Oh my dear, darling Indies, please take note:  Forget for a second the ocean of talent this girl has in her pick-hand alone, this simple little heartfelt email = her Best EPIC WIN yet, and is exactly why her ‘making it’ is in the bag. This small note is that oh-so-important personal connection with your audience, what binds us to you, what saves your “Buy on iTunes!” messages from the spam filter and is why we save your tour announcements instead of auto-deleting when they hit our inbox. And I promise you, that this is abso.frackin.lutely a practice that you must emulate if you want some sustaining success. Because even though we usually can’t articulate it at the time, getting this email is the reason we join your mailing list in the first place. Don’t just tweet, email and status update when you want something from us; while your still small and on the way up allow us to really know you, show us who you are, ask us for input, share each success.

I received this in my personal email today, and as I read it I became giddy for all of us ‘lovestrongs’:

I do have some authority on this fan/artist relationship issue; my 3 year gig as right arm to Music’s co-most powerful (hu)man aside, 1st + foremost i am a fan and am probably even on your mailing list. It’s kinda like old-school dating with the artist in the femme role, and my mom always told me one thing about dating, “Ses, let them INVEST in you.” Her point was that my suitors wanted to invest & i tended to stop them, but if I’d allow them to invest, they would fall 100%. Even though I hadn’t been asking, I listened to my moms advice on this subject and by the time I was 25 I’d had exactly 3 serious boyfriends and 3 marriage proposals. So bands, take my moms advice: if we join your list, we want to invest in you; get out of your own way and let us by letting us in so we can fall 100%. Have you ever seen what lengths a guy whose fallen 100% will go to for the object of his affections? Exactly.