made this for you.

I’m just kidding, I just wanted to get your attention! Your podcast doesn’t actually suck. People just think it does.

Wait! Don’t go!

Have you ever searched for information about something and come up with a website that is black text, white background, blue hyperlinks, zero formatting? It happens to me all the time. What do you do in that situation? Do you read the essay and judge it based on its merits?

I don’t. I close that window so hard I slam my thumbs under my taskbar.

Why? Thing is ugly.

Same goes for podcasts I try to listen to. You have about ten seconds to hook me, and this is a guaranteed way to fail:

You: Uh, this is Jim, and um, this episode thirteen of Jim’s Anime Roundup. I’m Jim.

Maybe your review of Fullmetal Alchemist is nuanced and amazing, but I’m not going to get that far. Your opener tells me that you don’t know how to present yourself, so I’m not about to risk losing 90 minutes of my life, even if your podcast starts to rock once you hit your stride at minute 7. I’m long gone at that point.

Think about that for a minute. It doesn’t matter if your podcast is awesome if the first few seconds suck. You’re being judged on the first few seconds.

Better make them count.

Naomi Dunford non-tagged everyone in this un-meme, which is different from a meme in that:

1. There are a reasonable number of questions
2. There is likely to be at least one person who gives a crap about your answers

So, without further ado… the un-meme.

What’s your game? What do you do?

I create music. The main thing I highlight is custom podcast music (see the podcast themes page). As a side-effect of being a musician, I also create music for other purposes. Some of that music shows up on this site (like the album I wrote that was inspired by National Novel Writing Month, which is coming out in a couple weeks).

Why do you do it? Do you love it, or do you just have one of those creepy knacks?

I freaking love it. I actually tried to quit doing music and live a normal life, and found that said normal life is utterly lacking in creativity.

I have a knack for it, but I don’t consider it creepy because it took a long time to develop.

Who are your customers? What kind of people would need or want what you offer?

Podcasters are an obvious answer, but probably not all podcasters. My style is a blend of rock and electronica, so I’m best suited for high-energy podcasts about stuff like technology, entrepreneurship, and being creative. Or any topic if your demographic is young people with no attention span. I’ll give you something that will make your boring podcast seem x-treme.

People who podcast just for fun are probably not interested in what I do, but people who use a podcast as a tool for driving business to their online store would definitely benefit from custom music.

What’s your marketing USP? Why should I buy from you instead of the other losers?

I’ve only found one other guy who creates music for podcasts, and he refers to himself as “we”. I am just me.

What’s next for you? What’s the big plan?

Website overhaul. Here’s some advice: If your wife is a kick-ass graphic designer, let her design your site. Your mad CSS skills don’t mean much if you’re a crappy designer, and in four months you’re going to ask her to redesign it for you anyway. Just skip the step where your site looks like it was done for a freshman-level web design course.

To be honest, the big plan kind of makes me panic when I think about it. It’s not particularly scary, I just have one of those kinds of personalities. Right now I’m just taking it one day at a time, meeting new people and learning new things. Talk to me again in a few weeks and I’ll have a clearer picture.

Mark October 15th on your calendars, because I’m taking all of those nanomusic tracks, cleaning them up, and releasing them as nanomusic 2010. That’s right, a bona fide digital album.

Two things are going to happen:

1. All the tracks you know and love are going to show up on a nice little storefront page with a free download link and an option to give me a dollar.
2. A special deluxe novelist’s edition will be available. It will contain the ten tracks you’ve heard, plus some new material. Additionally, it will include other sweet stuff aimed at inspiring novelists, like artwork and writing prompts. That’s going to be a pay-what-you-want arrangement, where half of what you pay goes to The Office of Letters and Light, the organization behind National Novel Writing Month.

In the meantime, I’ll still be posting music every week, so stick around!

Hey everyone, I want to officially point you to my new “podcast themes” page which has magically appeared on my top nav bar. A good friend of mine asked if she could give me money to create intro/outro music for her podcast, and I said, “sure” and put together something that we both thought was pretty awesome. I had a blast making it, and it was pretty sweet that someone thought I was worth hiring for that sort of thing.

I thought, “Why not do this?”

So! Podcast themes are now a service that I offer, and if you or someone you know has a podcast that needs one, take a look and then hire me.