I give up... or not?

I thought for quite a long time, if I should write this posting and if, in which form. I allready see the feedback: There will be the ones who are honestly sorry about it all happening, but also folks who with intention get me wrong. I hope, that the experience I gained so far in the communication process with you out there over the years, helps me to avoid the worst misunderstandings. Well, on the other hand, I could handle it like a friend suggested it yesterday "Never mind! You are giving up! What do you care what people think about you now?". Well, I am not that way.

I also am unsure about, if I should describe it all to you in detail, or just keep it crisp and short. I pretty much know, that each and every bit or negative information about me, my life etc. I give to you makes you flee in masses. The media consumer of today wants no bad news. You want the happy, funny Sonny and not his reallife problems. Most probably each of you out there has their own and doesn't want to be bothered with those of others. That's why I will try something in the middle and hope it works.

What happened? Inspired by an exceptionally positive mail regarding my AlionLive Madeira Series (hello Isa!), I realized, that I possibly waste my time. What I somehow ignored so far and didn't really realize is, that the ammount of work and effort I put into my works is absolutely disproportionate to the reception I get for my works. And NO, I want to set this crystal clear: This is no possible stupid form of some kind like a "revenge", like "You do not subscribe to my channel, and buy not enough albums, so I quit!". I pretty much know, that the rather bad minded folks out of you will presume it all in that way. And this while it is quite easy to understand my real motives.

Each human has a limited ammount of time and uses it preferably for a usefull purpose. Sure: One can do many things in form of a so called hobby, just for fun and to make others happy, and that's great... as long as the ammount of time put into a particular activity is not too overwhelming. Because then it turns into a job and a job should be preferably paied. Here we have to use different aspects of "does it pay". And that is not neccessarly connected to money. I still remember the first gig of my first Punk band very well. The audience was 3 people who had free tickets. If it went on like this, I think the band would not have existed as long as it did. Nobody wants to play gigs at empty houses.

Regarding to my activities, currently every thing is quite questionable, when it comes to the topic of "Does this make any sense? Does it pay AT ALL?". I sell a laughable ammount of albums, my Youtube channel is most probably the least viewed and subscribed channel in the known universe and the ad-revenue is because of that rather not mentionable. This would be completely ok... if there wasn't that gigantic ammount of time I put into my works. People like Isa, who told me in precious words about how she experienced and liked AlionLive Madeira know how much work is put into making the music and the videos. Well and that's by far not all. But many people still think that my work is something one could click together in just a few minutes.

What is happening now? I plan to for at least a month put a halt on all projects. This regards AlionLive, alionsonny, Willma Poppen and Cimelium. I am very sorry for those who allready wait for the next AlionLive videos and also the albums announced allready. I again emphasize: This is not some kind of "This is what you get from all that". Such kind of thinking is no part of my agenda at all and you, as loyal fans, should know that allready ;). In that month, I will put it all to the test and view all aspects of my work rather regarding to sustainability, reasonability, possible ways to go further and of cause also the financial part of it all. I will look if there is anything I can possibly do to increase the proportionality between the work, time,money i invest and what I get back. And at latest at the end of the month I will decide if the projects are continued or completely abandonned.

I want to be honest as allways: If I do not discover any blatant error in my promotion strategies, it looks rather dark for a continuation of my projects. But I would not do that "month of truth", if I had no hope. In all events, something has to change drastically. I MUST become more professional. The last time I said this, it resulted in the loss of a majority of my audience. It was back then in 2010, when I decided to no longer give away my music for free. Let's hope we can handle this more in an adult-ish way this time ;)

As allways I am interested in your opinion and welcome each form of constructive discussion (preferably via mail). The Blog comments stay moderated, because I expect some folks to run wild here ;)

Regarding my birthday on July 19th

Yepp, folks, again a year has passed and on July 19th I reach the age of 44 magical years. Why do I mention this on that Blog, which is usually only for things regarding my creative activities? Well, that's not very easy to describe. I have a little problem, which is caused by the great fact, that there are many kind and loving people out there, who want to send me a gift for birthday. Yes, even such beautiful facts can morph into some kind of a problem. Of cause I am very happy if I get to know somehow, that there are kind people who think about how they can make me happy on my birthday. No question!

So what's the problem? A few days ago, I told some folks (who like to talk to others ;)), that I urgently need a new tent and sleepingbag for my tours. My existing tent and sleepingbag are in a very ugly condition because they are of biblical age. The tent poles are damaged and the tent itself has no impregnation anymore. At the sleepingbag the filling is comming out. Well, very quickly there were not just a few kind folks, who thought, that this would be a great birthday present for me. Maybe it was my experience which lead to the fact, that the next nights I had nightmares about my flat being filled with mountains of tents and sleepingbags, so i was drowning in them. The problem is, that neither me or others know what you decided is your birthday present for me. And so it can happen, that suddenly I sit there with 20 tents and 50 sleepingbags... which is not really optimal...

Because of this, I set one thing clear now and here: The person who gives me a new tent and sleepingbag for birthday has stated to do so and therefore there's no use for anybody else to do the same. Therefore I beg all those who eventually had the same idea, and HOPEFULLY didn't buy anything yet, to think about another gift. Again: Several dozens of tents and sleepingbags are not on my wishlist. So pleeeeaaaaseee.... I am very sorry if you , after you thought everything was clear, now have to think about a different present, but I need just one sleepingbag and one tent.

Ok, you got the information that I need a tent and sleepingbag from me myself & I. So why shouldn't I tell you, who now lost his birthday gift idea, what would be an alternative and what else I wish for my birthday? I'm a practically thinking guy ;) So, what do I need? Because I do not want to stretch your financial abilities, I do not mention the bigger wishes... WHAT? You are rich and want to know about them? Well, I could use a quite powerfull laptop for my planned livegigs (live dubbing etc.) and also maybe a nice solid state disk... Well, YOU wanted to know it *LOL* Nope, let's keep it realistic: I allways have a lack of battery power for my Panasonic HDC SD40 camcorder. I would really love to go on a biketour for AlionLive or so for several days without the need of a wall socket. Well that would be a nice idea for a birthday present and I can't get enough battery capacity for my camcorder ever. And that stuff is not very expensive.

Anything else? Not really something I can imagine right now. If you want to send me something for birthday now and you don't know what, you can still do me a favor in gifting me some cash. See: A laptop with the power I need is about 400 Euro. If just a few of you out there send me some cash via Paypal (or otherwise -> let's talk), then even such a relatively big gift as the laptop and/or the SSD are not impossible. My Paypal address is alionsonny@alionsonny.com and if you don't like Paypal, just contact me using the same mailaddress so we find a different way.

However and whatever you send me for birthday, I will be happy about it... unless it's a few dozens of tents and sleepingbags ;)

New things on alionsonny.com!

Yaeh, some stuff has changed and there's a lot more about to happen. Because of a little flu-attack I was not able to accomplish as much as I wanted during the past 1 1/2 weeks, but I want my dear readers and listeners to know about what was still done.

In the main menu you now find an item titled "Sponsoring", which takes you to a page where you can find out about how you can support the alionsonny musicproject. Currently the only option offered is the sponsoring of single songs, but there's more about to come and because of that, this page is currently under permanent development. So it pays to check back from time to time.

Now that is interesting for all of you, who have a business, a product, a website, a blog etc. to advertise for. You just have to donate a VERY SMALL amount of money via the donation page, to be exact ONE EURO and your advertisement will be placed for a whole month on the page which opens for the sponsored song to play and download it. I don't think you find a cheaper way to advertise anywhere. I confess that this is a special offer to get things running. Once it all works, the price will most probably go up, so take your chance while it is still that cheap!

In the course of making songsponsoring possible, I had to make the process of listening to or downloading songs a bit more complicated. But due to the fact, that the idea regarding voluntary donations from listeners didn't work, I had to do this. Download- and streamingbuttons for the songs have completely vanished from the song list page. Instead of using them, you have to now click on the titel of the particular song, which takes you to a page where (if there's a sponsor) the sponsors advertising and a donation reminder is shown, a Flashplayer and also Stream-/Downloadlinks.

Well. that's it so far. Because of the fact that I will work a lot at alionsonny.com in the future, be prepared for some tough changes, surprises and of cause bugs and faillures. Bug reports are allways appreciated, because I cannot find all glitches myself. So if you report them to me, you help me to make alionsonny.com better.

Planned new features on alionsonny.com and other news...

Some time ago I informed my beloved listeners and readers about the fact, that I will increasingly put a focus on how to get some cash out of my works such as making music. To put it exactly: In the long run I want to make a living out of my works solely.

As part of this strategy, I am now about to change some parts of alionsonny.com. Some of the changes will please everybody and some of the changes will piss people off. But you cannot imagine how little I care about that ;) As a first step, statistics will be collected about the number of plays and downloads of songs. The reason is, that, using the currently used technique, I have not the slightest clue about how many times the songs get streamed or downloaded. Notice: No personal user data will be collected, so your privacy remain untouched. The implementation of the statistics collecting also allows me to implement annoying little windows which pop up when a download is started, which remember the forgetful amongst you of the fact, that donations are more than welcome. Furthermore, this creates the basis for another income concept, the Song-sponsorship, which I will describe in a separate blog for interested individuals and business people.

One interesting and certainly most welcomed change is that it will be possible to buy my music in the future in high sound quality. For this, I will work on a separate shop, where my albums can be downloaded as CD images. There will be alionsonny merchandise available, such as the the often asked for T-Shirts, but also stuff like mugs etc. For this I will most probably use external service providers such as Spreadshirt and Cafepress.

So far for now. If you have any comments or questions about those new features: Feedback is allways highly appreciated!