A major post-Covid restructuring of JabunAudio and my music projects (Jabun and Better Than The Book)
Hi everyone and hope you're having a fine start to August. It's been a week of mixed emotions here and I have some important updates about JabunAudio and my various music projects which mean that some unfortunate big changes will be occurring in the coming weeks.
To cut a long story short, JabunAudio as an independent self-employed small business, like many similar endeavours I'm sure, has had its ups and downs over the years, and while my music and projects both solo and collaborative have exceeded my expectations and hopes in terms of world-wide reach, achievements, and output (with over 40 million views of collaborative animation work, music featured in video games, press articles and played on radio stations all across the globe, and well over 200 music tracks released since 2012), financially JabunAudio been struggling for quite some time for various reasons, and COVID has not been kind to this industry on top of that. With the last government support for the self-employed ending this month, and the extra work I've been doing to help drum up some more revenue for JabunAudio not yielding sufficient results, I'm having to make the tough decision to restructure JabunAudio and my various associated music projects in order to look for more stable alternative income streams.
While I have no intention of stopping JabunAudio or any of my projects entirely, this unfortunately does mean that I'll be moving JabunAudio and other related work to part-time only, effectively losing many hours I'd usually have for creating and working on both personal and client projects. I'd like to make it clear that JabunAudio is still open for business and accepting new projects/clients along with my long time and recurring clients/collaborators, and I will try my very best to continue to provide the high level of service and productions you've come to expect from me with the reduced time that I have. Please don't hesitate to send me a message to discuss your latest projects, though I ask for your patience during this difficult time.
In terms of my own current ongoing projects, the likelihood and reality is that upcoming projects such as Better Than The Book's 3rd album will see some delays for the foreseeable future as well. I'd have preferred to finish these current projects before making any changes, but that option isn't really available to me any longer, and while it may take a bit longer than expected until these projects are released now, I'll continue to strive for the highest possible standard of productions rather than rushing out half-baked ones. I'm sure you'd prefer that too.
In order to streamline the remaining time I have to work on JabunAudio and my own music work, I'll be making some changes to my workflow to prioritise audio production time and cut back on less creative admin/promotional work. The first change will be a cutback on social media, newsletters, and similar promotional posts unfortunately including the (mostly) weekly JabunAudio blog and re-posting of press features on most channels. The JabunAudio blog will now be a shorter monthly round-up in the first week of the month only, apart from any major updates such as album releases (which will also be promoted on the usual channels).
The second change will be a major restructuring of my Patreon page including the removal of the $5 patron tier and a change in the specific reward benefits. All monthly Patreon rewards will now be released on a single day in the first week of the month (probably still Wednesday) and much like the JabunAudio blog I'll aim to make only 1 round-up news post per month now (with special exception for certain things). I'll provide a full update on Patreon once these changes have been implemented later this month, and there are still a few more months of back catalogue music left to upload too, after which I'll make another restructure (at some point next year). I hope that by cutting down on these things, I'll be able to dedicate more of my JabunAudio and "free" time to the actual projects you support and get them to your ears faster.
I want to say a big thanks to everyone who's helped support me always and especially at this difficult time with special mention to Eva who's been beside me (literally) through all of this. I can see it being a tough few months ahead, but I'll be doing my best to continue watering this plant I potted almost a decade ago now, and once things are settled into a new routine, I'm sure things'll start going a whole lot smoother again. Thanks for your patience and thanks for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book, and my various solo and collaborative projects.
Nick
Jabun / Better Than The Book
RobC3
Good luck! I've enjoyed very much listening to the music you put on this page.
Jabun (Updated )
Thanks so much RobC3. There's a whole lot more music yet to release in the pipeline, it just might take a little longer than expected to see the world now. Hopefully not too long! All the best :)