š TRAIN SONGZ IS A REGISTERED BUSINESS
Hey!
So I just got back from a bit of a āBusiness Baptismā at my local County Clerkās office, and I have some newsā¦ Train Songz has been blessed, er, registered, as an Official Thing.
What does this mean?
I donāt know, other than it allows me to open up a business checking account, which I desperately need to do to separate Train Songz money from my personal stash of Georges, Thomases, Abes, Alexanders, Andrews, Ulysses, and Benjamins.
I also think it further separates Train Songz from My Actual Name, insofar as being a registered entity federally with the IRS, which I did a few months ago, and my state, which I did today. (Train Songz is not a LLC, itās a Sole Proprietorship, so my personal assets are still at risk, as I have not limited my liability through the creation of a company. Corporations are people too, remember? Maybe one day weāll go the LLC route.)
Why are you telling me this?
Honestly, I just got excited after the clerkās office. What I thought would be a mundane and out-of-the-way errand (which I had been putting off for about a month) turned out to be a bit of a ātidal wave of emotionā when the friendly employees wished me good luck with everything and I left with some very official-looking government documents with āTrain Songzā printed on them. Hilarious. But also kinda touching?
I have poured countless hours into this thing over the last year and a half, and rarely do I stop to reflect and be like, āH*ll yeah, we did that,ā and this was a second to enjoy that. Thatās over. Now, back to the meme-zine monomaniaā¦
Howād you get to this point?
Started @train_songz in July 2023, after seeing Billy play a show in a hickory-striped engineer cap in Bridgeport with Metro North trains passing by the stage
Had the idea for a post-tour zine in November 2023 because my true love is print media and the meme page had like 2,000 followers so I thought it would be a great launching pad to take the true sickos off the algorithm and into the mailbox
Made 4 zines of increasing size, complexity, and budget in 2024, thanks to all the money and support that kept rolling in issue after issue
Launched the subscription model in January 2025, and thanks to 697 subscribers, we have financial certainty we can make the next three issues to close out the year
Where do you go from here?
Make really good issues 6, 7, and 8 in 2025 with more contributors and better materials
We will continue investing the profits back into an increasingly high-quality print zine
Prioritize our Print Media Dealer volunteer program to get free zines distributed at shows and local businesses when Cirque du Strings rolls through town
Pay BMFSDBās web fees with zine profits to ensure a setlist database by fans, for fans, funded by fans
Follow āem on Instagram
More fun updates to come in this department soon
And thenā¦idk. Thatās our focus right now! I donāt want to complicate things too much. We make zines, and I hope you enjoy them and want us to keep making them :)
Anything else?
The Train Shop will open Friday for merchandise, which is not for sale widely on Instagram. Just here and via the QR code in the zine. Iāll send my next email when the store opens, as well as with more information about finding zines in Asheville for weekend two.
If you donāt want these emails anymore, I encourage you to unsubscribe! And if not from me, unsubscribe from something else spamming your inbox today. Always a good idea to clean digital house.
If 2 weeks have passed from your zine order and you still havenāt received it yet, please email me at conductor@trainsongz.net
[Whispering] Iām putting out into the universe that weāre looking for three GA tickets in Nashvilleā¦ I have my CoT notifications on! But just in caseā¦
Weāll send an official survey around in a few weeks to gather feedback in a bigger way, but if you have thoughts on the last issue or ideas for the futureā¦Iām all ears.
āThe Conductor