Douglas MacKenzie

I want to send out a special thank you for all of those who have joined our network. So many have signed up and I am truly overjoyed!! It is all of you that has taken the music as far as it has and it’s only getting better!! I hope you are all having a wonderful week and that health has found you well. We are busy in the studio working on a new song titled “Always my girl”. Keep your ear to the ground, it will be out soon. You heard it here first!! Keep an eye out for the official release of “Night Train” which has gone beyond the demo stage and is almost ready to set free. There will also be a video for “Night Train”. Please keep the comments coming, we really appreciate the feedback. Please visit the new DustyMarcus website at link and also find us at link

Keep safe everyone, till next time!!

DustyMarcus

Hello N1M Network & Subscribers. The various genre N1M Charts are reset overnight Tues>Wed. Daily/Weekly plays & participation in other N1M features like Recommend offers for their 'Blink & Earn' system also seem to affect the algorithm that drives the chart positions. I'm most usually involved with 3 of them, Folk, Folk Rock, & Singer-Songwriter; sometimes also Instrumental, when 'It's Clear to Me Now' is posted. One thing that can really help, other than Plays & 'Likes' here, is going over to YouTube, to find (expired link) and clicking on Subscribe there as well. It's free, only takes a moment, and as a bonus, the rest of my album 'More Love to Begin' is there all the time - who knows, you may find a new favourite. An added benefit over here, is that any plays are tracked by my digital distributor, TuneCore, and a tiny income stream eventually finds its way to my account with them, unlike at N1M where no artist cashflow is generated at all. Of course, if any of you decide you would like to own a copy of the music, almost any of the popular digital streaming or D/L platforms have the album as well, also supplied by TuneCore. In the meantime, stay well, safe, & smart. Doug

Hello Fans & fellow artists - kindly use this post as a request, reference, & Recommendation to go to my N1N page, and listen to the 3 songs you will find there from 'More Love to Begin'. N1M has taken away "Spotlight your Post" so we can't run a song promo and this at the same time. In addition, with the values of Recommend Offers hidden, we can't plan a strategy successfully to result in a high enuf balance to achieve a National Artist Spotlight, never mind a Global one. I also just had 5 days in a row where I was only allowed 2 Recommends instead of the long-established 5 in 24 hours. My email with proof of this unfair reduction to N1M Legal & Info addresses went unanswered. The messages in 'I Come From the Future' are needed now more than ever, and this is all I could think of to overcome the major roadblocks & hurdles the so-called 'updates' have caused. Sure the graphics, notifications & some links are improved, but the overall efficacy of the site, especlally the 'Blink & Earn' system that drives their whole operational philosophy, has diminished considerably. I thank my supporters for sharing the earlier message, but it will be impossible to maintain a decent chart position with 20-30 plays a day, where my prior promo strategies resulted in 6k to 8k plays. I wish all artists and fans a Merry Christmas, and hope this post is clearer in its intent & meaning. Stay safe & here's to a better New Year - 2021. Doug

This is Douglas MacKenzie writing from my studio in Oshawa ON. After some 2 years on N1M and aggressively Recommending other's songs from around the world on a daily basis, trying to garner enuf $BC credits to do National or if lucky, a Global Artist Spotlight once or twice a week, I have had to re-think my weekly Promo strategy. This is it... Please check out all my posted songs & give them a Listen, a Like & a Share, if so inclined. I don't think it is cool that N1M has blocked the "$BC value field" for us 'free' Subscribers, and turned it into "Earn ?" - how are we to plan a promo strategy & execute with any hope of success if we don't know what a Recommend will do for our $BC credits balance? BTW, it's hardly free - what is 20 hours of my time worth every week?!? Also, my song went from 10th to 3rd last week on the Global Folk Rock chart, with a paltry 200 plays overnight when the charts were reset, so worldwide plays must be down for everyone with this unfair 'revision' in place. The graphics are certainly improved, but holding a Recommend offer in 'Pending for approval' for 6-7 hours from a tiny edit in value or the title, in the middle of Ratings Night so no-one CAN recommend it is also not cool. So I am writing this, asking for folks to check out all my posted songs, and maybe go over to MySpace, ReverbNation, YouTube, or your preferred streaming & D/L platforms where 'More Love to Begin' (the album) resides, as well as a lot more, such as videos, live performances, & studio recordings that were used as demos to get me to the point of being able to record. Listen, watch, Share & Subscribe if you wish. There are 7 originals on 'More Love to Begin', and the message in the featured song, my acoustic arrangement & cover of the Weber Brothers' 'I Come From the Future' is one for the ages, and especially these times we are currently in. PLEASE, all take care, ensure we get thru this, and look forward to live shows & concerts once again, hopefully in the near future. Doug.

So, here we are once again, at the time of the week when the various N1M charts are reviewed & reset overnight. Due to the extreme revisions of the 'Blink & Earn' system (you can't see the $BC amount in the offer), I was unable to build up enuf credits for an Artist Spotlight, so I will be relying on the Recommends for my promo strategy this time around. The difference with my offer is that the amount will be shown in the song description, via a careful edit. It will likely stay consistent overnight, as last week when I increased the amount from the steady 'thru-the-week' $3.21 to the then-suggested $20.01, N1M put & kept my revised offer in the "Pending for approval" state for over 7 hours, thereby pretty much obviating any exposure in Europe, despite my getting up 3 or 4 times in the middle of the night to try and find a good offer to fund my own promo. There has been no answer to my 3 emails of concern on the subject. N1M also still owes me over $150 BC from April 10th when instead of adding the nice Recommend offer credits to my carefully accrued balance of $99.99, they dropped it to $0.00. I wrote them about 10 times on that subject, no answer there either. 'I Come From the Future', the amazing Weber Brothers song I am privileged to cover in my acoustic arrangement, has a timely message you might think was written about 3 months ago, instead of the 3 years that has passed. My hope is that all of you stay safe & secure until this pandemic has been defeated, & we can all get back to performing live to our local fans & venues. Until then, let's remember there's More Love to Begin.

Good Day - I don't imagine any of you are too thrilled with the new Blink & Earn 'feature', no amount displayed on the offers; for example someone helped me overnight with 'I Come From the Future', to only get 3.21 $BC for the Recommend, which that amount is my attempt to keep 'a continuous presence' in an effort to satisfy part of N1M's Ratings calculation's algorithm as I have come to understand it. I was actually up in the middle of the night (an interruption I try to reserve for 'Ratings Night, Tues>Wed) and came up with a 'work-around' for this latest ploy on their part - we are allowed to 'Edit' our song, w/o risking our hard-won stats, which they refuse to renew for us, even if we make a human mistake. As you will see, I periodically edit the title of my song 'More Love to Begin' to reflect the current plays total, after accidentally deleting it at some 13k plays. If we take a moment to edit that field and include the $BC amount of our Recommend Offer, fellow artists can go, take a look before committing to the action, and make an informed decision, especially if it is critical to achieving a certain credit balance for a planned Artist Spotlight or other important aspect of one's weekly promo strategy. Thanks again for your support, & hope this helps. Sincerely, Doug