I'm a musician and host of The Unstarving Musician podcast. Liner Notes is my biweekly newsletter that shares some of the best insights garnered from the many conversations featured on the Unstarving Musician. Topics covered include, songwriting, touring, sync licensing, recording, house concerts, marketing, and more.
Liner Notes | Stop Renting Your Audience
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There’s a question music educator and DJ Amani Roberts asks his students on the first day of class. He asks them to choose: which is more valuable — a large social media following, or a large email list? Every time, they walk to the side of the room labeled social media. Every time, he has to explain why they’re wrong. It’s not a knock on social media. It’s a math problem. Say you have 20,000 Instagram followers. On average (in 2026), only about 3% of them will see any given post organically. That’s 600 people. Now say you have an email list of 10,000 with a 50% open rate — which is achievable if you’re consistent and delivering value. That’s 5,000 people who actually see what you sent. The follower count that looks more impressive is actually reaching fewer people. But reach isn’t even the main point. The deeper issue is ownership. When you build your audience on someone else’s platform, you’re renting. The platform sets the rules, controls the algorithm, and can change or disappear tomorrow. Many of us watched MySpace become a cautionary tale. TikTok spent most of 2024 under threat of a U.S. ban. The platforms you depend on today are not guaranteed to exist in the form you need them to. An email list is yours. Nobody can take it, throttle it, or charge you to reach people who already said they want to hear from you. As I’ve said before on the podcast — social media is important, but if it’s the only way you’re communicating with your fans, you are truly renting your audience. JR Richards, the former lead singer of Dishwalla, learned this the hard way. In the mid-90s, Dishwalla collected tens of thousands of fan email addresses — real fans who showed up to shows, who connected with the band in a meaningful way. Then the band lost focus on the list. By the time JR went solo and started thinking seriously about direct fan relationships, those names were gone. “I wish I still had it,” he told me. “All those names are gone, of people that were true fans. That’s a drag.” He’s spent the last decade rebuilding what was lost, this time treating email as the foundation of his independent music business rather than an afterthought. The good news for you: you don’t have to learn that lesson the way JR did. Your email subscribers are also the people most likely to buy your music and merch, attend your shows, and host a house concert. They signed up because they want to support what you’re doing. That’s a different relationship than a casual follower who scrolled past your reel. The argument for email isn’t about nostalgia for an older way of doing things. It’s about control, consistency, and direct access to the people who actually care about your work. In an era where platform algorithms decide who sees what, an email list is the one channel where you’re not at anyone else’s mercy. Starting from zero? Amani’s advice is straightforward: go from 50 to 100, then 100 to 200, doubling as you go. The list doesn’t need to be large to be valuable. It needs to be yours. Liner Notes Insider subscribers get the implementation side of this edition, including:
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Peace, love and more cowbell, If you were forwarded this message, you can get the free email here. P.S. Where are you with your email list right now? Starting from zero, already building, or somewhere in between? Hit reply and tell me — I read every response, and it genuinely helps me shape what I cover here. This episode is brought to you by Podcast Startup. Whether you're launching your first episode or adding video to your show, Podcast Startup eliminates the guesswork with the systems and strategies I've developed from producing 250+ podcast episodes—without the trial-and-error that cost me months. Learn more at UnstarvingMusician.com/PodcastStartup. Related Podcast Episodes 🎧Missing Royalties: Revenue Recovery Strategies with Amani Roberts (Ep 339) Lynz Crichton's Music Marketing Method (Ep 215) 297 Leveraging Your Email List (Ep 297) Support the Unstarving MusicianIf you LOVE this newsletter, please visit UnstarvingMusician.com/CrowdSponsor to learn about the many ways of showing your love and support. We have a new tip jar there, so you know... Click, tip, done. Your support = Love 💟 Heads up: Liner Notes is moving to Substack on May 1st. Your subscription carries over automatically, but if you'd like to get set up early, you can subscribe now at robonzo.substack.com. Share this email and/or read it on the web Stay in touch! |
Liner Notes
I'm a musician and host of The Unstarving Musician podcast. Liner Notes is my biweekly newsletter that shares some of the best insights garnered from the many conversations featured on the Unstarving Musician. Topics covered include, songwriting, touring, sync licensing, recording, house concerts, marketing, and more.
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