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The Renegade Musician Digital Magazine: Was it Worth it?
My March experiment
I’ve been going about things a little differently in 2021 compared to the years leading up to it. As I look back on the first three months of the year, I can see that learning and experimentation has been a strong focus so far.
One idea that got a spontaneous “green light” from me was The Renegade Musician digital magazine, which I developed at the end of February and launched on March 1.
Here’s the story of how the magazine came together and what happened as result.
Backstory
At the end of February, I started developing the concept for The Renegade Musician.
Originally, I did not think of it as a digital magazine but rather a newsletter.
I don’t know if you know much about author Dan Kennedy’s newsletters, but they can easily span over 20 pages.
The way Kennedy explains it is that a newsletter is like a Trojan Horse. It’s a sales letter disguised as content, and when the reader feels like they’re reading useful content, they’re more likely to engage (i.e., they don’t feel like they’re being sold to).
Further, he has shown time and again that someone who reads his newsletters, and for that matter, his books, becomes a much better client.
So, experimentally, I was looking at the possibility of creating a series of newsletters.
Having completed my first draft, I sought out the feedback of Dr. Jonathan L. Smith.
Dr. Smith felt that what I had was too long to be a newsletter, and thus, The Renegade Musician became a digital magazine.
At first, it wasn’t even called The Renegade Musician though. It was called “The Executive Newsletter,” and I think that would have been a mistake.
Free or Paid?
There was just one more detail to sort out.
I needed to figure out whether I was going to give away the magazine (in exchange for an email or social…
