Independent childrens recording artist Zak Morgan‘s second album was nominated for Grammy this year. The amazing part is that he is without any label backing: he produces his own albums, coordinates his own tours, and sells his CDs along the way. In this posting to CDBaby’s site, he tells the story of how he went from struggling musician to successful musician to Grammy-nominated musician. Long story short: it involves a lot of hard work and planning to get gigs and takes a lot of savings to pay for a professional production. [via Scott Andrew]