You aren’t qualified to judge your music
When it comes to being a music artist, your job is to be creative and productive and release lots of music. Let the marketplace and your fans judge your music. Read the post.
marketing
Perfect your sales pitch if you want results
For years, my biggest challenge was getting a reply to the multitude of emails I wrote. I’ve since perfected my sales pitch so that 100 percent of the emails I send get a response. Read More.
Boost Music Sales, Accept Credit Cards
While technologies like Square are becoming more and more popular, there’s still a coolness factor – they’re new enough to elicit wide-eyed looks of wonder from grown adults (jaded New Yorkers included). For now, at least, paying for an independent album via credit card on someone’s smart phone, and signing with a swipe of your finger, is fun. Read more.
Seven Strategies for Local Music Promotion
You’ve spent countless hours writing, revising, and rehearsing, and now it’s time to take your material to the stage. While a tour bus, road crew, and booking manager are helpful when it comes to worldwide musical domination, gigging locally and building a live following, honing your chops, and refining your performances comes first. Here are music promotion strategies to help you get attention on a local level. Read more.
Music Sales and Music Promotion In the Age of Facebook and Spotify
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. Read more.
How to Create a Wikipedia Page for your Band/Music
Getting a Wikipedia page approved for your music project can be tricky. It can also be great for building credibility and gaining exposure for your music.
Because of the sheer number of relatively unknown independent artists out there, Wikipedia has become very strict in its guidelines for accepting artist pages. Wikipedia editors are composed of volunteers from around the world and they all interpret Wikipedia’s guidelines a little differently, so, mileage may vary. Read more…
An Innovative Approach to an Album Release
We are always on the lookout for new album release strategies. Here’s the latest from Billboard.biz and the Kaiser Chiefs:
U.K. guitar group Kaiser Chiefs is taking an innovative approach to the release of its new studio album, “The Future is Medieval” (Fiction/B-Unique Records), by allowing fans to choose their own track listing and album artwork.
Sell the Story – Not the CD
In 2009 Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn tried out a little experiment. They spent $128.74 on a bunch of yard sale junk and hired professional writers to draw up interesting stories about each item. Then they put everything up on eBay with the stories that they created to see what happened. Read more…
Are You an Artist or Just Someone Who Plays Music?
Many of us use the term ‘independent artist’ or ‘recording artist’ to describe ourselves, but are we really artists, or are we just people who play music?
To answer that question we need to decide what it means to be an artist. Many of us grew up in an environment where we were only taught what art means at a superficial level. Maybe our first definition of an artist was someone who was really good at making realistic paintings or drawings or maybe someone who made weird abstract creations that were supposedly only understood by special people. Read more…
Combining Forces = WINNING!
Being an independent artist doesn’t mean you need to take the word ‘Independent’ too literally. Chances are, you’re missing big opportunities to take your career to new levels if you’re not actively looking for chances to join forces with other artists and industry pros. A piece of something big is worth a lot more than all of little or nothing. If you feel like you’re bashing your head against the wall trying to get people to your shows or to buy your music on your own then changing your approach can make all the difference in the world. Read more…
The Album Release Schedule Is Back!
CD Baby and IndieGuide.com have put together a very interesting and helpful album release schedule – updated for 2011.
Back in the late-90s at Sony Music Entertainment, we had these incredibly detailed setup schedules for albums. That included everything from getting artwork approvals, passing elements to distribution, setting up artist interviews, the works.
Join us at the New Music Seminar – February 14-16
Are you looking to get signed as an artist? Come see the Presidents of the Indies and Major Labels explain how! Are you looking to make more money as an artist, manager, label or agent? See the 22 18-minute presentations from the CEOs of the top companies explain how! Visit one on one with 24 mentors at the NMS Mentoring Sessions or the Songwriting, Voice and Producer’ Workshops, and find for your next business partner. Then network with over 80 of the top CEO’s and others speaking over 3 nights and 2 days at the New Music Seminar in Los Angeles February 14-16. Read more…
Top 5 Music Business Mistakes of 2010
I’ve never been one for top 5 or top 10 lists, but I have seen these mistakes so many times in the past year, I figured they needed to be documented. #1 Waiting. You may want to reconsider. With replication costs low and mailings that can be made for little more than the cost of a stamp, putting your message on disc may be the smartest way to tell your company’s story and interest new and existing customers in your latest offer. Read more…
DVDs for B2B – Six reasons DVDs work for business communication
Enamored with the notion of hosting your presentations and technical information exclusively on the Web? You may want to reconsider. With replication costs low and mailings that can be made for little more than the cost of a stamp, putting your message on disc may be the smartest way to tell your company’s story and interest new and existing customers in your latest offer. Read more…
Licensing Your Music Ain’t Easy – Be Cool
I recently had lunch with the founder and CEO of a popular website for independent artists. It was great to catch up and hear about all the exciting things going on with the site. On the other hand it was a bit of a concern hearing about some of what he and his staff have had to put up with recently in dealing with some of the more, shall we say, frustrated and/or unstable musicians that use his services. Read more…