Quarterly Review
SummaryCounty Line came out on 9 October and did roughly what a single from an artist your size does, which isn't the story of this quarter. The story is that you started asking the room for the mailing list in September and the list went from 640 to 905 in ninety days, having taken three years to reach 640. Everything in the next section is downstream of that one change.
- Covering
- Sample quarter (Q4)
- Review call
- Thu 19 November, 45 minutes
- Issued
- Wed 25 November
- Quarter
- 1 of the plan
A frozen snapshot of a sample quarter on the demonstration calendar, which doesn't move with the real one.
Scorecard
The seven decisions you made in the session, marked as they actually went. Dropped is a real outcome when it's named, and one of these was dropped for a good reason.
| Decision | Call | Outcome | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Release | Release County Line on 9 October | Out on the date. The residency the night before drew forty-five and you played it twice. | Done |
| Singles | Singles through 2027, no third EP | Second single written, not yet scheduled. That scheduling is priority 1 below. | Holding |
| Room first | Room first through winter, tour opening 18 February | Three residency nights played, about forty-five a night. Routing locked in late November, and the announcement is set for 4 December. | Holding |
| Merch | One merch item now, before the release | 25 tees at $210 cost, sold 19 by 17 November at $25. That's $475 in and $265 net, against $348 in ad flights. | Done |
| Self-manage | Self-manage through 2027 | No change and no reason to revisit before the tour is booked. | Holding |
| Register | Register the six unregistered songs and join the MLC | BMI done in week two. The MLC claim is submitted for all eleven and three are still pending on their side, which is their timeline rather than yours. | Moved |
| Co-writes | Get the two co-writes signed | Junie Vasquez has been on the road since September. You decided not to chase it into the release, which was the right call. It moves to next quarter as priority 4. | Dropped |
Numbers
From your own trackers, over the ninety days. No projections, and no benchmark we invented.
| Measure | 19 Aug | 17 Nov | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mailing list | 640 | 905 | The quarter's whole result. 265 in ninety days against roughly 10 a night before you started asking. |
| Monthly listeners | 8,400 | 11,200 | Release bump, partly held. Expect this to settle nearer 9,500 by January. |
| Total streams | 310,000 | 372,000 | County Line is 34,000 of the 62,000. The rest is the back catalog getting found. |
| 1,900 | 2,240 | Followed the release and then flattened, which is normal and is why the list matters more. | |
| Shows played | 62 | 68 | Three residency nights, one house show, one opener slot at Cottonseed Hall and the yard sale pop-up. |
| Door and merch, the quarter | n/a | $1,955 | $1,480 door across six nights, $475 merch. The best night was the release show at $560. |
| Spent | n/a | $958 | $400 recording, $210 tees, $348 ads. All of it covered by the quarter's takings. |
Two hundred and sixty-five people gave you an email address in ninety days because you said one sentence from a stage four times. Nothing else you did this quarter, including the release and the ads, produced a result at that ratio of effort to outcome. The obvious conclusion is to keep saying it. The less obvious one is that the same principle applies everywhere you currently assume people will work out what to do on their own.
Tool changes
The maintenance the plan pays for, itemized, in the files you own.
- Dashboard
- County Line moved from upcoming to released, with the actuals in. Next release slot is empty and waiting on priority 1. Countdown re-pointed at the January single once it has a date.
- Royalty tracker
- All eleven songs marked registered at BMI. Three MLC rows left as pending rather than done, so you can see which ones to chase in December.
- Ledger
- Six show nights entered, door and merch split out. Tee cost and ad spend booked against the release rather than against the month, so the release has a true cost.
- Flight log
- Both ad flights closed out with actuals. Flight A came in at $0.31 per pre-save, inside the band. Flight B at $0.94 per save, which is under the dollar threshold and is the number to beat next time.
- Show tracker
- Cottonseed Hall moved to played, with the draw recorded at 70. Two new rooms added from the Booking system, both pitched in October and both still open.
- Goals tracker
- The seven August decisions closed out. Next quarter's five below are in, each with its review date.
- Split sheet
- Left as it is. Nothing to update until Junie signs.
Next ninety days
Agreed on the call, in this order. Five, and the fifth is deliberately small.
Put a date on the second single. The cadence you chose in August only exists if there's a date. Ten weeks from County Line is mid-December, which is the worst week of the year to release into, so the real options are late January or early February.
First step: pick the date by 5 December, then work the calendar backwards from it the way we did for County Line.Keep asking, and start writing to them. 905 people have given you an address and have had two emails all year. The asking is working; the follow-through isn't there yet. One letter a month, and the residency reminder isn't a letter.
First step: write the December letter before the 10 December residency, so the room you're about to stand in front of hears from you first.Announce the tour on 4 December, then work the tracker. The Long Road Home Tour opens 18 February and the routing locked in late November, so the announcement date is set. What remains is confirming details room by room, and the Booking system's tracker is where that work lives.
First step: send the announcement on 4 December, then block four Mondays across December and January to confirm the eleven dates.Get the two co-writes signed. Carried from last quarter, and it's the only thing on your list that's a genuine liability rather than an opportunity. Two songs on your own catalog can't currently be licensed by you alone.
First step: Junie is back in Austin from 8 December. The split sheet is filled in and needs two signatures and twenty minutes.Chase the three pending MLC claims. Small, and it closes the registration work you started in August.
First step: one email in the first week of December, then again in January if it's quiet.
Beyond this plan
Two things came up that this quarterly doesn't cover. Named once, with what they would cost, and then left alone.
- The visual side is the weakest part of your setup.You have a Brand Bible and no made assets, so every poster, tee and cover is decided again from scratch. The visual build is $400 and it's the one place where a fixed cost removes a recurring decision. Not urgent, and worth it before the tour posters.
- An eleven-date tour is more admin than this plan assumes.Routing, holds, guarantees, and a merch count per night is a different weight of work from this quarter's six nights. The Booking Outreach system covers the pitching and not the running. Worth talking about in January, after the announcement and before the tour opens on 18 February.
Quarter reviewed on the call of 19 November and written from the trackers you own. Every number here comes from those files and can be traced back to a row in them. Nothing in this document projects growth, income, or a result, and the five priorities above are the ones you named on the call. The plan can be cancelled at any time and this review is yours to keep either way.