Hello, everyone! This post is a little later than usual, but we’ve been traveling in preparation for the upcoming holiday season. Things will be back to normal tomorrow.
This site exists to promote the future of the entertainment industry, and to do that we need input from people like you and your entertainment-loving friends. If you have any questions about the content in this article, or if you have an artist you would like to see featured on this blog, please contact james@haulix.com. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
Every week I speak with at least one young writer who believes the world is their oyster and nothing can stop their rise to the highest heights of the music business. At the same time, I also hear from writers with anywhere from two to ten years of experience who, despite being extremely talented, have been unable to land a full time role in the entertainment business. If anything, they have a handful of freelance gigs or perhaps even something part time, but generally speaking neither of these situations provide enough financial support for the individual to have only one job, let alone plan for the future.
You can hopefully piece this together on your own, but all of those veteran writers mentioned above started their pursuit of full time industry employment with little to no doubt in their mind that success would come in time. Most probably underestimated how long it would take to find that success, but their drive to chase their dreams was present nonetheless. The story I know best is my own, so allow me to further illustrate this point with a tale from my own journey to the job I have now.
I started writing about music during the fall of my Sophomore year at Ferris State University. By spring, my passion had lead me to leave the site that gave me my start and step out on my own, which began with a blogspot URL and quickly turned into the webzine I still help run to this day, Under The Gun Review. Our first year was amazing, and by the time we hit our one-year anniversary we had already begun averaging at least 25,000 uniques a month. For a kid from a town with less than 3000 people, I thought we were on top of the world, and I soon began telling my parents that blogging would be the thing that eventually helped me find a career in music. They were cautious, as I probably should have been, but they supported me because they knew I was passionate about my work.
By spring 2010 I was getting ready to graduate from Ferris and blogging as much as I possibly could every day of the week. UTG was bringing in over 100,000 uniques a month and I was still confident that someone would soon call to offer me a role in the industry. Much to my surprise, my phone didn’t ring. In fact, no one contacted me through any means of communication with a job offer. Even the jobs I had applied to did not get back to me. Like millions of college graduates every year I was standing on the other side of an investment in my future worth tens of thousands of dollars with absolutely no leads in the industry I had spent nearly half a decade preparing to enter.
The first few post-college months are still a bit of a blur, but I know for a fact I wasn’t working in music. I had a few phone calls with companies, and even landed an interview with a label based out of Chicago with a reputation for ‘running the streets,’ but after being offered $25,000/year to move to one of the largest cities in America I knew my search was far from over. I still wrote, however, and that was the one constant I had in my life. I also had a series of horrible jobs, including a temporary role as a male secretary for a company specializing in products that were made for woodworking factories, as well as a holiday season spent as an assistant manager at Hot Topic. Both of those roles felt like a soul-draining, time eating hell, but I needed money and a flexible schedule in order to keep chasing my dream.
By the time I finally heard from an upstanding company who wanted me to work full time in music I had been out of college for nearly a year. The job was a 1000 miles from home, but it offered benefits and enough income to support myself, which was far more than what any other company had offered me up to that point. This includes when I foolishly sold my site, UTG, to the people at BuzzMedia (they never paid me at all, but that is a story for another time). My parents were cautiously optimistic, but they helped me get a car and gave me enough cash to stay afloat until my first paycheck came in. My friend Kate, a Boston native who lived 30 miles from my new gig, offered my her couch.
At this point in life I felt like I had finally made it. I thought I had found a company I could call home for years to come and that there was no reason to worry any longer about whether or not the music industry would welcome me into its elite club of full-time professionals. As it turns out, however, that assumption could not have been more misguided. Within six months of starting my new job the company hit financial troubles, which meant many employees were not paid on time. The business was technically a startup, which are notorious for experiencing temporary problems with funding, so at first I didn’t pay much mind to the fact my check came three days late. Then it happened again. And again. The fourth time these troubles arose during my first year they decided to furlow everyone, which is worse than not getting paid on time because it means the company doesn’t technically have to pay you the money they already owe.
You might be asking your monitor: Why would this guy stay at a job with so many ups and downs?
The answer is actually quite simple: It was still the music business.
Ever since the rise of Napster the one lesson engrained in the mind of every music business student is that times are rough and the industry is far more cutthroat now than ever before. As a result, myself and countless others have put up with companies treating us poorly because we felt it was some kind of twist ‘rite of passage that would separate the truly passionate from those looking for fame and/or fortune. I stayed with that first company for years despite knowing their almost constant money troubles, and the only reason I did that was because I thought those kinds of ups and downs were commonplace in a world where digital piracy was rampant, The truth, however, was that I was working for a failing business that did not know how to save their sinking ship even though they had accrued more than $30 million in funding over five years. They did not care about me as much as they did covering their own asses, but I did not realize that until the job I have now (here at Haulix) came around.
Once I entered negotiations with Matt Brown, the founder of Haulix, I knew something was different. Matt wasn’t obsessed with the bottom line, nor did he have an office far bigger than he would ever need. In fact, he had no real office at all. Haulix was a lean business from day one, putting all money into the product and spending as little as possible everywhere else. They didn’t even have a marketing person until I came on board, and knowing the industry average for such roles I can tell you they got me for a steal. I did not mind though, because money has never been a huge motivating factor for me. I was just happy to have a job with a company I not only knew very well inside and out, but also one I believe in. I believe in Haulix. I think what we’re doing is both necessary and incredibly important, which gives me a great sense of pride in everything I do. That is worth more than any annual salary elsewhere could afford, and it’s something I have probably told Matt I am grateful for more times than either of can count.
The reason I tell you all of this is because, like you, I was once confident the music industry would notice my talent and welcome me with open arms. As I grew older I realized the only way to get on the radar of anyone in the business is to take matters into your own hands, and even then there is no guarantee you will find the type position that you desire. Even if you do, it may take some time before the opportunity presents itself, and you can believe me when I say the wait for that time will feel like centuries. The key to making it through is a combination of drive, passion, and patience. You have to keep working, whether you are being paid or not, and you have to keep believing in yourself. When it feels like the world does not care and no one is listening, use the passion such an idea ignites in your soul to create something so compelling it demands the full attention of strangers. Whatever you do, just keep going. Keep fighting. Keep dreaming. Keep chasing the goals you have had since your teenage years until that fire inside you dies, and then move on to the next thing that captures your imagination. Just as sharks can never stop swimming without dying you cannot stop chasing your dreams without running the risk of living life unfulfilled. That, in my opinion, is a fate far worse than death.
Keep your head up, dreamers. You are not alone. To quote the band Vanna, “I believe in you if you believe in me.”
James Shotwell is the blog editor and social media coordinator for Haulix. He’s also the founder of Under The Gun Review and the host of the Inside Music podcast. His work has appeared on numerous websites and in several major publications, including Alternative Press, AbsolutePunk, and Rolling Stone. He tweets a lot, and would love it if you followed him on Twitter.
