Michael St. James

The calendar has turned, the seasons have changed, and the holidays are quickly approaching. While you are preparing for your holiday shows and trying to find that Jager-soaked Santa hat for the private party you booked, your band needs to be preparing for retail sales. I doubt you look at the National Retail Federation (NRF) sales stats as part of your music business, but you should. If you did, you’d know that between 25-35% of your yearly sales will happen in November and December.

I posted, “Few things make me as sad as seeing: ‘I just dropped my new song today.’” Within one minute of posting that, I got flooded with countless direct messages. “What does that mean?,” “Why wouldn’t I promote myself?,” and many other comments along the same lines. Let me give it to you straight. If the first instance I am hearing of your song is on the day of your release, you are doing it horribly wrong.

It’s 97 degrees outside, fireworks are exploding outside my window, and here I am sitting in an air-conditioned studio, with a floppy Santa hat on, trying to nail this glockenspiel part. Why? Because this is July, when many in the industry are producing and recording Christmas music; and you should be too. As a young musician/songwriter in a band and on the grind, this lesson took me way too long to learn.