How can I keep acquaintances interested in my work without spending too much time

Question

I am a music and video producer half of my time, not an hobby though, since I am released, make a bit of money, and have my work reviewed in online and paper magazines.

The thing however is that having a day job to sustain myself I find it impossible not to reduce my social life in order to work on my productions. In my local art community some people can afford (for social background or various reason they do not need or have a day-job) to spend their time, meeting at night, discussing online and thus keep their network alive and I just can't do that if I want to finish my own work.

However what I observed is that after each release, I have a short free time period where I can connect with new people who follow and proposed their help or collab for a little while, but they quickly go fed up with me not going out to their events and eventually stop interacting and having interest. And just "liking" post is clearly not enough.

Developing a strong network with engaged peoples is vital if I want to expand my activity and go to the next level, but I feel like glass ceiling there.

I would like to know how to maintain contact and interest without slipping on a 100% friendship mode or having to go out every night.

Answer 1

I'm not sure this is strictly an IPS issue. I want to encourage a mindset for you. Right now, you have two jobs: your day job for money, and your evening and weekends job making music. And then in the time leftover, if there is any, you have a social life, you go to events, you read and post online.

Now some of your social and online life is entirely for fun: stuff you like doing that energizes and refreshes you. But some of it is actually for your job. That's the mindset change I recommend to you. Posting, replying, and going to events are part of your music work. You need to make time for them. I have seen this with a young artist who yes, spent hours a day writing songs, practicing, experimenting with different sounds, trying new things. But he also spent hours a day every day on social media for his music "job". Literally every fan who @-ed him got a reply. Every day he did a video "hey everyone, thought I'd let you know what I've been doing lately, going to have a big announcement next week" and posted it. He was part of a group that all did music together. They went off to university and he continued to play and to do this part of the job. He now supports himself, has employees, has done multiple world tours and bought his mother a house.

So, distinguish between going to a party with your friends and attending a music-work-related event. Between reading your personal Twitter and going on your music Twitter to reply to fans and post links to interesting things. That kind of socializing is work, it's part of your music work. And as you've seen you have more time for it right after a release, but you should probably make time for it all the time. This will slow the pace of your music production a little, but you will reach more people with what you produce.

One approach might be to alternate one evening of making music and one evening of socializing work. Or evenings are for social-music-work and weekends are for making music. Or your lunch hour at day-job-work is for social-music-work and so are two evenings a week. You can figure out a rhythm. Then when someone invites you to something that could help your music work, you can find a way to be there. And when you can't be there, you can say honestly "if I don't get some studio time this week I'll never finish this project" or "my day job is too busy that week but I'd love to go to the next one." Knowing you say yes to a lot of opportunities makes it easier to say no to some of them.