People train for everything: marathons, driving tests, hotdog-eating competitions! Why on earth wouldn’t you train for something as huge, as dangerous, as awe inspiring, as being able to succeed in the music business? Read More.
While pricing merch competitively is important, it’s just one piece of the puzzle. There are a number of other factors to consider if you want merch to be really profitable. Read More.
What’s in an artist brand? How do you develop one? And how do you best integrate your brand into your music merch endeavors? Read More.
If your music career spans any length of time, there will be those inevitable periods when you find yourself in a creative rut. The challenge is knowing how to work your way out and get back to the business of making your art. These tips can help. Read More.
You’ve heard it before, “it’s called the music business for a reason,” and one good business practice that can help you meet your music career goals is holding effective band meetings. To ensure your meetings go smoothly, check out the following eight easy-to-execute tips. Read more.
Your email list is yours to keep. Social sites have come and gone or fallen out of favor over time. And social sites usually aren’t as good at getting people to take action, so if you want ticket sales and CD purchases, you should start building your list. Now that we know why you need a mailing list, let’s look at six ways you can increase your subscriber count. Read more.
If you’re an independent artist, you’re probably already functioning as your own label. Keep making music and take advantage of the resources you have. Research blogs and reach out to the ones that post music you like that also matches your sound. Follow up. Build and keep relationships with bookers, bloggers, whoever seems to care about what you’re doing. Try to build a network of support around your music. Read more.
Your artist brand is whatever approach you take to the aspects of your career that provide definition to your fans and to the market place. Once a brand has been established, even in an organic way, it is important to nurture and uphold that brand through your online presence. After all, with all of the social media clutter and chaos, why not try to make it easier for your dedicated fans to find you and engage with you? Read more.
It is easier than ever to work globally to promote your music as an indie musician, artist, or band through the use of various online music platforms. These platforms provide access to a wide audience of potential fans and industry professionals, and with so many out there, it’s worth taking a look at some of the innovative and essential online resources for indie musicians that can help boost your musical career and profile. Read more.
Today we announced that in October we broke two of our all-time disc replication records, proving that — as much as ever — physical media is a crucial part of any musician’s product offerings and the CD is not yet dead. In October 2012, Disc Makers replicated 4,380,296 CDs, an increase of over 600,000 units from October, 2011. This figure outpaces Disc Makers’ prior all-time monthly CD & DVD replication record of 4,013,000 CDs, which had held since 2008. Read more.
All of the tools to do anything and everything – including things you never even thought of – are online, available and waiting for you to put them to use. Dropbox, Hootsuite, and SoundCloud are three services that indie musicians are using to help manage and promote their careers. Read more.
While the music industry isn’t typically singled out as a major environmental offender, gas, plane rides, electricity for amps and mixing boards, and trash from food packaging are just a few ways we indie musicians carve out our dreaded carbon footprint. And as folks with some prominence and the capacity to play to crowds, we have the ability to make others (our audience) more conscious of ways to go green by speaking up and setting an example. Read more.
Like it or not, if you are interested in how to make money with music, you are officially in the music business, so you need to play the part. Read more.
I was just working on an article comparing some out-of-the-box promotion ideas; the ones that were successes and the ones that were failures. The thing is, I couldn’t think of a single “failure.” And it’s not because I think I’m some huge indie music success. It’s simple: When we’re still trying, we never fail. Read more.