Derek Sivers
from the book “Your Music and People”:

Art doesn’t end at the edge of the canvas.

2018-01-22

Imagine you see a caged feather on a museum wall. The sign underneath says the artist is a political activist in jail.

Imagine that same caged feather again. But instead the sign says the artist is a high school kid in Florida.

Or imagine that the only way to see it is to crawl deep into a shrinking tunnel that opens into a room of mirrors, where the caged feather is suspended by a thread.

Same feather. Very different perceptions.

The way you present your art, and what people know about it, completely changes how they perceive it.

Therefore, your art doesn’t end at the edge of the canvas. Your creative decisions continue all the way to the end.

Now think of the way you create and release music:

Every step so far has been a creative expansion of your original idea.

So now it’s time to put it out into the world. Do you turn off all that creativity? Just upload the song to the usual places, and announce it like everyone else?

No! Your creative process hasn’t stopped! Flaunt your artistic freedoms, and have some fun with it!

These are all the continuation of your creation.

Marketing is the final extension of your art.