Hi folks,

Well, I said the email I sent out 12 days ago would be my only effort to raise funds for recording and publicizing my "Song for Bradley Manning" and I lied. I'm learning from you people as I go, and lots of people have said I should keep you updated on the campaign, so I've adjusted the game plan accordingly.

Since the email I sent out less than two weeks ago, the video I made on my iPhone and put up on YouTube on January 3rd (which you can find near the top of the screen at www.davidrovics.com) has gotten almost 9,000 views. It's been shared on the web by a lot of people, including Wikileaks' own Twitter feed!

At least as impressive, as far as I'm concerned, 82 people have responded to my call for funds to make a professional recording and music video for the song, resulting in over $4,000 in donations! I'm currently in the midst of making plans to record the song next month at the award-winning Big Red Studios in Corbett, Oregon next month ˆ and to make a music video with some great folks who work for Norwegian television when I'm in Oslo in April.

There are 8,000 people on my email list and over 90% of the donations I received have been from people on my list. All but 3 of the donations have been between $10 and $100 ˆ the 3 others being bigger than that! I have heard that even with a very good email list only 10% of recipients even open a mass email like this one. So that probably means that 10% of people who opened the email donated, which seems great to me (that being approximately 1% of the total number of people on my list, of course).

I said in my previous email that I would use anything in excess of $4,000 for a publicity campaign to drive traffic to the MP3 and music video once the song has been professionally recorded. So currently that means there is no money for a publicity campaign. Word of mouth is definitely the best publicity, and of course I'll be singing the song every night at shows throughout Europe, Australia and Europe over the coming months. And once the song is professionally recorded I'm sure that will increase the word of mouth buzz significantly.

I believe in the power of music, and so do the activists central to Bradley Manning's support network (some of whom offered to pay for the recording if I were not able to raise the money myself). $3,000 is about the minimum for a basic publicity campaign, though there is no end to what can be done with more money in terms of conventional publicity. So my updated plan is this: any donations I receive via the "donate" button on my website by the end of February will be used for publicity.

What this means, in practical terms, is this: if I receive another $3,000 in donations by the end of February I will hire a publicist. Anything above $3,000 will be used to pay for banner ads and other forms of online advertising to drive traffic to the free MP3 and video. (Same goes for anything less than $3,000, if I don't receive sufficient donations to hire a professional publicist for this campaign.)

In my last email I neglected to mention that for those who don't do Paypal, checks or money orders are also welcome and can be sent via snail mail to my PO Box in Portland (which is checked regularly even when I'm on tour in Europe, etc.):

David Rovics
PO Box 86805
Portland, OR 97286
USA

Also, check out Jeff Zavala's excellent video using my iPhone recording here:

blip.tv/file/4598028

And find out other ways you can support Private Manning here:

www.couragetoresist.org

Hope to see you on the road and in the streets! Especially if you're in Hong Kong, Honolulu, or Olympia, where my next several gigs are... And after that, Europe! (Confirmed gigs so far all over Ireland, England, Scotland, Germany, Denmark and Norway...)

Solidarity,
David