The (Not So) Annual State of Chorus.fm

I’ll give away 4 $25 memberships to the first 4 DM’s. This place is too valuable for me and every other member to let it lose steam for even a second.

 

@Jada

 

this is awesome - thanks for helping support the site.

 

3 bucks a month is like half a coffee

 

Two left.

 

I think this may be the site I visit the most on the entire internet. I am already a supporter. Anything else we can do to help keep it running?

 

Thank you for being so pure on this website, and doing things that are right for you. I’ve been visiting this site for close to 18 years + for a reason. It’s a special place in a massive space of shit these days.

 

*** also, I am supper proud I support this page.

 

not sure what Jason's margin is on the merch but I'm sure that doesn't hurt!

 

Sold out. Go get ‘em newbies - I guarantee you’ll like it enough to re-up yourself next fall.

 

Thanks again!

 

i love this site, i just hit 1,000 posts and 1000 likes this past week. shoutout to fredwordsmith for the upgrade!!

 

Proud to be a monthly supporter of this vital site for the last couple years, and will continue to be. I’ve been a fan/frequent visitor since the early, early days of AP.net—there’s no other music site that’s worthwhile imo

 

The Chorus merch is dope! Got myself a hoodie a couple years ago and I wear the shit out of it. It’s holding up very well.

 

What about the idea of bringing back the podcast and tying that to membership?

 

I would listen to this and pay extra for it.

 

come on guys the dark mode is super sick

 

First, thank you for all the kind words in this thread. I really do appreciate it. I always wonder just how transparent I should be about some of this stuff, but always come back to there being no real reason not to be upfront about the state of online publishing and little niche websites like this.

I really, really do appreciate that. Honestly, besides that, telling people about it or promoting it/the newsletter is really the only thing I can thing of. There's a very core group of people that read and follow the website, and then a % of those are paying members. So besides reaching out to the people that currently read the website every day/participate but aren't, being able to grow the audience some would also be helpful. This day and age I don't know how many people even read blogs on the regular, but the newsletter does seem to be pretty popular and new people that didn't even know me from the AP.net days seem to be finding it and enjoying it as well.

Thank you!

Oh yeah, merch is a nice little thing. Basically a couple bucks on each of the items. Paraphrasing Siracusa from a ATP podcast episode, but the main way to support creators is really the member programs, joining those, getting others to join, etc., since they really are the best way, with the best "margins" to use the business term. And then the merch stuff is if you do that and want a shirt/pin/sticker or whatever it is.

Love that! I wear my pride version of the hoodie quite a bit. I've gotten bigger since I bought it, but it does hold up!

There are a few factors at play here. First, I'll say that if these weren't factors, I'd absolutely love to do a podcast again because I do really like the medium and enjoyed talking about music/stuff with people. However, there's a few things that make it really difficult.

1. The first is the time it takes to make the show and the logistics of doing it. There's the planning with people, either a cohost or a guest, and then carving out at least an hour of the week to do the recording. Then there's the editing of the show which takes usually 1.5x as long as the recording itself was to edit. Plus another thirty minutes or so to prepare notes, make the posts, and promote it. All in all, 3-4 hours of work in a week total. That's also roughly how long it takes me to write the newsletter (2-3 hours depending on how long it ends up being). Given the way my current life is structured, trying to find an additional 3-4 hours would be pretty difficult for me. I don't have it at the end of my days unless I cut out the gym, time with my family, and the time spent catching up on news to post/this website's regular maintenance. My weekends are also pretty tightly booked (because I use one of those days to write, and still like to have time to do weekend stuff, decompress, run errands, clean the house, etc.). So this time strain alone makes doing a podcast difficult unless every other part of it was handled by someone else and I just needed to show up and talk. (More on that below)
2. The second big issue is the economics. Assuming I just wanted to show up and talk, the cost around paying someone to produce the show becomes a big reason why it would be difficult for that to end up being something that turns a profit. Even at a discount rate. The other factor would be if I only put it behind a paywall as a way to try and entice people to sign up, it would be very hard for the podcast itself to grow or find any new audience beyond the people that already know me (and ostensibly have already decided if they want to support or not). Encore would do 4-5,000 downloads an episode (a fraction of the number of people that read this site). And that number I was really proud of, but it isn't anywhere near what the big podcasts do - making getting any ad/sponsors for it basically impossible. And I think it would be hard to turn a paid only podcast into something that finds new people that don't know about this website into new members. So, maybe its best chance would be convincing people on one of the lower tiers that already likes/subscribes to the website to jump to a higher tier that includes the podcast. Kind of like the Stratechery/Dithering model. The goal of converting people from $3 a month to $5, for example. And if you can convert X amount of people, that difference needs to cover the cost of doing it. I think it's possible, and that's probably how I'd want to do it, and then release one episode every once in a while for free to try and convince people to signup/hope word of mouth helps it spread. But then that also leads to my third trepidation.
3. Making a good show. I wouldn't want to put something out I'm not proud of, and would want it to be something really good. I've recorded and tried a few pilot podcast episodes over the years with various people and it never really felt right. The chemistry and commitment from both parties really needs to be there to make something like that work. It has to be something I think doesn't already exist, has a fun new spin on it, and is not only worth the listener's time, but also worth my time to prepare/do it, and that I feel like someone would want to do with me and be on the same page about all those things. That part itself is really difficult. Hannah and I have even tossed around the idea of "pop-punk kid that knows very little music theory and the doctorate having classically trained violinist talk about things" podcast, which I think as an idea could be fun/interesting, but even then that pulls me back to the first issue of time, and what I would have to give up to do that, what we would need to do as a couple to do that, and it therefore ends up sitting on a "ideas" list for the time being.

The summation is that I've currently dedicated a certain amount of time per week to all this, and that time is currently spent updating the site daily, writing a newsletter most weekends, and making fixes, upgrades to the website itself so that it keep improving and keeps up and running. To change that time commitment would end up needing to come from something else, and I haven't found what I think that something else would be that wouldn't make me feel like I've lost something. I don't want to lose time with my wife going on a long walk on Saturday morning. I don't think losing sleep would make me super happy. And juggling it all with my other commitments, and day to day life and work, makes it difficult to slot in unless the absolute perfect opportunity came my way in a way that I thought would potentially have creative and economic upside.

Sorry for the long post, but it is something I've thought about a lot. Hope this helps explain my thinking.

Ok, now I need to go write this week's newsletter. Thanks again everyone!

 

if the podcast ever happens again you would have my full commitment to co-host because (and I'm biased) we were the best together haha

 

Also curious how many alternatives you’ve looked at for your hosting partner? I know you’ve been doing this a long time so don’t mean to intrude but I’m sure there are some tech folks who are in that core member group who would be willing to lend a hand to lessen costs anywhere there’s opportunity?

 

I use this site for music, tv, movies, and video game talk/recs and have met cool people throughout the years. Idk what I’d do without it.

 

Your point about the time it takes to write the newsletter vs. the time it would take to do the podcast made me think - and I love the newsletter - that if the newsletter were to be replaced by the podcast…well if it was a good podcast I wouldn’t be mad about it. Do the connections you’ve made over the years make it possible for you to do a weekly or biweekly interview show? I think you’d be good at that. People would definitely be interested to hear you talk to musicians, but also to others like managers, roadies…even get weird with it and talk to, like, Ryan Key’s mom lol. I would love something like that.

 

oh for sure. well as I'm already platinum supporting I just snagged a hoodie with the classic ap.net logo haha will definitely wear it to shows this winter. had been meaning to for a minute

 

The main considerations there are that I love to write. It’s the main way I think and actually a passion and thing I like to do. Whereas editing audio of myself talking … not so much.

I’m also just not sure what I’d be bringing to an interview show that dozens of others that have the same guests don’t already cover. I’m not sure where my angle is in a field I think is well trodden. And that still has the “where do I find those two hours to book and record the show” conundrum, even if I think I could come up with a unique perspective.