Your headshot is the first impression many new fans and the press will get of you. If the headshot just totally sucks or doesn’t successfully convey your brand, you lose out on so many opportunities right from the beginning. And when you’re trying to make your way in this industry, you simply can’t afford to miss even one opportunity. Having your photo taken can be stressful – I know how that goes – but if you follow some of these simple tips (as well as be flat-out determined that you won’t rest until it’s right), you’re bound to end up happy with the end result. Read more.
From the category archives:
CD Baby has launched CD Baby Pro, a new service for independent music artists that helps collect the songwriting and music royalties you’ve earned worldwide. Even if you’ve registered your works with a PRO, it’s virtually impossible to collect all the publishing royalties owed to you every time one of your songs is purchased, streamed, or played in a public setting. CD Baby Pro solves this problem and makes it easy for you to get paid what you’ve earned. 
The blog at Venture Harbour posted advice from 30 people in the music industry for aspiring entrepreneurs. Of course, most everything included translates to building a music career and is definitely worth a read. Echoes’ Andre Calilhanna is among those polled, and his insights are to "continually re-prioritize." 
Working with an established, professional publicity firm might be the ideal, but unless you have a few thousand dollars available, you may need to design your own music PR campaign. A self-propelled campaign can be effective if executed properly, which means effectively managing the Pre-, During-, and Post-PR phases. There are several pitfalls that can derail the success of a campaign. 
Songwriters – or more correctly, copyright holders – have always been compensated for the use of their songs, whether it was via traditional radio or new streaming services. With the rise of more and more new outlets for music consumption, master rights are an essential asset to leverage for artists and labels to earn money. This brings up the question, “Should an artist try to hold on to his master rights, or sign them over to a label to secure a deal?” 
Considering that Jason Mraz has won a Grammy and holds the record for the longest standing single on the top 100 charts, you’d think he’d have profound advice about reaching stardom. But, delightfully and surprisingly enough, Jason told me something so simple, yet so memorable. “I don’t know a thing about how to make it in the music business. All I know is that I do what I love with all my heart.” 
In our experience working with artists from Ben Folds to the Beach Boys, we’ve found that fans want to be a part of a journey — the entire journey. If I love your music, I don’t just want to pre-order your new record. I also want to get a signed copy of the record and possibly a painting you made just for me. I may also want to meet you for dinner or see my name in the album credits. 
As an independent musician, digital publicity can be a fantastic way to set yourself on a path towards success. But like much of digital marketing, the process and results can feel a bit nebulous if proper goals aren’t set in place. Setting goals for your publicity campaign can help you to do two critical things: 1. Hire the right kind of publicist, and 2. understand the value of the work. 
As an independent music artist, what can you do to maximize your music promotion and overall revenue? At last year’s New Music Seminar, Disc Makers and CD Baby president Tony van Veen shared nine music promotion lessons he’s learned that every artist can easily implement to maximize gig sales, drive download purchases, and increase overall music sales. 
Whatever your instrument or genre, as an independent musician, I bet you’ve probably spent time gazing at the arts section of your local newspaper or favorite music magazine and wondered, “How can I get there?” While talent, hard work, business chops, persistence, and luck have a great deal to do with it, there’s another tool that can help — a good publicist. 
Want to be involved and help build your music community? It starts with networking basics – building relationships with songwriters, musicians, and the other active people in your local music community. I tried it, and for 112 months in a row, from March 2003 through July 2012, I hosted a successful music event at my house in Nashville called the “3rd Sunday at 3:00.” 
In business, return on investment – or ROI – traditionally translates to “How much money did we make on that promotion or venture?” This doesn’t translate so neatly to a social media campaign, or your general social media efforts, because at its heart, social media is a conversation tool, not a sales tool. So the question becomes: “If social media has no direct relationship to sales, how do I measure its ROI?” It will help if you start by defining realistic expectations of your social media campaigns so you can effectively measure the ROI of your social media efforts. 
MusicStartsHere.org is a website chock full of excellent content and more than 300 interview segments featuring music business insights from songwriters, publishers, artists, musicians, entertainment attorneys, performance rights organizations (PROs), and other music industry veterans. While the site focuses on the music scene in Nashville, the information included can benefit anyone looking to learn more about making a career in music. 
Who are the buyers for your original music? The short answer is they are incredibly diverse, and include everything from video game production companies to late night TV variety shows. And while the enormous range of buyers is encouraging, they mainly operate in a closed loop of industry contacts, so gaining access can be difficult. That why knowing the ground rules and how value is perceived by the buyers is crucial before attempting to break in to the loop. 
When striving to understand how the music licensing business operates, one key fact is that the music licensing marketplace determines value on a daily basis. What this means is that to make any money licensing your music, your songs must have value in the eyes of the marketplace. The following qualities will help determine a piece of music’s relative licensing value. 
