I realized that, in the middle of a million things I was supposed to be doing, I was writing a song about my upstairs neighbors. Not knowing them very well, I didn't know how they would feel about having their love story immortalized by the night owl below them, but I knew I was hooked and couldn't stop. I called them up and told the wife I had written a song of tribute to her relationship with her husband. She then said one of those things that will forever stay in my memory, not only as a comment, but as a life's lesson. She said, "Well, it certainly can't harm the relationship. Everything only makes it better." I knew, at that point, here was a lady who had made some sane decisions. They came down this morning and I played it for them.
Then she asked me to read the lyric to her. They had asked me for a copy of the lyric, which I gave them. But I made them promise when their children and grandchildren heard it, they'd let me play it with the melody, not just read the lyric. Ten minutes after they left, the wife called me and told me that after she read the lyric, she realized what it said, how moved she was, and that her husband had tears in his eyes as well. They just couldn't hear quite well enough to make out the words without reading them. Then she said she didn't know how she could ever thank me enough for what I had done.
And I thought to myself, I should be thanking them for the inspiration. What a rare couple it is who can instill that kind of feeling in someone. My point here is that, yes, it's exciting when I hear a song of mine on the radio or in a film for the first time. But that's sort of a wild excitement that's directed outward.
I've actually been known to go up to bikers in restaurants and tell them my song was playing, only to be thrilled that they were actually familiar with it and equally pleased that they weren't offended I had spoken to them. But the kind of reward I'm talking about is of a deeper, more inward nature. It comes from playing a personal communication to someone. It's such a wonderful gift to be able to put something into music and words in the first place.
And to offer it to someone as a validation of something he or she did-that's really quite a gift also. And if you've never done it, you're really missing something. On my second album, I had a song called "Mama," which was covered by Helen Reddy, after she'd had a hit with "Ain't No Way to Treat a Lady." When Helen was touring, she went through Dallas, and my mother went to see her. Afterward, my mother proudly announced that she was the "Mama" the song was written about. Looking back now, I'm so happy I had the foresight to write that song when I did. IR can take on many formats and forms, but essentially any station that plays indie music is a good target for your marketing efforts.
Some stations play only certain types of music, so make sure your music is the right fit before e-mailing them or submitting material. Many online radio stations have an online method set up for you to submit your material, but some do not. You should make an attempt to always make your initial contact through e-mail, if possible. By contacting the radio station via e-mail, you are looking to establish a contact there for your contact list. Your first contact method should be a brief letter of introduction, with links to your website for the radio contact to view your online press kit, as well as the listen to a few of your songs. You should send a follow up 1-2 weeks later, thanking them for taking the time to review your materials, and if they would be open to having you add them to your contact database and mailing list.
By keeping careful notes in your database, you will be able to build a very effective marketing list of online radio stations to market your material to. Online Radio Station Marketing Methods Let the station owner know you want to take an active part in promoting your music online, and that you would be willing to offer him content, in exchange for promotional consideration. Direct him to your online EPK to make a further positive impression. Offer to do live or taped interviews, live audio/video performances, call-in periods, contests, giveaways, even host a segment of the show in the genre of your own music. You might even be able to get he station owner to trade you some banner advertising space for your efforts.
Even if you don't get the banner space, by going on a program that has high visibility, you will be getting free exposure, and that is the key to using online media for promotion. Make sure you make it clear to the listeners that your music is for sale, and where they can get it. Online radio is an excellent way to build a following. It is also a great place to send your ad specialties, like T-shirts, mouse pads, screen savers, and a promo copy of your CD.
Getting your name in front of the site owner and keeping it there - that is your primary objective. Chay sent Sioned a warning glance and drawled, "Rohan, Rohan—you've corrupted these youngsters. They put loyalty to you above their own gain. You should be ashamed of yourself." She took up the cause. "You're right, Chay, it's nauseating. He's taught them all sorts of bad habits. It can't be for his blue eyes or his pretty face. Why do you imagine they do it?" "Rampant mental disability?" he guessed. "All right, you two, enough," Rohan said. "Point taken. Remind me that if— when—we're handing out rewards to those who secured the victory, Mirsath has earned something special." "But that's the point, you fool," Chay told him, completely serious now.
"Do you think he expects a reward?" "Rohan, you're thinking like a barbarian," Sioned added. "You don't have to pay them for their loyalty, my love. The coin you bought them with has nothing to do with gold at all." Chapter Thirteen i rince Volog, watching the course of a second battle for New Raetia laughed until his sides hurt. "Those idiots! What do they think women are—too delicate to be a threat or too stupid to give them a decent fight?" His squire grinned back at him. "Whichever, my lord— our 'delicate' ladies are scything through them like spring wheat. What do you say—shall we pad all the armor so they face a whole host of women?" The old man laughed so hard he had to sit down. "Oh, I can just see your grandsire! Chaynal of Radzyn Keep, with breasts beneath his breastplate! Rohannon, you have a wicked mind!" They paced the upper walls of the keep, Volog leaning heavily on Rohannon's strong arm, and observed the battle with growing glee.
By midafternoon it was amply evident that though the enemy finally condescended to cross swords with women as well as men, they would riot be combing their beards in New Raetia's mirrors this night. Volog laughed again as they were driven back onto the beaches and into their longboats. But when he turned to Rohannon, his eyes were cold and grim. "Bring me an accounting of their dead as soon as it's available," he ordered. "I want to know that Latham and Hevatia are avenged." "Yes, my lord." Rohannon lent his arm to his aged lord as they descended the winding stairs.
He didn't like the flush in the old man's cheeks, or the tremor in his hands. But at least he had roused from the shock of his son's death, and no longer sat staring dully at the fire. "They've tried twice to take us and failed twice. Do you think they'll need another lesson?" Volog eyed him.
"Besides, my father and grandfather would never let you hear the end of it if I so much as stubbed my toe!" The old prince's eyes twinkled. How horrible it must be to outlive one's children. Only Alasen of Volog's two sons and two daughters was still living. Birani had died of a wasting sickness years ago, Volnaya in a shipwreck a few years after that, and now Latham was gone. Surely no pile of enemy casualties, no matter how high, could make up for losing his last surviving son. But Pol was gone in a thunder of hooves back to the battle.
"Where are you hurt? Maarken, talk to me!" With Chay's help, he limped inside the gate, heard it slam shut behind them and the iron bolts slide home. The passage through the thick walls was black as pitch; Maarken conjured a finger-flame to light their way. "A couple of scratches, and this damned gouge in my leg. Nothing serious, Father—just enough to take me out for a while," he added angrily. "For the duration—on my order," Chay growled. "I was watching. When you loosed your horse, I thought you'd gone down." Maarken laughed in genuine amusement as they climbed the inner stairs.
"Your son? You not only insult me, you insult yourself!" They gained an inner chamber and Chay left him in Sioned's care. She looked ghastly pale, but her fingers were sure and steady as she tended Maarken's wounds. "You didn't happen to see that imbecile I'm married to, did you?" she asked as she worked.
"Father must be back with him by now." He flexed his wrist, which had been wrapped in cold cloths, and hid a wince behind a grin. "He's pretty quick for an old man." "Say that to his face, you impudent child." She tightened the bandage on his thigh until he yelped. "There. It'll heal up just fine. But you're through for the day. Let's go see what's brewing outside." She gave him a slim wooden stick to lean on and accompanied him across the courtyard. Horses crowded there thick as ripening grain, for every animal not needed to carry a soldier had been herded within the walls, The courtyard, big enough to encircle Maarken's whole house at Whitecliff, seemed shrunken. Once atop the walls, they looked down on the battle in silence for some time. At last Maarken swallowed hard around the lump in his throat.
"We've killed a lot of them, Sioned. But—" She nodded slowly. "But they have killed many of us. If it stops at dusk, it will only begin again tomorrow at dawn. And it will continue until—" "We're going to lose this, aren't we?" he whispered. "You're the warrior. You tell me." He turned blind eyes to the carnage below. "We have two choices. Three. We can stay and fight— and die. We can stay and lock ourselves in and wait for help—and starve. Or we can leave." "No," he said.
"This is my home. My inheritance." "To inherit a place, it is necessary to be alive." "If we leave, there won't be anything left to inherit!" "There will be no help," she said quietly. Her green eyes lit with an unholy glow. "The Goddess is good to us, Maarken. Never doubt that she is very good to us."
They had met while Faolain Riverport was abuilding in the mid-720s. He had been invited there to give the benefit of his advice, for in the reconstruction of Feruche much had been learned about the use of iron that the Riverport architect wanted to know. Together Sorin and Master Wentyn spent long, happy days drawing plans and constantly revising them to improve the strength and the aesthetics of the new town. But Sorin was never so busy that he hadn't found time to appreciate Wentyn's pretty daughter. There had been no instant understanding between them, no ricsina, the knife that pierces the heart, as so many others in his family had found. Rather it was a slow, quiet, comfortable thing, made clear to him only on his return to Feruche, when he found himself missing her more than mere friendship could explain.
After Sorin's death by sorcery, Andry—his only confidant in the matter—told their mother about the girl. A special trip to Riverport had been arranged before the Rialla that year. Tobin and Chay understood on first meeting Betheyn what Sorin had valued so much. When her father died the next autumn, they invited her to come live with them at Radzyn.
There she had continued for the next eight years, returning their love and regard, treated by them and the rest of the family as the daughter she would have been had Sorin lived. When Sioned went back into Tobin's chamber, Betheyn was seated beside the bed, reading. The young woman glanced up at hearing someone come in and rose, leaving her book on the chair. "She sleeps easily now, my lady," Betheyn murmured. "I'm occupied, and I'd rather be here." Sioned smiled.
Tobin had always wanted a daughter; Maarken had brought her Hollis, and now she had Betheyn as well. It occurred to her that, fond as she had become of Meiglan, she would never think of the girl in those terms. It was an unworthy thought, and Meiglan didn't deserve it, but there it was. She went to a table near the windows and looked over the little collection of medicines brought up with Tobin's book of simples. Sioned leafed through a few pages, seeing marginal notes in Tobin's untidy scrawl, Milar's precise script, even the thick strokes of Andrade's pen. That last brought an unexpected stinging to her eyes.
Ridiculous; anytime she chose she could call up memory of Andrade's vibrant colors, a signature more evocative than a few lines of ink on parchment. Her emotions were too complex for easy remembrance of the woman who had taught her, brought her to the Desert to marry a prince, disapproved of her, chided her, loved her, and finally died trying to keep Pol safe. Sioned wondered suddenly who would one day read her own book of simples—not a tame and commonplace volume like this one, but the translated copy of the Star Scroll secreted in her office. There were copious notes in those margins in her own hand, Urival's, and Morwenna's. Perhaps Jihan or Rislyn would study them one day. They were diarmadhi, both of them, though Rislyn was a Sunrunner as well.
But sometimes Sioned thought that she would be doing them both a favor by destroying the scroll before they even learned of its existence. She gave a start at Betheyn's soft touch on her arm. "My lady, what troubles you? It isn't just Princess Tobin." "Ah, I've been obvious. I should know better—but I suppose it's because I'm tired." She made herself smile to allay Betheyn's doubts, so obvious on her gentle face. "Don't worry, Beth. Too long a ride and too much worry to find sleep just yet." The quiet eyes held steady.
Andry had only spoken the truth—Princess Tobin would certainly keep an eye on things at Goddess Keep—omitting definition of which "she" he referred to. There were more cheers, more blessings called down upon Andry, but with a different tone. They were nearly at the gates before Torien said, "Brilliant, Andry." "What else could I do?" Then he chuckled. "Can you imagine the look on my mother's face if I told her that in speaking to her, I spoke to the Goddess?" Rohan had been awakened by Myrdal shortly after dawn.
The ancient autocrat thumped her cane on the carpet and told him to gather his wits. "Wind has blown the skies clear and the Sunrunners are already busy. Get up, boy. It's time you gave some orders around here." "You mean you're abdicating at last?" he asked as he gulped from the cup of hot taze she gave him. "Impudent hatchling." He hadn't slept well after Sioned left their bed last night.
He suspected that after soothing him the best way she knew how, she had stayed up waiting for a few threads of usable—if forbidden—starshine. If Myrdal was right and the skies were clear, by midday she would be exhausted. His squires Daniv and Isriam followed close on Myrdal's heels, working with smooth efficiency to get him shaved and garbed and ready for what promised to be a difficult day. The orders Myrdal referred to would span the continent politically and militarily; on his decisions alliances and battles might turn. And the lives—Goddess, the lives he held in his hands. Isriam was pale with anxiety; today would bring the first word of his family in Einar.
Daniv hid his feelings a little better, though he had more to worry about. His father Kostas was marching through Syr. Rohan took both boys with him to the Summer Room, where Feylin was already waiting to take notes. She greeted him around a mouthful of hairpins, testimony to a hasty awakening.
"They're already out there, even Tobin," she said, securing the tag ends of her dark red braids at her nape. "Though how they'll all keep from running into each other, I'll never know." "Nor I. But Tobin shouldn't be with them." Feylin shrugged. "You try and stop her. Besides, she insists she's the only one Andry will speak to." "Andry," he said musingly as he sat down. "Save your worry for when it's needed." The first Sunrunner to come to them was Relnaya, assigned to scan the northern Desert. He looked directly at Feylin, and as he met her eyes tears welled in his and dripped down his weather-beaten face.
"My lady—my dear lady, the young lord is dead. Jahnavi is dead." Rohan shut his eyes. She was dry-eyed and straight-backed, and white as ash. "I must find my husband." She stumbled once on her way to the door. She took Relnaya's arm, the Sunrunner weeping openly now, and helped him from the room. It was a very long time before he heard his squires shift uneasily nearby. He looked up— but behind them was another boy, blueeyed and dark-haired, face alight with anticipation of a game of dragons.
