13/12/2025
Sharing from Sam Buckingham
In a hilarious and incredibly inconvenient turn of events, I’m currently blocked from commenting on any of my own Facebook posts.
No explanation, no way to talk to a human about it and no way to reply to you beautiful people, when you comment on my posts (which you do a lot of! Thankyou! I love chatting with you!)
Except I found a way….
I’m using my partner Flávio’s account to comment, for the next few days, until my restriction is (hopefully) lifted 🤣👍
Current inconvenience aside, this weird robot glitch has made me realise something incredibly important.
Almost my entire business model is built on Meta.
Before I go on, I want to say I AM GRATEFUL FOR THIS TECH. I will use it for as long as it’s available to me. My entire career would not be happening, and I wouldn’t be able to share with you in the way I do, if I didn’t have access to it.
AND.
I also need other ways to communicate with my fans, share my work, and earn money.
Because, honestly, if Facebook banned me from posting or running ads tomorrow, I’d be fkd.
No tours. No way to share my work with new people (yes, I know, TikTok… but I haven’t been able to crack that code yet. Also, I know, radio…. But I also don’t have huge support on there)
I have a mailing list of about 5000 people - but it’s only grown over the last few years because of people finding me on Facebook🤣
So, I’m finding it very funny and quite ironic that this is happening at a time when I’m right in the middle of a big campaign, inviting you to join my Patreon 🫠
From the moment Patreon launched I loved it - because it’s built by creators, for creators.
Jack Conte - the co founder & CEO of Patreon is a highly respected, multi faceted artist who created the platform because he saw himself, his wife and so many of his artist friends racking up huge numbers online and still not being able to afford to tour, support themselves and sustainably support their work.
(eg he had a music video that got a million views and it earned him about US $166 in ad revenue)…
So, he set about to enable creators to earn a dependable income directly from fans — essentially “a Kickstarter for people who release stuff regularly.”
He wasn’t trying to replace big tech streaming / advertising models … just provide a way for artists and their fans to mutually benefit from the new connections they’d made ON those platforms
I love all the tools that are available to us, and I’m utilizing as many of them as I can - but I’m well aware that almost my entire business model relies on these companies allowing me to share and then deciding what price I’ll have to pay for my content & ads to reach you. I’m gambling every time I make a post or create an ad campaign.
I think Facebook, iG, TikTok, streaming, radio etc are all incredible paths for music discovery. I also think that, if we’re not racking up insane numbers we very quickly get caught in the trap of making more content & less art to try and keep up… and it’s very easy to fall behind creatively and financially
AND I also believe in artists and fans having more intimate relationships - no matter how many “numbers” i rack up. I don’t want to only be a face on a screen or a person on stage at a show. That feels very lonely for me.
As a music fan, I want to know more of the people whose music I love. Because if I love their music it’s because I love what they have to say. The way they think. What they stand for.
Why wouldn’t I want to go deeper into that?
So, if you’re on that similar wavelength and you want to be part of my “Kickstarter for someone who releases stuff regularly” I would LOVE for you to join my Patreon
Every month I share a new song demo, an essay, and we have a zoom hangout. I also share BTS updates on projects (like albums & tours), and I share new songs & videos on there before they’re released publicly.
AND
If you join my Patreon before midnight, Sunday 7th December I’ll send you my new album “Beautiful Machine” early AND free
Choose your membership level for the free digital album (sent to you mid Dec THREE MONTHS before the public release date🙊), free CD, free Vinyl (sent late Feb) or all 3 +free VIP tour tickets whenever you want them
I’ve made it super affordable - you can join for just $5 p/month if you want (or you can stream a song of mine 1666 times…. That’s the equivalent in monetary terms 🤣😭)
Head to http://www.sambuckingham.com to learn more + hear the title track…. It’s not released yet! You can’t hear it anywhere else!
If you feel the song, I would LOVE for you to join me on Patreon and i would love to send you the new album to say thankyou🙏
See you in there xSam
EDIT 📣 I signed up for Meta Verified so i could speak with a human and they told me there was nothing they could do so I asked them to ask another human and THEY got the restriction lifted 🙌 just goes to show that sometimes you gotta ask more than once .... and also goes to show that humans still have some sort of value 😂 Also, my favourite thing about this was commenting for a while with Flávio’s account…. It made me feel like an undercover spy 🤓
