I really enjoyed this blog post last year because it offers me a good reminder of what I accomplished and how I can improve for the coming  year.

Failures and Successes of 2016

• Success: Finished Name On My Soul cd. Unreleased til feb 2017
• Success: Good year at Dragoncon.
• Success: Comedy showcase at Gencon was fun with good lineup
• Success: Cat and Firefly shows at Gencon were well attended. Earned a good $500 more this year because of it.
• Failure: Sci Fi show at Gencon was good but attendance was low. Changing to paid show to see if that improves attendance.
• Success: Found good balance with taking care of Inara and work.
• Success: Fun CIV of Cornwall
• Success: Made THREE music videos.
• Success: Saw significant growth of ICMP Facebook page. Far beyond planned.
• Success: Saw 9% growth in downloads of ICMP
• Success: Found a good new format for pub songs podcast
• Success: Saw growth of Celtfather downloads
• Failure: Unhappy with Celtfather format. Needs redesign. Needs to be about my music and creative process.
• Success. Found a way to hire virtual assistant for ICMP.
• Success: ICMP Patreon earning $450 per episode! Less than my goal but super successful and I have format to push for increasing membership.
• Success: ICMP mailing list might've reached goal but with drops and deletes it did not. But I learned new ways to add subscribers.
• Success: Celtic Music Magazine is better than ever. Great format.
• Success: Started adding weekly video ads which earned me new subscribers.
• Success: Released pirates vs dragons and had fun making videos and telling stories to promote the album. Resulting in chart topping on cdbaby.
• Success: MG Facebook page grew past goal. Growth for the first time in awhile.
• Success: Lots of successful Facebook Live events.
• Success: Gained lots of new fans by re-releasing Celtic Christmas Podcast.
• Success: Realized I need to stop Celtic Christmas Podcast bc it's adding extra work during a busy time of year
• Failure: Did not re-release many past Celtic podcast episodes.
• Success: Setup several mobile ready websites to work in conjunction with advertising to grow mailing losts
• Failure: Released Celtic Geek instead of Irish Smiles to mailing list. Still unsure about the title. Not seeing significant interest in the free album.
• Success: Changed free downloads to 5 free MP3s to start
• Success: Had a few weeks where I was losing weight down to 192!
• Success: learned running tip to make it easy and fun
• Failure: Need to figure out how exercise even in cold months
• Failure: Haven't started advertising cat website even tho it has email series. Need to write 15 sec video ad for cat series
• Failure: St Pats Internet Fest still did not meet expectations though it was easier to manage. Will discontinue in 2017
• Success: MacCracken's did not grow significantly this year but there were more regulars showing up. Im hopeful with lots o promotion this year, we might break out
• Failure: Did not reach out to do more podcast interviews.
• Success: Realized I need to focus branding in geek music.
• Success: Saw a boost on Patreon to 93 members and $487 per month
• Success: Came up with good idea to boost patrons at shows offering $10 discount at shows to boost patrons
• Success: Idea to increase members, release next cd via Patreon. Promote it like I do for kickstarter.
• Success: Developed and almost solidified online music marketing strategy.
• Success: Found other bands that fans like besides me. Good for advertising.
• Failure: Still haven't developed good format for MG newsletter.
• Failure: Still haven't released music marketing book
• Success: Released pirates eBook. Not sure how successful it is to promote my music yet.
• Success: developed work schedule
• Failure: have not worked practice and songwriting into work schedule.
• Failure: developed social media plan, but have not implemented it
• Success: developed editorial calendar.
• Failure. The hussel. I'm Too Complacent at most shows. I need to work harder to get new fans to my shows.