Quarterly Review · Wren Hollis (demonstration artist)

01The quarter in three sentences

County Line came out on 9 October and did roughly what a single from an artist your size does, which is not the story of this quarter. The story is that you started asking the room for the mailing list in August and the list went from 640 to 905 in ninety days, having taken three years to reach 640. Everything in the next section is downstream of that one change.

02Against what we said in August

The five decisions you made in the session, marked as they actually went. Dropped is a real outcome when it is named, and one of these was dropped for a good reason.

Decided in August	Outcome	What happened
Release County Line on 9 October	Done	Out on the date. The residency the night before sold its folding chairs and you played it twice.
Singles through 2027, no third EP	Holding	Second single written, not yet scheduled. That scheduling is priority 1 below.
Room first through winter, triangle in April	Holding	Four residency nights played, all four full. No triangle work started, which is correct: it begins in January.
One merch item now, before the release	Done	25 tees at $210 cost, sold 19 by 17 November at $25. Net $265, which paid for the ad flights and left $130.
Self-manage through 2027	Holding	No change and no reason to revisit before the tour is booked.
Register the six unregistered songs and join the MLC	Moved	BMI done in week two. The MLC claim is submitted for all eleven and three are still pending on their side, which is their timeline rather than yours.
Get the two co-writes signed	Dropped	Junie Vasquez has been on the road since September. You decided not to chase it into the release, which was the right call. It moves to next quarter as priority 4.

03What the numbers did

From your own trackers, over the ninety days. No projections, and no benchmark we invented.

Measure	19 Aug	17 Nov	Read
Mailing list	640	905	The quarter's whole result. 265 in ninety days against roughly 10 a night before you started asking.
Monthly listeners	8,400	11,200	Release bump, partly held. Expect this to settle nearer 9,500 by January.
Total streams	310,000	372,000	County Line is 34,000 of the 62,000. The rest is the back catalog getting found.
Instagram	1,900	2,240	Followed the release and then flattened, which is normal and is why the list matters more.
Shows played	62	68	Four residency nights, one house show, one opener slot at Cottonseed Hall.
Door and merch, the quarter	—	$2,140	$1,480 door across six nights, $660 merch. The best night was the release show at $560.
Spent	—	$958	$400 recording, $210 tees, $348 ads. All of it covered by the quarter's takings.

The one worth sitting with

Two hundred and sixty-five people gave you an email address in ninety days because you said one sentence from a stage four times. Nothing else you did this quarter, including the release and the ads, produced a result at that ratio of effort to outcome. The obvious conclusion is to keep saying it. The less obvious one is that the same principle applies everywhere you currently assume people will work out what to do on their own.

04What we changed in your tools

The maintenance the plan pays for, itemised, in the files you own.

DashboardCounty Line moved from upcoming to released, with the actuals in. Next release slot is empty and waiting on priority 1. Countdown re-pointed at the January single once it has a date.
Royalty trackerAll eleven songs marked registered at BMI. Three MLC rows left as pending rather than done, so you can see which ones to chase in December.
LedgerSix show nights entered, door and merch split out. Tee cost and ad spend booked against the release rather than against the month, so the release has a true cost.
Flight logBoth ad flights closed out with actuals. Flight A came in at $0.31 per pre-save, inside the band. Flight B at $0.94 per save, which is under the dollar threshold and is the number to beat next time.
Show trackerCottonseed Hall moved to played, with the draw recorded at 70. Two new rooms added from the Booking system, both pitched in October and both still open.
Goals trackerThe five August decisions closed out. Next quarter's five below are in, each with its review date.
Split sheetLeft as it is. Nothing to update until Junie signs.

05The next ninety days

Agreed on the call, in this order. Five, and the fifth is deliberately small.

Put a date on the second single
The cadence you chose in August only exists if there is a date. Ten weeks from County Line is mid-December, which is the worst week of the year to release into, so the real options are late January or early February.
First step: pick the date by 5 December, then work the calendar backwards from it the way we did for County Line.
Keep asking, and start writing to them
905 people have given you an address and have had two emails all year. The asking is working; the follow-through is not there yet. One letter a month, and the residency reminder is not a letter.
First step: write the December letter before the 10 December residency, so the room you are about to stand in front of hears from you first.
Start the triangle booking in January, not March
April dates need to be pitched in January. The Booking system has the target list and the pitches; what it needs is you sending them on a Monday.
First step: block four Mondays in January and send five pitches on each.
Get the two co-writes signed
Carried from last quarter, and it is the only thing on your list that is a genuine liability rather than an opportunity. Two songs on your own catalog cannot currently be licensed by you alone.
First step: Junie is back in Austin from 8 December. The split sheet is filled in and needs two signatures and twenty minutes.
Chase the three pending MLC claims
Small, and it closes the registration work you started in August.
First step: one email in the first week of December, then again in January if it is quiet.

06Bigger than this plan

Two things came up that this quarterly does not cover. Named once, with what they would cost, and then left alone.

The visual side is the weakest part of your setup.You have a Brand Bible and no made assets, so every poster, tee and cover is decided again from scratch. The visual build is $400 and it is the one place where a fixed cost removes a recurring decision. Not urgent, and worth it before the tour posters.
An eleven-date tour is more admin than this plan assumes.Routing, holds, guarantees, and a merch count per night is a different weight of work from six residency nights. The Booking Outreach system covers the pitching and not the running. Worth talking about in February, once you know how many of the April dates confirmed.