Though I think more people visit my YouTube page than my blog, I still have to blog it: my album is finally out! It’s currently only available on my own site, at Hannifin Records. I sent it to CD Baby right away, of course, but it will take them some time to get it up on their site and get it on iTunes, Amazon, etc. It’ll probably get a bit more notice once it’s on CD Baby. Anyway, I think the artwork came out really great, and it’s nice to see my own name on something professional looking.
So… I finally have a product! Now perhaps I can put all that stuff I’ve read about in business books to use? Yikes, I don’t even know where to start.
One thing I ask myself is: what do I do with my future music? This is my first album; up until now I’ve just been uploading my music as MP3s to my site, giving it away for free. Now I’m asking people to pay for it. Will they? Or will they not think it worth it considering all the other music out there that is free? When I write a new piece, do I give it away like before, or save it for my second album? What I’m thinking of doing is giving some of it away for free temporarily, until my second album is ready. So I’ll have a constant flow of free music for people who like that. Then it will be available on an album with other exclusive tracks.
Though maybe I’m just getting ahead of myself… this album took me almost almost 2 years (maybe 1.5 years; I can’t keep track of time these days). It’ll probably be quite some time before my next album is ready.
YouTube removes my video for no reason
In other news, I decided to try out YouTube’s video promotion program to try to promote my album. That might seem vain, and it is. Selling an album of your own music is kinda vain, so I think if you’re trying to sell your own work you kinda have to get over being too self-conscious about it (while, of course, trying not to be “in-your-face” about it; you don’t want to turn into an annoying salesman who’s only interest in other people comes from seeing them as potential customers). In away [“in away”?? I mean “Anyway” … that’s such an odd typo to make, I’m going to leave it and just add this comment], my video for my piece On the Edge of a Dream was my most popular video on YouTube that was on my album, so I decided to try to promote that. So I signed it up to be promoted and YouTube said “disapproved” … and I said: “Huh? Why?” And it said that it couldn’t promote a video that nobody could watch. And I said: “What? People can watch it! They just go here…” and I went to the video page. And it was gone. It said “This video has been removed due to violation of terms of service” (or something like that). What?! So I tried reuploading it, but they must’ve somehow blacklisted the video, and wouldn’t let me. At first I was afraid my music had somehow gotten on some copyright checklist that YouTube banned from being uploaded. (Which would’ve really angered me since I own the copyright!) So I tried uploading a video with just the music track and it worked fine. So I tried uploading a video with just the animation and no sound and it worked fine. Then I tried both sound and animation together and … NO! Didn’t work. So I finally edited the video and cut off the credits and it worked! It stinks to have lost all the comments and stuff from the original video, though, but at least the music is back up. I still have no idea why it was removed. It really didn’t violate any terms of service. There’s something stupid somewhere in YouTube’s system, but I’m glad it finally let my reupload the video. It was quite a headache though.
Well, I guess that’s it! I hope you, yes you, had a happy Easter!
5 Comments
LanthonyS · April 29, 2010 at 10:58 PM
I reviewed it on Amazon, CDbaby, and CDuniverse (the same review on all three, of course). We’ll see how many accept it.
I hope I was fair. I gave it quite a high percent rating, and tried to picture it from the viewpoint of someone who neither hates your music (but who could?) nor loves it (as I do).
[I’ve listened to Castle Sky a couple more times since writing the review, and I felt I was a bit ungenerous; I actually get lost between minutes 8:30-11:40 😉 . But then I thought I might have unfairly let it grow on me, and the editing process is five times as bad as the submission process, so I let it stand.]
Altogether, so very good. Thanks again for giving us this fantastic music. (I now have to divide my Sean Patrick Hannifin folder into 2 albums, “VotDM” and “Wizard Walk”.)
S P Hannifin · April 29, 2010 at 11:11 PM
I look forward to reading my first official review 😀 … it’s really annoying that it takes time for it to show up on all three sites… but they’ll probably get it up before iTunes even has the album up!
Thank you so much!!
LanthonyS · April 30, 2010 at 10:06 AM
I re-read the review and boy, I must have been in a bad mood when I wrote it! I’ve edited it a bit. I didn’t downplay its failings, but I did give much fairer and fuller mention to its strengths, particularly song-by-song. Amazon is processing the edited review now (oh, c’mon, you guys) which will supposedly appear in 48 hours. 🙂
LanthonyS · April 30, 2010 at 5:25 PM
(and here it is; that was fast)
S P Hannifin · April 30, 2010 at 6:24 PM
That’s awesome, thank you so much!
Not only probably the most thorough review I’ll ever receive, perhaps the *only* review I’ll receive, for a long while at least! I enjoyed reading what worked at what didn’t work for you.
And though you didn’t give the album a 100% positive, it’s still quite a gracious review, thank you! 🙂