A Few New Ideas and The Music Business

 

This idea has been present throughout the year, and finally I can share more about my upcoming publications. I have been thinking a lot about how to complete the trilogy. One option would be to write an entirely new The Essence of the Music Business book. The other is to integrate the updated material into the existing three books. Since the first part, Contracts, was already updated in March 2019, the other two parts, Philosophy and Strategy, remain as potential options.

I read both books twice, reflecting on how they could be improved. I paid particular attention to the structure and order of presentation. Could new information be added without compromising the existing content? Would the current structure allow room for new ideas, and is there enough space so the books don’t become overly long? I realized that the update could take place in two steps, allowing me to complete the material gradually if needed. By updating Philosophy first with the additions I could make there, I could later refine them in Strategy. This realization brought a sense of freedom. It avoids the risk that an entirely new book would simply repeat the previous three with only a few new ideas. That risk always exists, as the trilogy already spans over five hundred pages.

This approach also allows for careful pruning. Unnecessary “songs” or examples can be removed—these always remain in the first editions. With time, the text can be evaluated more objectively and from a better distance.

Recently, I have focused more intensively on streaming management than before, gaining experience on how to handle it effectively in the 2020s. This is actually an operation I started a few years ago on a national level, and now it has been transferred to international contexts—with the same team as before. The experiences and insights I’ve gained are reflected in the new editions of The Essence of the Music Business.

UPDATE: In the end, I still decided to write another book—outside of the trilogy as described above. Many factors led to this decision. You can find this book here.

And as always, artist management continues even while writing. Here’s a recent moment with Annika Nord on our terrace—a reminder that no matter how much time is spent writing, the work with artists never stops.