Derek Sivers on promoting music online, 2009

A lot of musicians these days think that networking online is going to break their music, yet real-world gigs and interactions with people haven’t become obsolete. In some ways maybe they’ve become more important.

SIVERS I’d say more important. The more valuable thing is always going to be the more scarce thing. So when everybody’s lives are led online, then having a great live performance is going to help you stand out from the pack so much more than being one of the one million musicians with a great Web presence a click away.

I think about that stuff a lot: What is the road less traveled? What is the thing that most people are doing, and therefore what is the thing that few people are doing? Whatever few people are doing is where the greater value lies. If a whole new generation of musicians is spending much more time clicking around MySpace to add new friends than they are practicing their scales and arpeggios, then if you are one of the few who puts in an hour or two a night to practice your scales and arpeggios and chord voicings or whatever, it’s going to make you that much more of a standout.

From "CD or No CD," an interview with CD Baby founder Derek Sivers published in Acoustic Guitar, January 2010. Read the full article here. More about Sivers and his current projects here.