Above all, gather no moss

On August 20th, I received an email from one of my sales reps asking me "Is it crazy there, or what?" I had no idea what she was talking about, so I emailed her back and she told me that Fluxblog had posted a Poto & Cabengo MP3 and linked to our site, and was wondering if we were getting lots of sales as a result.

Then, on August 24th, I return from lunch to see that I've received the following email:

Hi - My name is [name omitted], and I'm a journalist in NYC. I'm writing about MP3 blogs for Rolling Stone magazine, and was hoping to speak with someone at EAR/Rational.

I spoke to [name omitted], who told me that Fluxblog had written about a Poto & Cabengo record, posted the mp3, and linked to your site for those who wanted to buy. I was hoping someone at EAR/Rational might clue me in as to how this affected sales, if at all, and if you have seen other links from the blog realm affect sales in the past.

I'm at [phone number omitted], or, if you're up for a chat, just drop me an email with your number.

I'm working on a very tight deadline, and hope to hear from you.

In 12 years of running EAR/Rational Music, I can't say I ever thought about Rolling Stone magazine, and I surely never imagined I'd be interviewed by them. I used to read Spin long ago, and these days I might glance at The Wire, Grooves, e|i, or The Sound Projector, but Rolling Stone is as "off my radar" as Esquire.

Anyway, I call the guy back and we talked for maybe 10 minutes. I assumed he was writing from the angle that MP3 blogs are bad, because they allow lots of people to download songs for free, but it wasn't clear. As a label owner, I told him I'd love the exposure of having my releases in MP3 blogs, and he then asked me about my label and Smoke & Mirrors, and he seemed genuinely interested.

While I'm sure many people would kill to have their business mentioned in Rolling Stone, the thought of EAR/Rational being mentioned on their pages wasn't all that exciting. Let's face it, EAR/Rational does not cater to the average Rolling Stone reader, safe to say. If they did come to our site, they'd be unlikely to find anything they were looking for.

BUT, the thought of my label being mentioned in Rolling Stone really had my head spinning. Smoke & Mirrors would certainly appeal to many of their readers and this might be a way to get some real publicity with no effort. However, I had resigned myself to the fact that if I were mentioned at all, it would be something like:

One Internet retailer told us that links from MP3 blogs didn't really seem to affect his business.

The article came out several weeks later, and we weren't in there at all, not even anonymously. Oh well...