9th Newsletter

Cotton candy and about the Newsletter

Author

Jong Hee Kim
April 14, 2024

Hi there 

(It's my 9th newsletter to you)

This is A.thentic Jong Hee. šŸ’

How are you today?

How is it going with you, my reader? I hope you're doing good with everything now. 

As I posted on Instagram, cherry blossoms fell mostly here. 

It's too short time. šŸ„€

This was the reason why I once didn't like this spring flower since I was so young. 

It's too short to enjoy, especially compared to the time it takes for them to bloom, just around 10 days or so.šŸŒø

Cotton Candy in Busan

Watch this shorts.

Check this if you want to listen to the full song ā€œAfternoon Icecreamā€

Actually I finished a new music, a piano single a few days ago. And I produced one piece of piano single as planned, BUT I made a wrong track šŸ˜¶: According to the storyline of the piano album (it means there is a definitely story inside) I finished a wrong one. I found out that after Iā€™ve finished it. But as the scheduled release date approached, I was shocked, but I decided to create another one within a few days.

I composed the song before but It was a crazy schedule. But I made it, yeah.!. I finished it, even though I had to take a sleeping pill every night with fatigue. So I was going to send you the 9th newsletter earlier, but for that reason I couldnā€™t.  (By the way, the new song will be another piano single as a romantic series, ā€œI met you beautifullyā€, and ā€œWe walked togetherā€.šŸŒŗ (This is a good thing for you to know it in advance. It will be next week.)šŸ’–

I spent a few days doing nothing for relaxing. Now I can say this to you. 

As I said, adults liked the cotton candy more at that day. 

Today, I'd like to talk about this newsletter. (Sorry, but the story will be next time)

At the first time when I decided to create the newsletter, I had two purposes. 

One is that I can promote my music more efficiently : Explaining about my music more deeply, talking about behind stories, showing the behind music (yes, I also have some of behind music which are not heard yet, but I plan to show them and let my people listen to the music through here). 

And the second one is that I can ā€˜communicateā€™ with my people, my true fans. Unlike Instagram, Facebook Page, or Youtube, I can talk to you more frankly in here, because you are my true fan who gladly subscribed to this newsletter. (Are you ā€¦ ?)šŸ¤”

I remember when I invited an Instagram follower who engaged with my post a lot to this newsletter, (mostly they still donā€™t know what the newsletter is, and they enjoyed this a lot since they knew this), but she refused to sign up.

And someone said to me that giving me her email address will be dangerous. I understand that. But honestly I donā€™t even know whose email address is, unless you reply to me. 

And I donā€™t send this newsletter to you by myself. A newsletter service platform, send it to you; I write my letter and send it to the platform, then they send it to you automatically. So I canā€™t send you this again if they fail to reach you. 

By the way, what would I do with your email address? Nothing. If you donā€™t want this anymore, then just ā€˜unsubscribeā€™ it or send it to the spam folder. 

When someone said that ā€˜why would I give you my email address?ā€™, it hurt me. 

I just invited her to my newsletter because she was so curious about some Korean food(Gimbap), posted on my Instagram. 

And someone sent me ā€˜Good infošŸ‘ā€™ on DM only. Iā€™m not a tour guide. Replying to me by email and adding a comparison with his/her own culture is totally different from a simple DM on Instagram.

Speaking of your reply, I found out that I felt so much comfort and encouragement from your replies. At first, I thought the replies could bother me, but nope, not at all! I enjoy them a lot. So donā€™t hesitate to reply to me. (I even asked some of you to write back to me as long as you want!) šŸ’•

Some letters inspired me a lot, I can say. And I felt the real ā€˜connectionā€™ with you. 

But I still have one concern about this newsletter. 

I started this newsletter myself and I wanted to tell you not only about music, but also back stories and food stories. Yes, I wanted to talk about them, but it takes too much time and effort if I want to contain them all in one newsletter. 

(As I posted on my story, IG, I started to write from the last night to the 3 am, but I couldnā€™t finish this letter, so I continue to write on Sunday afternoon now. Just writing you on email is different from this newsletter). 

I wanted to talk about food or dessert, and wanted to show you the behind pictures or videos which couldnā€™t be shown on Instagram or Youtube. And I also wanted to share you with the back stories I created. I know you like these contents (Iā€™m so glad with that), but honestly creating all of contents eat up my energy. I didnā€™t realize this when I started the newsletter. 

Time is gold to me. I have to spend more time for producing new music. 

And I like writing. When I feel so lonely or, feel ā€˜dramaticā€™ with some music, I write. I create a story. But providing you the full length of stories is different. 

Well, sometimes I think what if I divide the ā€˜paid groupā€™ and the ā€˜free groupā€™, then I can share the full stories/scripts to the paid group, and short, curtailed stories to the free group. Then would I feel compensated for the time and effort I put into creating it? Iā€™m not sure yet. 

At first, some of you may be disappointed by that decision. People often perceive the music or video content that artists create as 'free,' especially on Instagram or YouTube, as they are used to it. But as artists, we think differently.

Creating music costs money. 

It does!

For example, for my song ā€˜Secret Wishā€™, it did cost more than $1,000 (US dollars), but profit so far? None. Maybe a few months, years later, I would earn some, but currently itā€™s zero. 

ā€œSecret Wishā€ 

All the music producers created need money. But for the independent musicians like me, the profit is so low or almost zero. 

I know it takes time to become popular, to make it success, but it also requires more patience, energy to hold up, a calm mindset about financial struggles. 

I started to be a full time producer almost 2 years ago, I have that difficulties too. 

When I had a second job, like when I lived in Seoul, I could barely produce one or two songs in a year. Instagram? No I couldnā€™t. 

Thatā€™s why I opened my Instagram account 2014 or 15, but I never posted a thing. I started to post regularly almost 2 years ago. 

Iā€™m not poor, but sometimes I feel like Iā€™m a loser. 

Emotionally I suffer sometimes when I compose a certain song, and I suffer for that realistic difficulty. Iā€™m not poor, yet, but I mentally suffer for that.   

This is such a heavy talk but I wanted to talk about this thing from the beginning. 

My readers here are so far about 110 something now. So a few people, but good enough for me to get it off my chest. 

Well, Iā€™m curious now about how Iā€™ll feel about this letter myself in a few years later if I continue this newsletter with better career conditions (feel shame, or regret? I donā€™t know; We will see). But also this is the first road for me too, because I donā€™t have this kind of newsletter experience either

By the way, Iā€™m still thinking that some specialized group, a ā€˜paid groupā€™ from here would be needed, because I still have some exclusive content to share, like unreleased music, and even a movie I made (wrote the script, directed, and composed the OST). Maybe one day.

Okay. Thank you so much for reading. šŸŒ¹

Have a good weekend. 

I will see you next time.

Thank you 

Bye 

From A. thentic Jong Hee

P.S. I went to that place again yesterday. As you can see, the cherry blossoms fell mostly. I just had a deep dish pizza (Chicago Pizza), and pasta. Well.. to me, New York pizza is the best (except for the original ones from Italy). I still canā€™t forget the taste when I went to the graduate school, NYU in New York.

Thank you šŸ’–