Musicians have no problem creating master plans to rule the world, but they often fall short of seeing their music career goals through effectively. What an unfortunate waste! As Ralph S. Larsen, CEO of Johnson & Johnson, said, “The best-thought-out plans in the world are worthless if you can’t pull them off.” Read more.
Once you understand that your fans want to know your story and the stories surrounding your music, it kind of goes without saying that they want to be invited in. Successful indie artists offer up something even greater than just their new music: they offer a new and personal experience not available anywhere else. Read more.
If you give someone your disc at a show all they should have to do while driving home is remember they have it and with one hand on the wheel slide the disc out from it’s case and pop it into their CD player (you don’t want to cause them an accident do you?). The same goes for the journalists getting your disc in the mail. They see five discs on their desk. four are shrink wrapped and one is not. Which disc do you think they’re going to start with? Read more.
Can we call it a trend? In March we posted that overall album sales were up in 2011, and now we’ve received news from our comrades at CD Baby that physical CD sales for their independent artists are up from this time last year. Read more.
As a musician I wake up every day and say, “What am I going to do today that will push my music career forward?” The worst feeling is when I can’t answer that question. Like now. I’m at a point where I feel like I’ve reached out to all of my music industry contacts, tapped out my fans, and done everything I can think of doing. I know there is more to be done and I don’t know what it is, and I’ve reached some creative/career exhaustion that’s making me not want to do anything, anyway. Long story short: I’m stuck. Read more.
When you focus on productivity rather than creativity, your art and your business suffers because your whole reason for doing the business, expressing and sharing your creativity, loses its momentum and drive. Productivity metrics such as how many CDs you have sold, how many gigs are booked, how many Facebook fans you have, or how many tweets you’ve tweeted can leave you feeling out of sorts and divorced from your artistic self. Read more.
Indie bands, take note: last week, CD Baby announced a new CD distribution partnership with Alliance Entertainment, the largest wholesale distributor of audio, video, and software home entertainment in the United States. Read more.
Be great and be honest with the connection that you’re making. You’ve got to hustle and make your own destiny. But my biggest piece of advice is, team up with someone passionate to work with you. And that doesn’t mean someone from the music business. When you look at a lot of people I’ve worked with and look at who their managers are, they started as enthusiastic young people who didn’t have training in the music business… Read more…
We’ve all seen and read posts and eBooks about “how to succeed” as independent artists and to be honest, I’ve even written a few. But what about those of us who are bent on failure? Those of us who would like to know how to shoot ourselves in the foot? Those of us who would like to be more unsuccessful and confused? Well this post is for you! Some of these things I’ve done myself, and I can assure you – they work amazingly well! Read more.
An interesting look back at a post we ran in 2010, originally titled, “Grammy: That’s not MY music industry.” Do you think this still represents the state of the industry today? Read more.