Justin Sarachik is Helping Artists Survive
We talk with Justin Sarachik about his new book, crazy band experiences, and more!
Even if you don’t know the name Justin Sarachik, if you’re reading this there’s a very strong chance that you’ve interacted with his work at some point in your life. He’s probably best known as the Editor-in-Chief at Rapzilla.com, but he’s also written and/or edited for Relevant, Christian Post, BREATHEcast, CCM Magazine, Broken Records Magazine, and more. Throughout the course of his career, Sarachik has written more than 10,000 articles (including over 7,000 for Rapzilla alone)! In late 2023, he released his first book, Survival of the Artist: Tips & Strategies to Help Indies Succeed. We recently had a chance to talk about his book, the craziest music stories he has, and more!
This article originally appeared in Midnight Donuts #3. Want to read the most recent edition of Midnight Donuts (which includes part 2 of this interview)? You can do so here!
Midnight Donuts: What made you want to write Survival of the Artist in the first place?
Justin Sarachik: Man, I wasn't trying to write a book. I just spent years and years dropping Artist Tips on Twitter, even going back to probably before I was with Rapzilla. So, 2014 or 2015, I was just dropping things that I thought were interesting or that I learned working in journalism. I was like, “Hey, this is a bad idea to do this.” And then I realized (once I got with Rapzilla) that my most popular tweets were these Artist Tips. So I was like, “What if I took these tips and put them in a book and expanded on every tweet?”
So, that's essentially what I did. I contacted Twitter through the settings and you press “download entire history” or whatever. They sent me an Excel sheet of every single tweet I had ever sent out for like 10 years. I combed through every one looking for Artist Tips that I had dropped. And then I took every one of those and expanded on those by a paragraph or two.
Over the years, people have been saying, “You should write a book!” or “You should make videos about Artist Tips!” And people seem to have learned from it. So, I was like, “Why not just write a book?” I'm always writing. I'm doing articles and doing all this stuff. I never necessarily had an idea to just write a book because, since I write so many articles I can only think in those smaller sections—like 500-2000 words. … I don't think I have the brain power to go past that.
Writing the book was challenging in the fact that it took me three or four years, but it wasn't that I was just working on it every day. I would write a couple pages in, let’s just say January, and then I wouldn't touch it again until July. I would write a couple more pages, and then I wouldn't touch it for like a year. The Future Legacy event that happened in Nashville [see Midnight Donuts #2 for more info!], I was finally like, “Yo, I have a reason to [be able to say] ‘I have a book!’”
Unfortunately, I didn't get the copies in time, but it was able to come out. So those last two or three months before Future Legacy, I probably finished like 70% of the book and published it and got the artwork and everything. It was the boost I needed.
Midnight Donuts: So the majority of the writing was just over a few months?
Justin Sarachik: Well, yeah. And it's hard to say, too, because the tweets were over a period of like eight years.
The hardest part was arranging the order of them. I have all these tweets just down on this massive list, and I was like, “How am I going to designate these into chapter[s]?” … I must have moved and mixed and matched and set things in different orders 100 times. That was the most time-consuming, and then self-editing.
Midnight Donuts: I feel like you landed on a good organization! You’ve spent a lot of time in both the musician and the media side of the music industry, and I was wanting to see if I could catch some shareable, publishable, crazy stories that you have.
Justin Sarachik: Let me see… So, a lot of places think they're venues, and a lot of people who book shows think they're bookers. And neither of those things are necessarily true. … I've had so many instances where I showed up to play… there are no speakers. You show up, there's no microphones.
We [Process of Fusion] played an anniversary show at this place, it was their 30th anniversary, very prestigious. (Well, prestigious for the music scene in Staten Island.) … They wanted my band to perform and we showed up but they have no microphones. We asked them about that… “Oh, we didn't even know there was a show today.” They booked us and they invited us to come play the show! So, one of our friends went to his band practice space and he showed up with two microphones and one of them was a headset microphone, like if we were Britney Spears or somebody, and the bass player had to put on this pop singer headset.
I've played two different “battle of the bands” [events] where they had one microphone and we had two vocalists. I was one of them—we had parts where we would both be singing or doing something at the same time, so it was literally me putting my arm around him while he was playing the bass. We won both of those battles of the bands. [Laughs]
We got booked at this awesome-looking record shop: cool stage, nice crowd there. It's an album release show for one of the local bands there. We get there—the band whose album release party it is, they go on first. So, what happened? They finished their set [and] everybody left, including the band! They didn't even introduce themselves, nothing. They did not care. So then our friends from Philly went on second, and by the time we got on (which was probably like 10:30 at night), there were two people left in the crowd who weren't from the band.
So, it was super discouraging. But, we saw how into it and excited those two people were … they were so excited and going crazy that we brought the energy as if everybody was still there! It’s like I always say: cater to the people who are there for you, not the people who aren't there for you. They bought our stuff, they followed us on social media, it wound up being a good experience.
Then the booker comes up to us (and mind you, there were five people in my band, four people in the other band; they had driven three and a half hours, and we had driven two hours) and he goes, “Hey guys, sorry about the turnout. Here's 50 bucks.” So, then we had to split 50 bucks between nine people. [Laughs] Then the owner of the record shop came up to us, and she was like, “You guys were all amazing. You were so respectful and nice. What did the Booker give you?” And we said, “oh, 50 bucks.” And she was so embarrassed… she went into the register, and she handed us another 50.
It’s like I always say: cater to the people who are there for you, not the people who aren't there for you.
Another time, the drum set didn't have legs. It was a house drum set, which is always a big risk for drummers. We didn't have a mat, so as we're playing on stage the drum is just rolling around. So that same friend who went and got the microphones, he was a big guy—taller than me and heavier than me—he just went and sat on the bass drum for the entire set so it didn't roll around.
I've done a lot of crazy shows. Played a festival next to a bathroom at a tattoo convention with the advertiser behind us selling custom toilet seats. There's this really famous venue called Roseland Ballroom in New York City, and they were doing a biker tattoo convention. Everybody who is in this place looked like a convict who just came out of jail.
Midnight Donuts: Wow! I'm really curious about the venue that didn't have any microphones and their reason was that they didn't realize they had a show that day… Why does that explain why there are not any microphones at the venue!?
Justin Sarachik: [Laughs] The thing, too, was the PA system was so far away from the stage and we had corded microphones. So the mic cable was in the air because it didn't reach—like it couldn't drag on the ground. If you weren't paying attention, you were just going to clothesline yourself.
I mean, you can't make this stuff up. But … when you're an indie band, you're kind of dealing with, you know, what's been given to you. … You make it work.
Midnight Donuts: Do you have any crazy shareable stories from the media side of things?
Justin Sarachik: I may have shared this story before, but this is a good one where I had an artist befriend me and, you know, I always preach [that] if you want to get onto platforms or get noticed by different artists or media or whatever, … start engaging with people you want to speak to, build a relationship, build rapport, get your name out there so that when that person sees your music next time, it’s like, “Oh, this is the guy who's always commenting on my Twitter posts. Cool, I'll listen.” You know, get that familiarity.
So this guy, he just kept doing that with me and I did a press release for him. And, you know, there was a little relationship there. Then his album or his song dropped, and I did an article about it, but I didn't send it to him. He hits me up in a DM and he goes, “Wow, bro. I thought we were cool!” or whatever. I was like, “What are you talking about?” He goes, “I've been talking to you all this time. I even became your friend and everything just so I could get coverage, and you didn't even cover my new song!”
I was like, first of all, I did. You didn't bother to look? … Second of all, you're actually just telling me to my face that you befriended me and built a relationship with me so that I can post your songs!? … He was pretty much caught red-handed. … So that's a pretty crazy one.
Midnight Donuts: Artist Tip: Don't do that. [Laughs]
Justin Sarachik: Don't do that. Don't pretend to be somebody's friend.
Midnight Donuts: Life Tip: Don't use people for what they can give you. Artist Tip: If you do, don't tell them!
In the book, you said, “One of the trickiest endeavors of an artist who puts out their work is the continual and yet brief promotional lifespan of the work.” What do you mean by that?
Justin Sarachik: I mean that you have a very finite window of people's attention span. It's the same reason why we can't look at pictures [as opposed to videos] of people on Instagram. If you drop a song on Friday and you don't promote it until, let's say, next Friday, that's it. It's already a week old. There's a whole new batch of songs that drop from a bunch of different artists that will get my attention because that song's old already, unfortunately.
Things have such a small window of attention span that you need to stretch, you need to milk it basically for everything it's got. So instead of your song just dropping on a Friday and then that's it, how can you make that song relevant for the next month and a half until your next single drops? If you're not doing those things, no one's going to care about your next single because nobody followed you after your first one, because there was no promotion.
Midnight Donuts: It's been a minute since you released the book. How do you feel about the reception at this point?
Justin Sarachik: Man, so releasing a book is even worse than releasing music… I spent four years on this book and … every copy that I sell is like pulling teeth because you're asking someone to not invest free into it, you know, they have to buy it. … And then after they get it, they actually have to look at it.
I look at it this way: the book is a business card that proves that I am a professional at what I do. So, even if I sold six copies of my book, I could show up somewhere and they're like, “We're looking for a guest speaker to talk about media.” And [I] could say, “I'll do that!” “Oh, what are your credentials?” “I have this book.” Then they can read it and see that I know what I'm talking about.
So that's essentially my hope for the book, that it's a proof of concept that says, "Here's a collection of all my thoughts and things that I can tell you about.” Here's why you [should] book me for consultation for artist services, book me to come speak at Future Legacy, have me on your podcast, and send your artists to me. … That aspect has been fruitful because I've already seen those results.
Midnight Donuts: Where can people buy the book? And where can people connect with you?
Justin Sarachik: You can buy the book on Amazon. It is $8.99. One of the most helpful things to do, even if you decide not to buy the book, is you can fake it and give me five stars and write a review. I mean, if you've watched my Artist Tip videos or heard me talk about things and you're like, “He knows what he's talking about,” give me five stars. [Laughs] You already know that you're going to get that information in the book.
People can follow me on my Instagram, my Twitter—it’s Justin Sarachik everywhere, and I answer DMs relatively quickly.
This article originally appeared in Midnight Donuts #3. Want to read the most recent edition of Midnight Donuts (which includes part 2 of this interview)? You can do so here!
