Better Than The Book's And I Fear [Instrumental] is now streaming online, last week's $5 Patreon rewards are out for the $1 patrons (Jabun's The Ocean Above & Noir [mp3s + art]), setting and reflecting on monthly goals + more updates!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to August! It's been a busy week on my end, mostly taking advantage of the eased lockdown for another socially distanced visit to friends and family in my hometown for my mum's 60th birthday, but also juggling a tonne of admin work ready for more new music to be released in the coming months, as well as taking care of the usual start of the month backing-up / maintenance tasks. Just a couple of things to report this week as you can tell by the title so let's get to it!

First of all, yesterday was the first Wednesday of the month which means another set of reward posts for my $1 supporters on Patreon are out: Jabun's The Ocean Above and Noir (Art + Mp3s for last week's $5 rewards)! Read more and grab the rewards below:

$1 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/37815025/
Read more: https://www.patreon.com/posts/37815024/
Become a Patron: ​https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Next, more new music to share as Better Than The Book's And I Fear [Instrumental] is now streaming on YouTube, SoundCloud and Newgrounds! New tracks from the Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] bonus album will be uploaded each Friday until the end of September! Check out And I Fear [Instrumental] below:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4gS10gIZAM
Newgrounds: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/953152
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/bttb_uk/and-i-fear-instrumental

And if you like what you hear, pick up Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] on bandcamp along with the rest of the BTTB discography:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/hopes-and-dreams-instrumentals

Or grab it when you become a Patron for as little as $1 a month! 

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

​Finally this week, it's the beginning of another month so let's look back at the usual monthly goals and set some new ones! Here's what I set for July:

1) Release the Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] album and start the post-launch promo campaign
2) Keep up with BTTB guitar/vocal practice and learn THE guitar stage jump as I've planned
3) Sort artwork & mp3s, for the upcoming mystery cover song
4) Finish final audio + sort mp3s for upcoming 2nd Jabun album
5) Finish initial mixing for the following Jabun album *
* Low priority

And overall a pretty good result I'd say! 1), 3) & 4) were completed with no problem which means there'll be a lot of new music to share very soon! Despite the low priority, I made a tonne of good progress with goal 5) too with 3/4 initial mixes finished for the album (just 1 more left to do)! The only goal I really fell down on this month was 2). A physical injury at the start of July followed by an allergic reaction to the remedy made any physical tasks a real pain for the majority of the month, but thankfully I'm almost fully recovered now. Unsurprisingly I'm a little rusty with BTTB practice at the moment, though I'll be aiming to get back to polishing things up again in the coming weeks! With that said, let's set some new goals for August:

1) Sort Patreon rewards for the next 2 months
2) Keep up with BTTB guitar/vocal practice and learn THE guitar stage jump as I've planned
3) Finish preparations for releasing the mystery cover song and announcement it (ready for a September release)
4) Finish the admin work and make a promo plan for Jabun's 2nd album
5) Finished mixes and set up mastering for Jabun's 3rd album
6) Sort the global distribution problem for Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals]

Mostly self explanatory I think and hopefully it should all be doable, though there is A LOT to do. Just 1 more mix to finish for 5) so that shouldn't be too bad. 6) is going to be tricky as that's very much up to my distributor sorting things out and not making errors again... I'd certainly like it to be sorted soon though. On top of these goals, I have a couple of personal ones too, and with Hopes and Dreams over 1 year old now, I'm really itching again to get back to some Better Than The Book writing / composition, so I'd like to at least go through my big folder of ideas and start making plans for the next BTTB album / EP! I can't imagine that being released until 2022 but nice to start planning! Anyways, wish me luck and feel free to share your own goals in the comments! Best of luck to you all!

And that about wraps things up for this week! More new music to share from the Hopes and Dreams [Instrumentals] bonus album next week at the very least, and I'm sure I'll be busy with admin things until then but hope to get a bit more musical work done too! Until next time, I hope you enjoy all the new music and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book, and my various projects! Stay safe, take care, and have a great week!