I have had hobbies with the potential to turn a profit for at least fifteen years. In those fifteen years I have never seen a profit. This is a good thing actually. I have always been focused on my hobbies for fun, and not profit. I have never put a great deal of effort into making money off of the things I create. I do not see that effort as changing very much in the future.

This, of course, doesn't mean that I don't think of it now and again.

The more debt I have acquired, the more I have thought of this. Currently, the numbers break down like this:

• Debt: $60,000.00
• Marketing: $10,000.00
• Moving: $10,000.00
• Need $80,000.00
   
• Sell Books QTY: 60,000 at $1.40 Profit/book
• Sell CDs QTY: 20,000 at $4.00 Profit/CD
• Sell Prints QTY: 40,000 at $2.00 Profit/Print

Profits are all based on self-publishing routes. No record label or publisher here. As a result, I have to consider the ten grand investment in promotion. The debt is mostly student loans, so I have a long time to pay them off, but they are rather overwhelming. Regardless of how long I have to pay them off, they still prevent me from saving money for a home or investing in my future at all. This is depressing, which is counter productive to creativity and life in general.

I would like to take a moment and point out that I'm not here to complain about my debt, or to claim that I have more debt than others. I am actually rather fortunate in many ways. My debt does not threaten to take away my home or make any children starve. My debt is simply my own burden. In the event that debt collectors began garnishing my wages, I have a certain stubbornness and lifestyle which would simply allow me to quit my job and begin making as little money as possible. My credit report is an unbelievable nightmare, so when someone threatens to send a new debt to a collection agency, it is hardly a threat. These things allow me to approach my debt from a different angle. When I hear others speak about their debt, others that have cars, homes, and families, I simply do not know how to offer them advice. Not that my experience with debt would be of much help anyway.

Back to the numbers.

All of the quantities which I have listed are for the entire payoff amount. If I sell twenty thousand CDs, I would make eighty thousand dollars. That is what makes these numbers so exciting to me. I see thirty thousand books and ten thousand CDs as an obtainable goal. I would not expect this to happen in one years time, but I see no reason why this does not make an excellent five year goal. Granted, five years from when I publish the novel and release the CD. Which, at my current pace might take another five years.

later,
-junc

It has now been well over a year since I composed any music. I recently sold some music equipment and have plans to turn back towards the computer since I now own a laptop. The Korg nanoSeries is of great interest to me. I think they will serve as an excellent portable performance setup. To help with my push back into music I would like to revisit the piano. In a few weeks I intend on purchasing a digital piano. My hope is begin composing completely on the piano and then pursuing MusicXML as a means to render composed works in a format ready for live performance via the laptop with midi controllers. The point of MusicXML is to create an open platform for my music. With the idea being that the music notation would be shared in a digital format with instructions for how to perform the piece. With the samples being the “unique” factor. The hope would then be to build up a community which performs works by other community members. I feel that MusicXML can be extended to handle the specific exception which electronic music brings to composed music which MIDI and simple notation cannot handle. Very similar to the way that special notations have had to be invented to handle Scratch Notation by Turntablists. Of course MusicXML can easily be converted to MIDI and notation allowing potential performers to ignore recommendations by the original composer and interpret the piece as they wish. This is all currently in the concept stage and not much has been done regarding the application of it. I’m honestly not even positive that MusicXML can handle what I want, which may require me to make some sort of derivative form of MusicXML along with a web driven converter. later, -junc

the Catalog. I've been wrestling with this one all day. I don't think I'm going to do the weekly music thing. I am however going to release a few tracks today: (Tracks rereleased as part of Detritus) Some may recognize the Monitor from my myspace account. The others were just tracks lying around that I don't believe I have released yet. Bad news in video game land. If you haven't already heard the PS3 is being delayed in Europe until March. This shouldn't be a big deal because consoles always come out later in Europe. However Sony made a big deal out of it by claiming that they were recognizing the importance of the European market by having a simultaneous launch. So how does this decision reflect Sony's opinions about the European market? Guess they don't care so much about it after all huh... The other bad news is kind of Wii rumor related but it is kind of a solid rumor. On the Nintendo site there are two pages that list different system specs for the Wii (1 and 2). Those pages seem to have conflicting information about the inclusion of DVD support. Since Nintendo doesn't seem to be focused on that type of market I can only assume that this rumor is true. The Wii may not have DVD support. later, -junc