Guess what! Photonic has gone elite today! Oh yeah baby!!! 
A few months after I started back in 2014 I projected what it would look like when I reach level 7. I have a sticky note on my wall since then that says: “October 2017 - level 7, 4000 sales, 170 tracks in portfolio.”
My prediction was stunningly accurate! So much about The Parkinson’s law. I wish I had predicted everything for 2016 instead!
I see authors bragging on the forum that they’ve reached level 7 in two years or even one year, which is insane! Congratulations! But to all those authors - how many of you have simultaneously raised two small kids?! Hell yeah!
So now I’m an elite author and this is one of my biggest wins in my life. Three years ago I joined AudioJungle having a newborn, and a year later my girlfriend and I got the second child. That year was crazy! Very little sleep, no free time, no inspiration to make music, hardly any motivation even to live! I was often joking that “I used to put my best sounding recordings in my tracks but now I just use the ones that don’t contain babies screaming…”
Thank god I had AudioJungle at that time, I could never be employed somewhere else having so much work with my family and so little sleep!
Reaching level 7 wasn’t easy to be honest. There were some ecstatic feelings of victory on the road, but there were also tears and blood and frustration. But all the bad is forgotten now, because… Have I told you I’m elite now?!
I’m that kind of a guy that needs to make a conclusion at any possible occasion - at least that’s what my friend said recently So I thought this moment would be a good opportunity to share some of my stats, historical info and thoughts for fellow audiojungle authors who are still on their way to reaching the magical level 7. If some of you find any of these inspiring or helpful then I’m happy to take time and write them down…
No room for bad tracks
I started in August 2014. Since then I’ve uploaded 283 tracks, but as of today only 173 tracks are in my portfolio. That means I deleted 110 tracks because they were selling poorly or not selling at all. I believe that bad tracks can hurt the whole portfolio and overall sales.
Superstitious
My first username here was PhotonikBoy. At that time the sales were very slow and of course it was my nickname’s fault. I changed it to PhotonicMusic and my music immediately started to sell better
Rejected
I’ve had my tracks hard rejected about 10 times. Twice I was sure I just made a new megahit! Today I know reviewers were right.
Approved
Here’s a list of my best selling tracks and corresponding days of approval. I should add that I always aim for the first three days of the week. I’m leaving the interpretation of the data to you
Upbeat Indie Rock (550 sales) - Monday
The Technology (238 sales) - Wednesday
Happy Explainer (184 sales) - Tuesday
Upbeat Folk (180 sales) - Tuesday
Corporate Explainer Background (139 sales) - Friday
Innovation Technology Background (108 sales) - Saturday
Corporate Interview (85 sales) - Sunday
Making music for a specific video
Sometimes I find a commercial ad video with music that I like. I mute the sound and try to make better music for the video myself. This way I always end up with a track that I like and doesn’t sell well
Sounding like Pinkzebra
I get even worse results when I try to make something similar to pinkzebra’s material. I love this guy, but he’s my kryptonite. I can’t seem to capture the magic in music the way he does. It’s easy to say: “Let’s make millions by making something similar!” But… Zero sales. Every time. It took me 2 years to realize I’m not pinkzebra. No hard feelings, at least I know now
Lucky accidents
Often lucky accidents can make music so much better… I thought that by becoming better at what I do I will need less and less luck to make great music. But now I realised that it’s far better to just give luck more opportunity to visit me. I throw some random sounds in my arrangement, play two tracks at the same time, use loops to get inspiration and do all other sorts of crazy stuff to make everything more fun and random. Happy producer - happy music.
Keeping a journal
I started writing down stuff after a few months of my AJ journey. It was the best thing I could possibly do. There’s so much you can learn from your own notes! After a while I noticed I’m running in circles - the same stuff is happening to me over and over again. Meanwhile I forget 50% of it, so it always feels kind of fresh to me when it comes A journal can play a really big role in making your creative process more clean and efficient. Among many other things! I highy recommend it to anyone who feels lost from time to time!
The toughest times
Sometimes things go well and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you make great music, sometimes it’s not even music, it’s just organized noise. Sometimes the market is well, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes the traffic is good, other times it’s not. But the no.1 hardest thing on my journey was the time when the review queue was a month long. Nothing can compare to that, that was really most depressing.
The best times
Yeah! Let’s conclude with this one on this happy day Two of my tracks were an instant winners from day one after their approval. Although that happend long time ago, I can still remember what it looks and feels like when a track explodes. And that is what keeps me going. I think I got addicted and I want more!
Ok, now it’s time to celebrate, thanks again to audiojungle for being a platform that just works! I’m a web developer and I can imagine how much work goes into having such a gigantic website up and running!!! Also thanks to all the fellow authors who have been in contact with me over the years, you made my AJ experience even more incredible! Big shout-out to the producers I respect the most, you’re all killing me with your skills - alumo, bluefoxmusic, aurusaudio, pinkzebra, soundaround, stocksounds, adigold, pitchlabstudio, soundroll…
Dear buyers my biggest thanks goes to you. Everytime you purchase a license from me, I scream “Yesss!” which means you’ve made me scream 3631 times! I’ve got my cords ready for many more!
If any of you envato authors feel like contacting me for any reason, please do not hesitate to do so! The same goes for buyers/envatostaff/anyoneelse of course! Thanks and cheers to everyone celebrating with me!
