How To Release Music On Spotify In 2024 _ The Nic D Method

The transcription is discussing strategies for independent artists to release music successfully on Spotify. The speaker emphasizes the importance of releasing content consistently and frequently, and building a large catalog of songs. They also suggest tying music releases to entertaining content and being relatable to fans. The speaker shares their own experience of unexpected success with a song they didn't initially prioritize. They also discuss the misconception of needing expensive music videos and the importance of batch creating songs to avoid burnout. Overall, the speaker emphasizes the need for a strategic and realistic approach to releasing music. How many pieces of content for song one, when would you introduce song two? How many pieces of content, how would you introduce song three? And when you have song two and song three out, how would you go back to try to breathe a little bit of excitement and life into one, or to breathe some new energy into it to just continue to feed the momentum? All right, song one. If you're an independent artist releasing new music on Spotify, this video is for you. I sat down with Nick Dee, an independent artist who has well over a billion streams on Spotify to share his exact step-by-step process of releasing new music to Spotify. This is someone who lives in the middle of nowhere, he's over 30, doesn't have a manager or record deal. I asked him to break down a strategy that way you can learn and implement so you can have the best year ever on Spotify and beyond. Make sure to take notes, watch till the end, and let's jump right in. All right, guys, so I'm here with none other than the one and only Nick Dee. Thank you so much for hanging in the kitchen today, because there's a lot of artists out there who have just incredible music, right? Whether they're just getting started and just have a natural gift or they've really honed their craft over the years, they really have no idea how to get that music out on Spotify successfully. Everybody knows that they can use a service like DistroKid and get it on Spotify or Apple Music or Amazon or whatever, but doing it successfully, a whole different game plan. So in the new year, with music, with content, with the whole system in place, you personally, what's going to be your main focus to start? Release very consistently, release very frequently, and create content around those releases. My main goal is to just build my catalog. I want a very large catalog because I'm not looking for, even though it may come, I'm not looking for a hit every time I release. I don't need a hit every time I release. I want to build a catalog because 10 songs, the way that they would stream would add up to a hit. And instead of pitching a song three months in advance where I could release a song, let's say I release a song every week for three months, that's 12 songs, right? So 12 songs, the total that they would add up to streaming-wise would equal a hit. But what if you release your one song and you don't get a hit, and it's a flop, you waste three months? Yeah. Just a more realistic approach. It's like looking at the averages and trying to increase your averages over those lottery moments. Yeah, and during that process, I'll probably get a hit, right? And a hit's different, right? I'm not talking about a radio, number one billboard, I'm just talking about a song that streams better than the others. When it comes to the hit, is it safe to say in your career, the hits come when you're not expecting them to come, when you're looking at the overall picture and not just one element of it? Absolutely. I have real-world experience from it. There's a song that I thought was going to do really well. This was a couple of years ago. And I kind of put all the eggs in that basket. Not all the eggs, but I was going to do a huge music video, I was going to do all these things. So I made a song that originally I titled, In the Meantime, because I made it in the meantime so that I had something to release in the meantime before I released this other song and promoted the heck out of it. And that song is titled Mona Lisa now, and it was my first song video that did a million views on TikTok. It was a song that I made in the meantime so that I could focus on promoting a different song that inevitably flopped. So that's real-world experience. And that just goes to show you, quality is subjective. The thing you think is the best will probably flop, and the thing you don't even want to release will probably blow up. This is a man who has over a billion streams collectively now. That accurate? Yeah. This year alone, as we're wrapping up the year, over 300 million streams on Spotify alone? Yeah. So probably closer to four, because Spotify wrap doesn't include November to December. Yeah. So this is somebody that's doing it. It's not just, oh, you should be able to, this might work. I think the whole lottery strategy is a little bit toxic in this space, because everybody's going based off of one win. But you've experienced win after win after win, not only through consistency and patience, but having a system and a plan, right? So how important is pairing your music with content that entertains and not just content for content's sake? The most important, I feel, and I think the best way to do it, and I've spoke about it, and the people that implement it are finding wonderful success. And it's think of the content idea first, and then write the song to fit the idea. Yes, it takes a little bit of the art away from creating music. I know a lot of people are bothered by that. But if you're going to make a living making music, you have to operate like a business. You can't just be the artist. You can maybe just be the artist in some sort of scenario where you have a full team around you. If that's your goal, that's cool. That's not my goal. My goal is to be independent. I want a team, and I want to own everything. I love that. So you as a personal brand, the Nick D brand, everything you're doing, independent podcast, you don't want a bad enough book. All these things, including your music, which is going to annoy some purists, it's all products within your offerings for you as a personal brand. Your music is a product. Not every product is going to fly off the shelves. So when you have something that goes viral and then trickles into actual monetary success, because doing 7 million views on TikTok doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get a fat check, right? You need to tie it to something else. So you're saying, correct me if I'm wrong, you essentially need to be seen in order to be heard. Absolutely. If no one knows you're there, how can they find your music? I love that. I always say you can't become a household name unless your name is in households. Now you're going to know. Most people, they post to the same 500 people and they're just going to have a good feeling about it. You know, the song is going to blow up. If anyone has a good feeling, then you need to get yourself out there to see this kind of content. Unfortunately. It's funny how you look at it. Here's the game. I know a lot of people don't want to do it, but it's the game. So let's get people excited to make content, because I know a lot of people watching this right now are going to be like, I don't like the way I look. I don't have a fancy camera. Did you start with a fancy anything? I mean, you had a camera because you were doing photography. But I will say this, I purposefully didn't use my good cameras because it looks unrelatable. Like right now, I'm using typically probably a camera with a blurry background. This is the style of content I'm doing now. You need to be relatable for people to relate to you. The image of the untouchable mystique of the artist, I think, is gone. And that's why artists like Charlie Puth, who once were that, but then totally grasps the content TikTok game, the show my personality game, the making of the song. That's why you crush it and still during this era. I'm not saying that there's artists that have the mystique that don't post a ton of content that don't exist. I'm just saying the more realistic approach is to be relatable, be a person of the people rather than, and this ties into what we were talking about earlier, music videos. So many people believe, especially early on, because I believe it's they don't know what they don't know. So they think that in order to be taken seriously, they need to have this multi thousand dollar super professional kind of fake it till you make it music video that's tied to something that if they just did using straight what they had, they'd be able to get further over those releases. Like you said, instead of 50,000 views on something on YouTube that cost them 10 grand, they could have 50,000 views over five videos that they shot on an iPhone or they shot on a DSLR that their buddy has. And so I want this to be kind of a roadmap for people to release new music. So obviously content, obviously music. Would you recommend having a collection of songs ready before starting to release them? Or do you? Because the reason I ask is so many people deal with burnout and if they only have one song that they, you know, sweat over and cried over and when they release that, a lot of times people push that out and see where it goes and then they rot away. They don't use their creativity. They become stagnant. How important it is, is it not only batch creating content, but batch creating, maybe not batch creating, but consistently creating new songs to be able to feed out into the marketplace. I think to touch on your point of they work, they, they polish this one, you know, song baby and then they put it out into the world. When they do that, they have an attachment to it. They have an expectation for it. They think that because of how hard they worked on it, it deserves place. It deserves streams. It deserves attention. It's just not the case. Right? Like is it ego? Is it entitlement a little bit? I think it's a little bit of that. It's a little bit of pride. It's a little bit. It's whatever. It's like people are, they expect results because of how hard they worked, but that's not like, that's not enough, you know? And that's, but I do hear what you're saying where do they, should they have a batch of songs ready? Cause I know that for some, it's not that easy to create a song. It's not that fluid. It doesn't come as quickly and maybe as it does for others. So yes, I think it could be a good strategy to first prepare all of your songs so that you have, and you're not pressed and you're not dealing with burnout. It's supposed to be a little uncomfortable. If it was easy, everybody would be successful for it, right? It's not supposed to be a little uncomfortable. It's not supposed to be easy. With the release strategy, let's talk about three releases so we don't overwhelm people too much. Let's say one, two, and three. Song one, song two, song three, that's the names. How many pieces of content for song one, when would you release those? When would you introduce song two? How many pieces of content? How would you introduce song three? And when you have song two and song three out, how would you, Nick D, go back to try to breathe a little bit of excitement and life into one for strangers that don't know it exists, or to breathe some new energy into it to just continue to feed the momentum? All right, song one, it comes out. Day it comes out, there's a piece of content ready, I post it, probably a Friday, right? Midnight, Thursday, song's released, I have a content ready, I post it Friday. Then I don't post over the weekend. Personal preference, less streaming is happening on the weekend. I'm sorry for Monday. A lot of people stream on Mondays, Apple's another video Monday. Now throughout that week, is you're like, let me push this new song, and then I have another one coming out on a Friday, coming up. So one week, and then the next Friday. Absolutely. And then if one of those videos during that first week does well, then I'll still incorporate it in the weeks coming, right? So I have one that, you know, if you're used to getting 300 views, but for some reason this song, this video that you posted did 2,000 views, incorporate it moving forward with your new releases. Alex is a great example of it right now. He's writing content ideas, or thinking of content ideas, before the song. He's writing a song to fit it. He's releasing a song on a Friday, and he's posting the content, and if the content does well, he'll post more. If it doesn't do well, he'll move on to the next song, and every now and again, still make a new piece of content, breathe life, maybe with the content, not the song. Because I truly feel that a good song, paired with a good piece of content, becomes an excellent song. I think a bad song, paired with an excellent piece of content, can be a good song. And I think a great song with a bad piece of content, can turn into a bad song, as far as how it's performing, or how you feel it deserves. You've got to find that sweet spot for the pairing. Now, in talking about releasing music every week, or let's say, let's bump it up, two, three weeks, there's going to be some people that A, feel like that purity of the music is gone, and I need to kind of instill with you guys, we're talking about being business minded, and using music as a product to grow a career, not to be celebrated immediately for something that you have a bunch of sentimental value for. So, releasing music, let's say, every two or three weeks, one, two, three weeks, it doesn't really matter, you're not focusing any time on pre-save campaigns, spending a ton of time, energy, and frustration trying to get it on playlists, you are just trying to connect with your audience in the most genuine way that hopefully spreads, you get reach and discoverability to a new audience, and then your content, paired with the good music, is going to win them over into becoming a fan or follower, and then it's up to us to convert them into being, you know, what a super fan, and I call it family, where they're just like, love what you represent beyond what the music is, so, there's a question in there, I promise. I'm not a pre-save. Pre-save campaign, I know that it used to work a little bit more effectively than it does now, but when it comes to releasing music, moving forward, you're saying, have the content and the song queued up and ready so when their attention is there, they get to eat immediately and they don't have to wait for it. Yeah, and I never tell people that I'm releasing a song. I'm releasing a song this week. Okay? So, I hear that. Song's out. Yeah. That's what people want to hear. The song is out. You post a video, hey, when's the song out? It's out already. Yeah. And they're all like, hey, when's the song out? I don't know how to take pre-saves. No one cares. It's not about delivering the experience. Give them what they want. Give the people what they want. Say, no, I'm not interested in being a fan. I'm not interested in being a follower. I'm not interested in being a fan. I'm not interested in being a follower. I'm not interested in being a fan. Give them what they want. Give the people what they want. Say, no, I'm not interested in pre-save campaigns. I'm not submitting my songs three, four, five, six weeks in advance to try to get a playlist. There's a million, 11 million artists on Spotify. Yeah. There's a million songs uploaded every week. How many playlists are there? Not that many. Not that many. Yeah. How many songs are in those playlists? Not that many. It's like hitting the lottery. I recently saw an interview that you did, I think it was with my boy Kyle Beats. Shout out to Kyle Beats. Great channel. Subscribe. And you said in that moment, it was a little while ago, that only out of all your streams, like two to 4% were from playlists. All the rest were from essentially content marketing and building that momentum there independently. I do a million streams a day. Yeah. 2% come from editorial playlists. Guys, when you listen into this, the playlist thing, the things that we're most stressed out about are because we're seeing other people emphasize those things or complain about those things, or they're frustrated by those things. We're sitting with somebody who has a billion streams, a billion with a B, collectively, a million streams a day. How many of you would be, your life would be changed if you had a million streams a month? So with income coming in, just to kind of break that down, not even for you, just in general, a million streams on Spotify is between $3,000 and $4,000 typically on average? On the lower course, it's $3,000. Okay. Yeah. So if somebody's looking to go full time with their music, making sure that they're pairing content to share their message, a lot of people are like, they get annoyed when we're talking about marketing, but what is marketing? You're taking a product and you're bringing it to market. You have a product with your music. You pair it with something that's interesting. Who would go to a movie theater to listen to a movie? You need the visuals with it. And I know that's a ridiculous comparison, but you need the whole experience. People need to get to know you and that's how you use your content. Do you think in today's day and age, the label, any label, any major label can help you connect with your audience better than just going after it organically and talking to them and figuring that out? No, I don't. And I always say this. Okay, a billion streams a day. I could probably walk into any label and get a 50-50 deal, right? Yeah. That would mean that I would need to do double what I'm already doing, two million streams a day to make the same money that I'm already making. And all they will do is ask me to keep doing what I'm doing. That sounds like a good deal to me, but they're wearing a suit. I've never understood it. One thing he said is you should have an idea for the content before you write a song about it. I know Alex was doing that successfully. Alex behind the scenes. Shout out to Alex. I'll put his Instagram in the description. Great guy. If somebody is very confused by that because they're just new to the content game or that doesn't make sense to them. Give me an example. Yeah, please. Here's a real example from another artist who I think crushes this idea. Fulton. Fulton Lee is the name of it. Okay, he'll do public stunt kind of stuff where he'll set a sign up and say, if you're having a bad day, sit down. That's the idea. The idea is, okay, I'm going to put on a sign, if you're having a bad day, sit down. Now I need to write a song that's going to cure someone's bad day. And he does that right in your car. Then he writes a song, fix a bad day. Yeah. And then he goes and films a piece of content. So the idea is great. If you're having a bad day, sit down. Public stunt, random person, singer. And then I write a song to fit that. Yeah. That's what I mean by thinking of content before. It doesn't take away the art of the song. You're still writing a beautiful song trying to help someone out. But the idea for how you're going to promote it came first. It's almost like you're incorporating the audience into the creation of the music. So they matter more now more than ever before to know who you're speaking to, to know who you're making content for, to know who you're delivering this experience for. And I think it's safe to say, we were talking about this before we started shooting, whether it's using something like Grouped or any crowdfunding type of thing. It only takes, I think, 5,000 people giving you five bucks a month over the course of a year to make a quarter million dollars. You've been approached by a lot of labels. I'm sure there's some labels in the mix that didn't even offer you a quarter million dollars up front, maybe early on. I know that's probably higher now. But what I'm getting at is getting the streams up requires you to be seen. Having the content that actually cares about the people and doesn't just make you feel cool is more important than the high quality music video and the other things that you might be confused about needing as a requirement. Because I think a lot of people think, I need to get on all these playlists. I need to have a professional music video. I talked to somebody recently who spent $5,000 per song on videos, and I don't think he's ever made 10,000 streams a month. It's like going and you and I being interested in cooking and us spending all the money we can get on a credit card on the best utensils and the best pots and pans. It's like, we don't know how to cook. Right? So it's like what I always say, use what you have until what you have pays for what you want. Spend the time on content that pairs with the song perfectly. How many pieces of content per song, just bear park. I know that you do several different takes and several different locations. I did Real World Icy Pop. I think I did 30 to 40 videos for Icy Pop. One thing that I won't do is drill a song into the ground. There were so many, even labels were hitting me up. Why stop posting about Icy Pop? I'm like, can I not be that guy? What I did was release more music. But even when I was doing Icy Pop, I didn't do it. So I posted the first video in Lisbon, 7 million views. It was a video that I never posted. I filmed in September. I didn't post until January. It was sitting in my TikTok dress. And I was like, I need something to post. I don't have anything. I'm in DC on vacation. I post Icy Pop. I saw those 7 million views. Then the streams bumped. It's all still doing good. It's doing like 25k a day. And then it went up to like 40k a day from a 7 million view video. Now if you know about like sales or anything, the average person needs to see your product 7 times before they feel comfortable purchasing it. It's the same kind of with music. You get in front of them once, it's really not enough. So 7 million view video converts. I get like 20k more streams on the next day. You think it'd be more? Whatever. You post another video. Post another video. That video does 5 million. Now it goes up to 77k the next day. Post another video. 3 million each. I'm up to 100k. Post another video, I get 10 million views. Man. Now I'm doing 200k a day. Then the song is doing 400k a day. Icy Pop. And it's because I kept. But what I wasn't doing was drilling it into the ground and saying this is all I got. Go listen to it. Yeah. I was also, in between I was promoting another song simultaneously. Yeah. And both those songs ended up on the top 50 most prized songs on Spotify. And that's an accomplishment that a lot of people are watching this right now. That would be a huge milestone moment for them as well. I'm going to coin a new term based on what we're talking about right here. I think what you're doing, and as an independent artist out there, this is how you should think about it. You're attention stacking. So you have their attention and you're stacking on top of it. You're giving them something interesting. Not everything is shot in the same outfit. Not everything is shot in the same location. Not everything is the same part of the song. You've got to rotate it and you've got to keep them interested. Like you said, in the marketing world, at least seven touches before somebody's a conversion. That's why you get e-mails from Best Buy every day. That's why you get e-mails from Foot Locker every day. They know eventually two months from now you're going to spend $200, $300 at a clip. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, the more effective you are in getting somebody to feel something when they watch your content, the quicker they become connected to you and a fan of yours. Absolutely. I think most people's content is self-serving. Agreed. They only are posting because they want people to stream their stuff. But if you just take care of the viewer, you'll have better success anyway. You'll get to what you actually want faster if you just take care. If you put the viewer first. Sure. You know what's funny, Nick, is there's going to be people that watch this and like, it's too simple. There has to be more. There has to be a hack. There has to be a cheat code. There has to be a five tips, quick, secret person. What we're saying is it's a very simple process. It's a very, very simple process. It's create consistently. I say it's not easy, but it is straightforward. Yeah. That's how I put it. And it might take a long time. Alex has been posting every day for two years. He just got his freaking stuff to connect. He's just now finding a new audience. But if you think about any brick and mortar business, if you and I were to start a shoe store, we wouldn't expect to be profitable in the first two years. You never would. Right. And that's why business loans and the crippling debt that you go into. With music, you have a relatively, and I understand there's people around the world that are experiencing poverty worse than anything I've heard, Nick. Like, I get it. But where there's a will, there's a way. There's people that are recording studio quality-esque recordings right from their phone. They're borrowing. Some libraries, like in Central Florida, the Orlando Library has a full-blown recording studio. I'm talking like millions of dollars. I schedule it. You schedule it. Yeah. There's a guy, Paul Russell, you probably heard of him recently. Lil Boothang is his song. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like every commercial on TV. Lil Boothang. Yeah, yeah. He's having a moment. His first few projects he recorded into voice memos on his phone. He would play the beat on his computer maybe, have headphones in, record, airdrop the file, and then line it up. And this song, you'd have no idea. No one would know. There's plenty of records on the radio right now. There's plenty of records that are going viral that are recorded on a $200 interface, recorded on a phone. Same with content. I would argue that more content goes viral because it feels real. I think as an independent artist, we have to take it upon ourselves to be independent thinkers to how we're going to connect with a group of people, whether big or small, that we would want to hang out with in real life because you can't fake the funk so long where you build an audience based on misconception or a false perception. So you're doing a great job being able to tie that. I want people to stay aligned with lifestyle design more than just random goals that don't actually make sense to them. So what would you say somebody that's getting started has never, let's say they've never hit over 10,000 streams in a month, and their goal is to say, Adam, Nick, I'm going to do this for two years like Alex is doing right now, and I'm going to try to find my breakthrough. Persistence, patience, dedication, maniacal focus, and sometimes selfishness. What would your overall advice be to somebody that's kind of lost, really wants to do it? Let's just have a sit-down big brother conversation where what would you tell me if I was in that position? If it's really what you want, keep going. That's it. It only stops when you do it. Yeah. That's it. Like, if it doesn't work, it's just because you stopped. But what if they're too old? What if they're like 24 years old? They've aged out. I didn't start until I was 27. Right. I didn't know that. I didn't start until I was 27. And I think you have a leg up then anyway. Well, yeah. I mean, I was not the guy who was supposed to make it. Married, had a son at the time, and I have two kids. And 27? Yeah. Thick beauty. This is a good question. Talk about lifestyle design. Because you and I are similar. We don't have a lot of vices and enjoy family, and that's kind of main focus. Did you have to move to LA to make any of this happen? No. Did you have to get signed to a label to make any of this happen? No. Did you have to have a $50,000 or more studio and a dedicated room in your house to make any of this happen? No. Did you have to have all the connections and go to these networking parties and stay late at a studio till 4 o'clock in the morning in order to get attention from your actual fan base? No. That's it. And that's why you are living the lifestyle that you designed, because you're living in purpose. You're focused on business over creative. It's not either or. Right. But in order to make it a business, you have to focus on it, because it's not a business if you're not making money. Yeah. So you can have an LLC, doesn't mean you're actual business. So let's walk through this real quick. They have a passion making music. They're creating music consistently. They're stripping the excuses away, making music on a regular basis enough to post once every three weeks. They have content. They're shooting it. They're getting out of their own way. But Nick, they've been doing it now for three months. They're not famous. They haven't gone viral. This is what I tell or what I told Alex was, because you can have great content. You can have a great song. And you can do everything right. You can be crushing it. But it just might not be the right time yet. It might not be the right song yet. It might not be the right song paired with that great piece of content. You know, he's 26 songs deep. Yeah. And he just got the right songs. He's finally got the right songs that pair well with the right content that hit the right audience. But without those 26, he would have never got there. Exactly. If he stopped, imagine he stopped at song 25. Right. It's like a tattoo artist depressed that he's not fully booked out after only doing two tattoos. You've got to build a reputation, and you have to build a reputation as an artist that actually cares, isn't full of themselves. That goes so far once you hit a certain, like if you're Kanye or Drake or somebody, like you can get away with that. But I would argue that that lifestyle is not for the majority of people. You know what I think when people get burned out sometimes is, if you're not authentic, if you're trying to have a persona, even a little one, and you have to keep that image up, that's where it can get exhausting because you forget who you are. If you're not, if you're being yourself every day, you don't get burned out of being yourself. Yeah. You know? You might get burned out of trying to make sure you have a song every Friday. Yeah. Sure. Take a break. And that's okay. Take a break. Yeah. You've got to have your mind right or nothing else will be right, so just take care of yourself. But I think a lot of people forget, I've done it, I'm sure you've done it, that all of the pressures that are on us come from ourselves. Mm-hmm. It's all this vision that we want to get there a little bit faster. Sure. Or it's not coming fast enough. We've spent all this time, you just don't understand, I'd put everything on the line for this one thing and it didn't, but it's because we're control freaks in a certain way and we want to have control of the output, we want to have control of the outcome, I should say. You're attached to the result. Yeah. So speaking of the process, we walk through getting consistent, building the content strategy, bringing people in. How do you think people should connect with you? Not you directly, but as an artist. You have the streams up. How do you think you build a solidified community? Because I think that's the tail end that a lot of people overlook. They think that just a song has to blow up on Spotify or something needs to blow up on TikTok, but they have nowhere, I call it a retention path. There's no way to catch them and keep them with you. So what would just be a couple of quick tips on converting that to actual real bonds with people and turn those into real fans? I can think of two. One, Not A Liar For Me, that's a different issue. I have a podcast with a buddy and we were just, it was like being a fly on the wall with two best friends who chat. Yeah. And people got to see my personality. And they're two separate accounts. I never cross promoted anything. So I had this podcast account that was crushing. I was on the for you page a ton. And then when I would post my music page, I would get comments like, is that the guy from the podcast? And I'd be like, what are you saying? Yeah. And they would love me from the podcast. So if they liked my song, even if they just liked it, they would be an instant fan. Yeah. Instead of, because they're like, look at the person. Oh, I love this guy. I didn't know what he was saying. Bam, bam. That's one. One way is to give them your personality in a different outlet, outside, away from music. Let them connect to you on a human level. You can do it through your content and the music, sure. But giving them you outside of it, I think will go a long way. Another way is to really take care of the people that care. Involve them. It's kind of like a Twitch streamer. People join to hang out with you as a part of their day. Yeah. If you can provide people with that connection, they feel a part of your day, or you're a part of their day, which is what I'm doing. That's my 2024 goal. So that's why I'm allowing people to vote on my releases. And the song that they vote on, I release. Yeah. They feel a part of the release. They are a part of the release. And then I even changed some of my music at the channel Freddy for Artists. I changed the way that I'm approaching it. I'm less sitting in a studio well lit with something I scripted up. I'm stepped away from that. I'm just turning on the camera and I'm talking for 15 minutes. Yeah. And I'm uploading it. I'm real. I'm not thinking of a thumbnail. I'm taking a screenshot from the video. That's my thumbnail. And that's my best performing video. People say, we need more videos like this. Yeah. I think it kind of compares to, in a weird way, it's like your wife, my wife. We love them. Sweatpants, T-shirt. That's the real. And we earn the right to be with them that way. The rest of the world at a wedding, out and about, they're done up, makeup, hair a certain way, presenting their best foot forward to the world. But our favorite version of them is behind the scenes when we're watching sports or we're eating at a table with our families. So that's the connection that we have to make. It's a real relationship building thing with our audience. You don't have to go super deep into your personal stuff. You can still have privacy, but being able to say, Oh, Adam likes the Green Bay Packers. Adam does this. Nick does this. Oh, Nick went on this trip and he did it. I did that. I want to do. It's now your product is that music and it ties to a real person, a real experience. You are essentially the host of your own show and the show involves your music and your content. I think that this is a really good overview and actually a deep dive on getting out of your own way. The actual steps that you need to take and then actually following through on building a relationship with these people. So guys, I want to thank Nick for his time today. What can people connect with you? Oh, freddyfam.com, the independent podcast. It's Freddy's show. You got a book? I am. I do have a book titled You Don't Want It Bad Enough. You may want it bad enough. You may. You definitely want the book bad enough. You can get that at nickdbook.com, N-I-C-D book.com and it's just how I was able to make a living making music and I wanted to share it with people because I felt like there was nothing out there from someone who's actively creating and releasing music. I felt like there's a gap I could fill and it's things that I did and that worked for me and it still works for me. Appreciate your time, man. Guys, I'll have all of his links in the description box below. We also put them up on the screen when he said it, so feel free to go back and pause, check them out. This is somebody that I co-sign as a mentor, as somebody to look up to, as somebody to follow along in their footsteps, but then make it your own path. It doesn't have to be, you don't have to be Nick D, you don't have to be Adam Ivey, you don't have to be fill in the blank. Use it to be a derivative, but stay different and authentic to yourself. So with that being said, man, it's great being able to chop it up and share these. I'm hoping A, in the comments below, let us know what your goals are for your upcoming next few months and then I want you to set a reminder on your phone six months, a year from now and then leave a follow-up response or even do a screenshot and send it to Nick or I and we want to take that opportunity to kind of praise those that have followed through because that's the one thing holding you guys back, the follow-through. If you have the follow-through, if you have a time horizon that's going to allow you to say, I want to do this for a very long time and I'm not going to get burnt out, I'm not going to get discouraged or frustrated to the point where I quit, then you're already in the top 15% of anybody that makes music because most people quit. You watching this content, you're looking for help, you're looking for guidance and you're looking for a perspective and hopefully we did that today. So yeah. Hopefully so. Guys, thank you so much for watching and we'll check you on the next one. Cheers.