Thursday 15 December 2011

Discovering and developing new artists

This video has some great insights from a bunch of industry professionals.

My favourite element is the bit from Jon Webster at about 3:00 where he talks about how every artist needs to make something happen for themselves before they look for a manager or a record deal (or a DIY release).

Self Starters are the future successful musicians!

Tuesday 13 December 2011

CD's on Demand

Cd_on_demand
I thought everyone knew this - but apparently not, so this is just a short heads-up!

I was amazed yesterday when two artists separately told me that they didn't have CD's for sale at their shows as they couldn't afford a full production run of 500 or so.

I was amazed that they didn't know about small scale replication.

Of course, you can burn CD's at home and do pretty good quality artwork but often the on-body print lets that method down.

For some years I have been sending people to Kunaki - a service where you upload all the parts of your CD to a site and they make them individually on demand. The quality is great and you get a full colour on-body print. These are replicated CD's not made from a glass master but for small runs they are perfect. You can then link this online CD to your band website so that you hold no stock and each time a CD is needed Kunaki makes it and ships it.

Of course, you can then also order, say, 10 or 20 at a time yourself to sell at gigs.

You can also use these to stock a CD Baby store etc.

Amazon offers a similar service with Create Space. I don't think it's as good as Kunaki.

There are more too - just search for 'CD on Demand'.

That's all. Hopefully this has switched on a lightbulb for those that didn't know!

Friday 9 December 2011

Everything you need to know about Music Publishing

Watch this video for a pretty solid education about music publishing - that is how your songs (not the recordings you make) make you money.

It's very good.

And when you've watched it you can do yourself another favour.

As an unsigned or indie musician, there are 2 great companies that offer a great music publishing service. In the UK you should look at Sentric Music - they will, in fact, collect your royalties worldwide and you don't need to be UK based to join. Their service is free to join and they only take a small percentage of the royalties they collect.

They have a great article on the basics of music publishing here as well.

And then in the US, check out Song Trust. Their model requires an annual fee instead of a share of royalties.

Both companies are great options for new and unsigned bands - they offer short term deals and they take no ownership of your songs so you are free to go and do a deal with a larger publisher should that day come.

Oh, and they can be trusted!

Finding a community on SoundCloud

SoundCloud is pretty much a must for any aspiring musician these days - and it's obvious that a community of musicians and creatives ought to be somewhere that you can find support and fans.

Now they are getting to be really helpful in advising musicians on best practice tips for their own service.

We wrote about their overall guide here - definitely check this out - but they keep adding to it.

The latest posts are this one - How succesful SoundCloud users build meaningful connections in the SoundCloud community.

This comes with lots of bits of audio interviews (naturallly....) from those users.

And the other is their guidance post - How to build your SoundCloud community. This is full of great usable suggestions.

If you're not on SoundCloud, you should be and this will help you get started.

 

Thursday 8 December 2011

8 ways to maximize your YouTube Presence

I thought that we'd covered this post when it was published on Social Media Examiner in July, but we didn't!

And, this week I have been doing a lot of work on YouTube - how to get your videos noticed and spreading. It's not easy but there are some tricks that we're testing at the moment. We'll let you know how they do.

The one KEY that we have missed before in our efforts for our artists (even though we've pointed it out in other posts!) is to use YouTube as a social network. The younger you are the more you probably do this (that's what the demographics show) but most don't. What does that mean? - well, add friends, ask them to subscribe, create favourites and get liking videos (and ask for likes back).

All that interactivity seriously boosts your channel and videos inside YouTube's ranking algorithm - more so if you can get views, comments, favourites and likes within the first 48 hours of uploading. This is a GREAT thing to ask your fans to do for you by emailing them and asking them to log in to YouTube and watch the video and favourite it, comment on it or like it.

This MASSIVELY increases your chances to appear in the 'recommended' or 'related' video lists which in turn exposes you to a wider audience.

We're trying to test how well this works - and it looks good - and we have a few other tips that we hope will make these 'best practice' approaches work even better.

It's also becoming clear that having your video embedded off YouTube on third party sites is a BIG deal to YouTube and proves that your video is hot - and hence they want to encourage more people to see it. Again, getting your video embedded on other people's blogs as soon as possible after you upload it becomes a marketing goal.

So, if and when we get some specific feedback from our own efforts, we'll let you know.

In the meantime, as I said at the top - I came across this post again in my search for tips.

It has some great basic tips that you MUST be using. Check it out here.

And here's the video from one of those tips. We've only just started adding this to our videos, but it works in a big way! An annotation that links directly to the 'subscribe' button for your channel. This video shows the old layout, but it explains it well. I'd recommend adding a 'Subscribe to us for more videos' annotation to every video you have on YouTube.

It WILL increase your subscriptions and that will help your YouTube marketing. Best tip - have the subscription come up at least twice, maybe three times. First time after 20 sconds or so, second time just after half way and thirdly, right at the end as the video ends.

What does an A&R guy do?

Really, this is what it's like......

Monday 5 December 2011

Hack your hit!

We've written about Jay Frank before.

He has written the definitive take on the data that drives hit songs - their length, subject matter, structure etc.

He's about to release another take on this entitled 'Hack your hit' in January 2012.

For now, in this interview with Topspin's Ian Rogers he talks about hs new model label but also reveals some of his data secrets on how to craft a hit!

Podcasting for musicians

I was talking to a musician a week ago about how he was going to focus attention on his solo career since he was about to move on from a band in which he felt he was doing all the work.

One of the things we talked about was creating a blog that centred around the scene he is in - either a local scene that covers all types of music played by local bands or a global scene defined by genre.

The blog would talk about that scene and he would be seen as a leader and have a platform to talk about his own music and to place it into the context of the genre / local scene.

I think this is a very powerful way for any musician to build an audience - and we wrote about it here - Why musicians should be bloggers.

Then we talked about adding podcasting to that blog.

Podcasting is a way bigger challenge than simple blogging but it is also a whole other way that people can discover you and your music.

The same idea of centring the podcast around a scene applies but this time you're doing it as an audio podcast that people can get from your site, or, crucially iTunes.

Make it good and people will discover you and you will build an audience.

I'd go as far as to say that any DIY musician (whose music is up to scratch) can build an audience by making themselves the centre of attention in a specific niche by using a blog, YouTube, Twitter and podcasting.

There's a great article on the basics of podcasting here.

And the man who knows everything there is to know about podcasting is known as Podcast Answer Man and he has six free video lessons that cover the basics here.

The first one is below.

Friday 2 December 2011

Musician Specific QR Codes

ShareSquare isn't just another company blooming in the wake of the QR Code phenomenon.

I hope that you're not a QR Code naysayer - the statistics show that the understanding and use of them is exploding.

Every musician needs to use them where appropriate.

What I like about ShareSquare is that they are focused on musicians and artists and their system isn't just a QR code creator - it also has a CMS (content management system) that allows you to create a mobile optimised HTML5 app.

That means that you can link the QR code to something specifically designed to show your content on a mobile and get your fans to take a specific action. You also get amazing tracking info and very customisable apps.

There's a free trial that might well be worth giving a go but then the lowest price is $99 per month so it is not for all. The free trial has to be worth a go when you have a big gig coming up though!

That said, you can learn a HUGE amount about music marketing on mobiles and with QR codes just by reading all their tutorial info here.

Thursday 1 December 2011

Facebook Marketing Guide...and more!

Facebook_marketing_guide
Another one!

We've tipped you off about a bunch of 'how to' guides for Facebook in the past, so why another one?

Well, this Facebook marketing guide from MakeUseOf is good, simple to follow and covers the basics. It's not completley up to date and it's written for business rather then musicians, but it's worth reading to broaden your skills of spreading the word on Facebook.

I look at all these free guides as a way to pick up a few tips. I'm not always looking to get the definitive guide in one place (we're saving that for when we get time to write a guide or two!).

And, on this page at MakeUseOf you'll find LOADS of free pdf guides on various things that are really useful skills for the DIY muciaicn. You have to give them your email to download the guides but then you get a password that gives you access to all of them.

They include guides on the following topics:

How to build a Wordpress site - very useful skill!

How to use Google Apps and Gmail - proper use of this is a great way for a band to manage their communications and diaries etc.

How to use Dropbox.

Recording with GarageBand.

How to use Twitter.

So, loads of great stuff. Can't believe that I hadn't ever found it before!

Here's the Facebook Guide again.

And here's the page with all their free guides on it.

 

Thursday 24 November 2011

How to get your music in a movie!

I just stole the first video to get your attention - but if you go here you'll find 7 videos of music supervisors telling you all the stuff you want to know about getting your music used in movies.

These folks are the ones that have done the music synchronisation for some massive films and the clips are from the New Mexico Music in Fim summit 2010.

This is very valuable stuff!

Go and watch or bookmark the whole lot here.

QR Codes Primer

QR Code use is really taking off.

Don't know what a QR code is? It's those square odd looking boxes of pixels that you see on posters, packaging - all over the place now. It stands for 'Quick Response' code and once scanned with a scanner on a smartphone it will transmit information or open a webpage.

Powerful stuff and, despite some naysayers, the recognition and use of QR codes is growing exponentially.

I think they are now something that every musician should be using to send fans to their website, to a mailing list sign-up form, to run a special competition etc.

This post from Aweber has a great basic guide.

Through the magic of QR codes, consumers can interact with your brand in unexpected places. Mobile web means they can explore your content away from their home computer.

That’s why QR codes make the most sense in print – on billboards, stickers, fliers, signs, business cards, in magazines, anywhere people might see them on the go. The point is to drive them to your mobile site to make a purchase, join your mailing list, download a coupon, find out more about your business or something else that makes their interaction with you easy and enjoyable.

Read it here.

As a bit of inspiration, look at this very clever Christmas promotion that JC Penney are using - a customer records a personal message to the person they are giving a gift to and they can scan it and hear the message as they open the gift.

Imagine doing that with a personal message from the band as a tier offer on your fan funding project for your next album.

How to be EVERYWHERE

This video is a run through of Pat Flynn's Blog World presentation.

His original post with links to the things he mentions is here.

Follow Pat on Twitter here.

Pat is a well known marketer online who has created a very large audience for himself through his open and honest marketing methods.

He talks about how to promote a blog or products online, but what he says can be applied to promoting music pretty much wholesale.

In this video he talks about the three biggest ways that his blog has been discovered and where the majority of his followers come from.

And they are:

iTunes (because of his podcast);

YouTube;

Links from other blogs

Although the concept of creating valuable useful content that applies to bloggers who teach something (how to blog, how to surf, what's the best camera etc, etc) isn't 100% applicable to how you can spread your music and your brand as a musician, there are many lessons in here that you can adapt.

Podcasting is a great way to get your fans in tune with you, your tastes and your music - an effective way to bring your tribe (as Seth Godin calls them) closer to you. Those podcasts can be about your music and what's happening with your band and career but they can also be about the wider world of music - with elements that relate to your music.

And, as we said in this post - Why musicians should be bloggers - there is a MASSIVE opportunity for musicians to place themselves at the centre of a niche, genre or scene by becoming the authority blog on that particular scene. The strategies that Pat talks about here are then very useful for building an audience.

In short, every musician trying to get noticed should be looking to get a presence in places where there are huge numbers of people looking for music and info/news about music - YouTube, blogs and iTunes are obvious places for that.

Watch and you will get some great ideas!

 

Wednesday 23 November 2011

Wordpress, SEO and your music website

This is a great video about how to make the right Search Engine Optimisation choices for your website.

If you don't yet have a website to promote your music, you are living in the dark ages.

Admittedly, this video is some pretty detailed information on how marketers set up their websites to make sure that they rank in Google (and other search engines) for the keywords they want to rank for.

It makes sense for every band to aim to do the same.

If this is all new to you, the very knowledgeable Michael Brandvold and Brian Thompson are running a webinar on How to use Wordpress for your Website in a few weeks time.

It will be great.

Here's the video for the SEO geeks:

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Facebook Music Page upgrades from FanBridge

The dedicated 'Music Page' on your band's Facebook Page is becoming a 'must-have'.

We've written before about RootMusic's BandPage and FanBridge's DamntheRadio, but the latter one has just really upped it's game with the introduction of the Partner Ecosystem.

This is just a fancy term for the fact that you can now plug in loads of apps from other services that you might already be using, such as SongKick for gig dates and tickets, Topspin for music sales, IndieGoGo & Pledge Music for fan funding - and loads more.

This makes DamntheRadio a very flexible choice for your Music Page.

Check it out here.

And this is an example of how easy it is to integrate Topspin.

Monday 21 November 2011

Why D2F?

Why D2F?

Well, because building your fanbase through direct means is both long-lasting and rewarding for both the fan and the artist, but, crucially it is now a reality for every artist with access to the web....

...i.e. everyone.

This seismic shift in how to reach your audience and keep them close is discussed in this very good video.

You can see the original post at the Midem Blog here.

Thursday 17 November 2011

Google Music DIY Artist Hub

Gamechanger?

People who write about the music industry love that word. They use it all the time and apply it to every new disruptive idea.

But, this time they could be right.

The big news for most folks about today's launch of Google Music is all about the service for music consumers - the unlimited cloud storage, the download store, the social sharing.

And it's a big deal - can they catch iTunes? - we'll see.

But the part that is potentially truly disruptive and amazing for the average DIY musician is the 'Artist Hub'.

This allows every DIY musician to have a direct relationship with Google, to upload and sell songs through Google on an Artist Page.

Build your artist page, set your own prices and sell your material. Google Music users can play their music purchases instantly on any device.

This is THE BIG DEAL.

People are already complaining that Google are just copying Bandcamp or CD Baby - and they are to a degree. But having the biggest (the behemoth) company of online services and seacrh offering to host your music store and hub could be a massive win for the DIY musician.

You cannot deal direct with iTunes as a DIY artist, but you now can with Google.

You can also tie your Google Music hub to your YouTube channel - the de facto place for music search. That is very smart integration.

A $25 set up fee and a 30% cut to Google is comparable to Tunecore, but is of course an additional expense for artists as they will still need to use a digital distributor to reach other services such as iTunes.

Only available in the US for artists but with a global roll out close behind, this is big news.

The Google Music Artist page is here.

And this Digital Music News article is worth reading.

 

 

Wednesday 16 November 2011

The Tanning Effect

I'd like this post to send you off to read about the topic elsewhere! The topic being how hip-hop has affected all mainstream culture in the last 25 years and what that means for how you market products (including music).

And, this doesn't just mean how you market hip-hop. It's an exploration of how mindsets, attitudes, clothing and music - of all styles and genres - have been affected.

The starting point is a book called 'The Tanning Of America: How the Culture of Hip-Hop Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy' by a very smart markeing guy, Steve Stoute.

Read this Huffington Post introduction which has this extract from his book:

Yes, it's true that in the past the idea of pushing brands would have been seen as inauthentic, or something you did after your career peaked, or as some kind of selling out. But no longer. Why not? Why wasn't it selling out for rappers to embrace and promote Versace when it would have been seen that way for rock 'n' roll and R&B icons or pop superstars? Well, one reason, as we saw with "My Adidas," was that it's not a sellout when it's authentic to your taste and style anyway and you're already doing product placement for free. It was part of the art and far from selling out; Andy Warhol proved that when he painted iconic pop art portraits of products like Campbell's soup cans, paying homage to one of the most classic, enduring American brands ever.

When I asked Jay-Z for his insights, he pointed out that many of the rock musicians had come from sustainable backgrounds, seeking acclaim for their talent and a level of cool that playing music gave them. For rappers coming out of the projects, getting paid and bettering yourself is part of gaining credibility. Jay reminded me also that it's not selling out when a kid in the projects sees a guy rapping about Sprite or the Gap because they know he'll be getting the money and that feeds his or her own aspiration. It's not that being acknowledged for talent and great work isn't desirable, but getting paid trumps those goals. I agree. I don't think many hip-hop fans ever subscribed to the concept of selling out, not when you come from nothing and a deal can become part of your rags-to-riches success story.

And watch the video above of him interviewing Jay-Z.

Steve Stoute can be found interviewing Jay-Z further as well as Jimmy Iovine and others here. Well worth it.

And, go and have a look at how Stoute has used his understanding to market mainstream brands in a way that speaks authentically to the target audience.

You can see his company's campaigns here.

And read this interview where he distills his thinking.

There's plenty to learn here!

Tuesday 15 November 2011

Direct to Fan - Inside Information!

This video is great.

It's a panel from lat year's Midem convention which is a group discussion between 5 people who are very involved in the DIY musician and direct-to-fan worlds.

There's loads of great ideas and facts in the video and it's worth watching the whole thing.

At its core the message is that if you are creating quality content starting with your music, and if you let your fans share it, they will. The music must be great, and then you need a LOT of other 'content' - photos, videos, remixes....whatever - and then deal with your fans direct.

If you DON'T understand this, you will make your chances of success much, much lower.

Build a community of people that care and build from that point!

7 tips to maximise shares on Facebook

Social-network-flow-chart
I could've just tweeted this, but I know I'll be coming back to it many times and it's easier to bookmark if I post it here!

7 great insights into what makes a post on Facebook get shared.

As Mari says there is a shift from 'Likes' to 'Shares' - don't freak out, 'Likes' are still very important as they are social proof but Facebook users are clearly getting used to sharing posts to their walls.

Facebook recently changed the way users interact with content on fan pages: any user, including non-fans, can now post on fan page walls and like/comment/share fan page content. In other words, a Facebook user does not have to first like your fan page before they can interact with your content. This is a good thing!

Since this change, the emphasis has shifted slightly from gaining more likes (fans) to increasing the number of shares on each piece of content. When you craft your fan page updates in a manner that naturally inspires fans and their friends and visitors to your page to share with their networks, you set in motion ripples of viral visibility. Basically, free additional exposure.

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been observing which posts from fan pages and from personal profiles (with Subscribe enabled) garner the largest amount of shares. I also recently asked my Facebook fans and friends for examples of great posts with large numbers of shares. Following are seven tips I’ve compiled for you that seem to help create the most shares:

Read the 7 tips here.

I've pointed this out before but to see this work for an artist just go and look at the wall of Stanton Warriors here - they do a great job of engaging their fans with photos, videos, chat and snippets of their life as working DJ/producers - http://www.facebook.com/stantonwarriors

Monday 14 November 2011

Passion and Persistence

Passion_and_persistence

Image by woodleywonderworks

We have unwittingly had a theme in two of the last three posts on the main site:

Is my music good enough?

Never Give Up

Although the article that this post links to is about productivity (and it's very long - 6000 words or so), it's also very close to that theme we've been writing about - whether you have the passion and persistence to commit yourself to what you hope to acheive. Will you learn how to improve your material and will you keep going relentlessly?

Have you got the passion and persistence that you MUST have if you're going to get there?

I'd recommend that you find the time to read it - the central message is very well put and ought to make you consider whether you're going about your music career the right way.

Please read the whole thing here.

Here's one section that I found particularly good - I hope the author doesn't mind me clipping such a big chunk, but it ought to make you want to read the rest!:

Myelin, neurologists have recently discovered, is basically the key to all human talking, reading and learning skills. If you view every human movement or thought as an electrical impulse travelling through a circuit of neurons, then think of myelin like the insulation which wraps around these fibres and increases their signal strength. “The more we fire a particular circuit, the more myelin optimizes that circuit, and the stronger, faster, and more fluent our moments and thoughts become” recaps Coyle.

He then looks at research by Simon Clifford into why South America (specifically Brazil) is a hotbed for footballing talent. His findings showed that the popular way of playing football there, known as Futebol de Salão, had a big influence. The game is played on a small court and uses a ball that is half the size of a regular football yet weighs twice as much, so rarely bounces.

A study by the University of Liverpool found that Futebol de Salão players touch the ball six times more per minute than people training with a normal ball on a regular pitch. Futebol de Salão players were able to wrap their football talent circuits in more myelin over a shorter period of time. It also meant that when they played on a full-sized pitch, players felt like they had “acres of space”.

The book also highlights the story of the Brontë sisters, and their love for character creation and writing short stories as children just to keep themselves entertained. Juliet Barker, a six year curator at the Brontë Parsonage Museum revealed that the sisters wrote “twenty-two little books averaging eighty pages each in one fifteen-month period”. That’s a lot of writing.

Coyle once again links this back to Myelin, noting his belief that the sisters’ talent was developed through little more than constant practice. To add even more legs to that theory, Barker says that “The first little books weren’t just amateurish – a given, since their authors were so young – they lacked any signs of incipient genius. Far from original creations, they were bald imitations of magazine articles and books of the day.”

Many of you will know that Charlotte Brontë went on to write literature classic Jane Eyre with her sister Emily producing another, Wuthering Heights.

Coyle comes to the conclusion that passion and persistence are the key ingredients of talent and success. Why? “Because wrapping myelin around a big circuit requires immense energy and time. If you don’t love it, you’ll never work hard enough to be great.”

Do go and read the whole article here.

Friday 11 November 2011

Facebook Music Page from Nimbit

Facebook_music_page
Nimbit have added to their exisiting 'Storefront' (myStore) Facebook app to make it a really good option as the hub of your presence on Facebook.

Nimbit is a good option for driving all your direct to fan efforts and realistically you'd only use this as your Facebook Music page if you were using Nimbit for all it's functions - but this alone might persuade you to do just that.

The update is a feature called 'Spotlight' which gives you a customisable are on the first tab of the app. Of course, it's also directly integrated to the sales platform on Nimbit.

Well worth a look.

Thursday 10 November 2011

Click to Tweet - great new Twitter service

Clicktotweet
If you want to get more people to see a particular post on your website or to buy tickets or take some specific action, you want that message to spread to as many people as possible.

This new service, Click to Tweet, enables you to create a pre-written tweet for people to click on. This will open their Twitter account with your message prepopulated with your Tweet.

So, you can email all the people on your fan list (you do have one of those right?) or put the Tweet in a short post on your site or your Tumblr and specifically ask people to click it and spread the word.

Here's an example:

Please click this to Tweet about our latest post on How to promote your music on Spotify -

http://clicktotweet.com/wev2i

Of course, you could change the text in that link to 'Please click to Tweet about this' or similar.

When clicked, it'll open your Twitter account and have this Tweet ready to go - "Great piece on how to use Spotify to actually promote your music - http://ow.ly/7oQUc".

Please do so we can see how well it works!

As a way of encouraging people to spread the word I expect to see this be very effective.

Use Click to Tweet here.

Getting Signed

Simple post - these TruSound videos are awesome.

And, scary as it is to the true DIY musician, over 70% of artists STILL want to get signed - these very succesful artists and execs talk about how that happens!

Wednesday 9 November 2011

How to leverage LinkedIn

Linkedin_for_musicians
We have a post on using LinkedIn as a musician - it's got some good ideas about why & how musicians can use LinkedIn to further their careers.

I was reminded of it when I came across this free pdf today. It's written for general business marketing but since it's very much a basic intro to LinkedIn it's usable by anyone, such as musicians!

Topics covered include how to set up a LinkedIn profile properly, using Groups and Best Answers to get noticed and connect with people and proper use of Recommendations.

Well worth a read - sign-up required.

Tuesday 8 November 2011

Google launchs G+ Fan Pages

We owe our old chum @Buzzsonic for spotting this slideshow.

Google has announcd Busines Pages for Google+, meaning that you can now set one up for your band, label, or other music enterprise.

I'll be doing this when I have a nano-seond to spare.

Manwhile the slideshow has the goodies.

and there's a good piece from Zdnet on the launch here.

How to build an artist website...and profit from cover songs!

How_to_build_a_website
Two separate things, entirely.

I'm very proud of this little gem that we unearthed today as it has two truly brilliant articles in it that every musician should read.

It's a monthly bulletin pdf from the UK's independent music organisation, AIM, and in it there's a bunch of stuff.

But, the two things that are bang on for indie and DIY musicians are:

How to build an artist website - by Tony Morley who runs The Leaf Label. This guy has loads of artists that he works with and has seen a lot of artist websites, so he knows what works. This is a BRILLIANT article that covers everything that you need to know about building your artist website. PLEASE READ THIS! Tony also covers the other basics you should be thinking about - Facebook, Twitter etc (he gives our Twitter for Musicians guide a nice nod - thanks Tony!).

A guide to making money from cover songs - by Alex Holz at RightsFlow. Another great article that looks at ways that covers can attract attention and make you money.

There are also other bits and bobs in this 22 page pdf. GET IT here.

 

Friday 4 November 2011

How to promote your music on Spotify

Promote_music_spotify
I have had a couple of things that I needed to sort out for artists that I work with relating to their presence on Spotify, so I ended up writing this piece on the main site on 'How to promote music on Spotify'.

Read it there!

 

Wednesday 2 November 2011

10 steps to music success

Tensteps
This is a brilliant 'must-read' post from Emmanuel LeGrand in which he sums up the thoughts of many very successful web 2.0 savvy music indsutry people on how to make yourself a success in the modern music world.

It ends up being a 10 step method which talks about creating great music, connecting with fans, collecting email addresses and so on.

At it's core it has this message which applies today as much as it did 30 years ago:

In the mid-80s, Island Records – then still independent and owned by Chris Blackwell – sent to all its affiliates around the world a poster which showed a colourful drawing of an island with a coconut tree surrounded by the sea. The tag line was: “A terrible thing happens when you don't promote...” The answer came in the form of one word in very small font size: “…nothing!”

Read the whole post here.

Tuesday 1 November 2011

Whales & Baby whales want to give you their money

Las_veags_whale
Whales & Baby whales - terms from the gambling world to refer to big spenders - are, according to this article, responsible for as much as 50% percent of the income where a business model begins with a free option (such as online social gaming).

@Lefsetz pointed this out in an email yesterday:

When you employ a freemium model, a small percentage of your customers will generate a significant part of your revenue. This is why you must offer expensive tickets and merchandise for these diehard fans.

...which he got from this article on allthingsd - a must read for it's views on where the music industry is going in terms of how an artist will earn an income - not from selling recorded music in the long term is the conclusion!

And that's why the freemium model to build a mailing list of fans with whom you engage continually (rather than in an album cycle) will allow you to offer your 'whale' fans music experiences that will form a large chunk of your income.

That article link again.

Monday 31 October 2011

Phygital Qr Codes

Shazam_qr_code
I'm a big fan of QR codes and I really think that they will become increasingly widespread.

We like to make one, create a poster with a simple and obvious call to action (e.g. 'Scan the QR code to sign up to XXXXX mailing list and get a free EP straight to your phone' or similar) and post it at gigs with the link being straight to the sign-up form on the artist's site.

Works a treat!

I saw this company's QR codes as a result of @Buzzsonic posting a link to their greetings cards - which are great.

But, I love their 'phygital' codes such as the one above for the Shazam app, where they manipulate the code using images rather than the standard black and white - which I think makes a big difference and entices people to scan the code.

Plus they look cooler.

Check out Stupid Creative and their phygital QR Codes here.

Friday 28 October 2011

How to get noticed!

I've been posting a lot of these videos from TruSound because they are compiled from interviews with people who've made it in the music biz.

That doesn't mean that what they say is gospel but it does mean you should listen to what they say and give it a chance before deciding whether to act on their advice or discard it.

This one's great - all about getting noticed. A lot of it is old school and not about online profile, but that aside, what they do talk about is really good.

The one thing many of them ARE talking about is how they created their own scene, starting local and building their visibility in that little niche. This creates the start of a following and fanbase which itslf can become the foundation to build from.

Listen to the guy from Godsmack at 4.30 saying that he and his band focused on a 60 mile area around their home town and they would be at every show (local band or national band passing through) that fit their genre and they'd network and flyer like crazy. Old school networking and promotion that works.

Bottom line - get your music straight, then work your ass off, play shows, flyer, network and build a buzz locally. That buzz will be noticed. Go from there!

Thursday 27 October 2011

6 ways to fail promoting music online

Fail_promoting_music
I have spent well over an hour today reading the two posts that this post on Hypebot links to. Re-reading, in fact, in the case of the first one as I'd seen it when Chris De Line posted it in April.

It was time well spent.

And then I left a 500 word comment on the latest one, which I have reproduced below as I don't want it lost in the mists of time. I think it's important.

The post on Culture Bully is excellent and points out some extremely important things that musicians do wrong when promoting themselves online.

I think everyone should read it.

How to fail at promoting music online

And here's the link to the first post.

Music bloggers are nice people if you give us a chance.

And, lastly, here's my long comment that sums up my view.

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

Chris

I disagree about your point on the effectiveness of artists promoting themselves to blogs.

I recommend it to artists but with significant caveats, most of which line up with your points.

I've been on both sides of the fence as a blogger, and a manager and someone looking for PR for my artists.

In my experience the modern online marketing of music can be enhanced by intelligent promotion to music blogs.

But, the key is to have great music!

The problem you and every other blogger has is that 99% of what you are sent is crap. People don't tell these 'artists' that they are not 'good enough' and that they need to spend time perfecting their art before spamming every blog known to man looking for a break.

When their music is worth a moment of someone's attention and then a positive emotional response, they will find it easy to attract online attention.

This can and should be done in a systematic way with targeted blog promotion being one strand.

I encourage artists who do have material that is ready for wider attention to start with lower traffic blogs and ones that are not just about music (local sites, what's on, demographically related - e.g. skate sites if you make skater music).

DO personalize as you said.

But, often, don't email at all. Just read the blog, leave comments and be part of the community around that blog.

Every blogger I know reads their comments and so notices those from an artist and checks out their site (if they've linked it in the comment). If the music is good, often a blogger then approaches the artists and offers to cover them.

Do you have this experience?

Why focus on low traffic blogs? - because it's all incremental.

For the DIY musician the journey to sustainability of a career or superstardom (whichever is their aim) is about a growing process done in public which attracts fans over time.

To target high traffic 'name' blogs with your first EP is to welcome rejection and feelings of failure.

Start small and leverage your presence on a raft of smaller niche blogs over the time that you and your career develop.

This is a strategy that does work and is a very good reason why artists should bother to spend time cultivating a select band of blogs who may form a supportive base for the next step in their efforts.

How many? I'd look at any stage of an artist's career to be interacting on 100 or so tightly focused blogs (i.e. that are musically, genre and demographic appropriate). Some might think that's hard to do in terms of time or too much.

But, if you're a musician and in a scene, shouldn't you want to be involved in it, online and offline? I don't see why people would see contributing to their scene and getting promotion from it and within it as a chore.

Done right, reaching out to blogs works for musicians.

 

Wednesday 26 October 2011

Tumblr Time

Tumblr
You need your own website - fact.

But, you might also benefit from a Tumblr site.

Less formal, a place where you can post thoughts, photos, inspiration, random stuff.

I'd still have a sign up form that goes to your same mailing list system (Aweber if you need help deciding!) on your Tumblr though!

You might be reading this on our Tumblr site - the way we use it is OK. It suits our purpose of quick posts pretty much every day (and we save our main site for larger, deeper posts), but it's not really best practice.

Still, people check it out....a lot.

You can make your Tumblr as simple or as complicated as you like. It can be styled or left very plain. The added advantage is that there is a community on Tumblr just like Twitter and Facebook and they reblog posts avidly - so it's genuinely a way that people can discover you and your music.

This piece in Billboard lists 30 great music Tumblr sites that will give you plenty of inspiration.

If you think it's worth adding to your network I'd recommend posting a little something about your life and how that fits with you being a musician at least once a day, saving deeper content posts for your main site, posting there maybe once a week.

That's a general 'rule of thumb'.

Here's the Billboard list again.

Tuesday 25 October 2011

The modern musician NEEDS time

Artists_need_time
I could've titled this post in a number of ways and actually deleted and changed he title a few times.

I don't normally do that, but I hoped to attract attention and make people take the time to read the article it links to, because it encapsulates the whole truth about what being a musician is all about today....and it's written in business management speak by a non-music industry writer!

But it's EXCELLENT. Read it here.

Smart managers realize every artist is a standalone business that generates income from multiple revenue streams. A manager's job is to create those businesses and run them well. This requires thinking globally and being agnostic about which revenue stream or territory is the most important. As long as those channels can deliver the aesthetic the artist wants and make a profit, the business is a success.

But the business of relationship building is not a quick one. Artists have to earn the respect of fans, convert that respect into trust, and, eventually, convert that trust into faith. Building communities takes time, and it can only be achieved over the long-term. In this model, artists can no longer be treated as interchangeable hit makers.

This writer understands the turning point we are at.

Make your music, work hard to be as good as you can be, put it out there and grow and develop in sight of and with help from your fans. They will come along with you.

The second KEY lesson in this article is:

Value the artist-fan relationship as highly as traditional rights.

i.e. don't just make music and try to sell records. The value is in the long-term relationship with your fans - and that's not just a monetary value, it's artistic, cultural and emotional as well.

Those fans will sustain you for a far longer period (including fiancially) if you treat them properly and maintain that relationship.

Read the whole thing here....please.

SEO for bands

Seo_for_bands
We made a video on band website seo - which, in my own humble opinion, is really good.

We often talk about the need for bands and musicians to discover at least the basics of search engine optimisation so that they can attract more traffic to their site.

More traffic = more fans = more sales. The post on our site proves the point with data.

I was reminded of our post by this one from Prescription PR which is methodical and detailed yet easy to follow.

Search engine optimisation (or, for you acronym-loving hipsters, SEO) is a hot topic for any business; appearing in the top 3 results for a particular search query can mean the difference between loads of clients and none. But is it any use to bands and musicians? Well, yes. For two reasons:

  • Firstly, you need people who like your music to be able to find your website when they search for you (and quite possibly, you want it to appear ahead of any Myspace pages, Facebook pages etc.)
  • Secondly, you want people who might like the kind of music you make (for example, Nu-metal-Dubstep-Shoegaze-Emo-Chillwave or whatever the latest bollox is popular in Shoreditch) to come across you when they search for your band.

It's well worth a read.

And, just to round it off, this is an older post that I have bookmarked and still refer to as it approachs the issue of seo from the 'what not to do' angle.

 

Thursday 20 October 2011

Even major labels understand the need for the artist website!

Artist_site_hub
There's loads of stuff in this article that you should check out as it's major label digital music marketing people telling you what they do!

But, for me, this was key:

Snowden said he thinks of fans acquired through a Facebook page or Twitter profile as being at the beginning of the process. Ultimately, he wants to bring those people to the artist's website, get them to join a community there, and become a customer who buys CDs or digital downloads.

If even the majors get it, you should to.

Read the whole article here.

If you don't have your own artist website at the hub of what you do, fix it!

Exactly what makes a hit song today?

Hit_song_data
This is brilliant and scary at the same time.

Might be that the very last thing you want as a DIY musician is a so-called 'formula' for a hit.

There are many other factors causing you to be a musician and pursuit of pop fame may well not be amongst them.

Good for you.

But, people, such as Jay Frank whose work I love, are putting songs under the microscope and working out what they can about how measurable factors affect their hit potential.

This may miss the point as far as lyrical, musical and emotional nuance is concerned but at the very least this data tells you what radio wants to play and therefore make a hit.

Read Jay's book - Future Hit DNA - and check out this post about the latest US data for this year.

Here's some of their up to the minute conclusions:

  • The current song length average is 3:51.
  • The current intro length average is 0:13.
  • The average time that it takes for the first chorus to hit in top 10 hit Pop songs is 0:39.  This number has been stable over the last two quarters.
  • Love/relationship themed songs have been in a steep decline since Q3-2010 (where they accounted for 63% of all songs), and now account for just 17% of all top 10 hit Pop songs. Hooking up themed songs have been on the rise since Q3-2010, and how account for the majority of top 10 hit Pop songs at 38%.  Inspirational themed songs have also been seeing a steady increase in number, climbing form 0% of songs in Q3-2010 to a now second place 25% of songs in Q2-2011.

I'd maintain that 'hooking up' is essentially the same subject material as 'love', but you get the point!

Read the whole thing here.

 

 

 

Great Songwriters

There's lots of little gems of advice in this piece from the Guardian where 5 songwriters pick their own favourite songwriter.

In each case there's a bit about what they think makes the other great - technique, subject matter, etc.

For example, Dianne Warren on Paul McCartney:

As a songwriter you need a gift for melody, and for saying something you've heard a million times in a different way. There are only so many notes and ideas, but you twist it and turn it and make it new, by the chords or melodies or a weird key change. In just a few years, the Beatles created this genius body of work, and those songs will never go away.

Well worth a read.

Wednesday 19 October 2011

How to promote your event

Promote_event

Image by TheArches

I just came across this great site - Digital DJ Tips - written by a British DJ with years of experience.

A lot of the posts are technical and about making club records, DJ'ing and the like, but equally lots are about wider music making and music promoting issues - and the content is really good.

I spent hours wandering about reading stuff and you probably will too.

I could've chosen anything about music promotion but decided to list this 4 part series on hosting and promoting your own events. Of course, this works especially well for dance music and running a club night, but it can be applied to any genre with some tweaking.

Plus a lot of the promotional principles apply to anything!

How to Promote Events - Part 1

How to Promote Events - Part 2

How to Promote Events - Part 3

How to Promote Events - Part 4

 

 

Tuesday 18 October 2011

YouTube allows stores!

Youtube-store
We went YouTube crazy a while ago - believing that it was the most essential place any musician should have a profile. The traffic is huge and the opportunities enormous.

We're even more convinced now.

And, this latest development adds the ability to sell your wares right on YouTube via integration with various partners such as Topspin.

Through a feature called the Merch Store, YouTube partners will be able to sell artist merchandise, digital downloads, concert tickets and other experiences to fans and visitors. YouTube has partnered with a number of companies to launch these stores. Topspin is helping power merchandise sales, concert tickets and experiences; SongKick will help sell tickets for concerts; and iTunes and Amazon will power transactions for music downloads.

Read about this development on Techcrunch here.

Monday 17 October 2011

What is the future for the DIY musician

Thanks to @AngeliqueSC (again) for sending this to me.

Dave Kusek's presentation on the future of the music business has a disticntly DIY musician bent.

Slides 16 onwards are very applicable to the indie musician and are must-read from 28 onwards!

View more presentations from Dave Kusek

Selling to 4 levels of fans

Fan-purchase-motivations_final

This is a great post from the ReverbNation blog that sets out the nreleatively simple idea of making a tier of products available for different types of fans.

The following illustration is an attempt to visualize four types of fans that buy for different reasons. Any given Artist may have fans in any or all of the buckets, depending on where they are at in their career. You’ll notice that I added a ‘value’ arrow that increases as you go up the illustration. This value arrow is based on a combination of the price each type of fan is willing to pay multiplied by the number of potential fans in each group. Your biggest supporters are willing to pay more than some of the other groups, but there will likely be fewer of them, especially as you tour farther from home.

Check the post here.

Friday 14 October 2011

Link your YouTube videos to your site - BIG deal

Youtube_off_site_link
I recently learnt about this very cool trick and then saw this post on ampmusicmarketing that teaches you how to do it.

This is a BIG DEAL!

We started using this IMMEDIATELY that we found out about it.

The instructions explain how to add a link to the bottom of your video on YouTube which links to your own site.

YouTube lets you do this in the description of a video but the usual on-video annotations can only link to other videos on YouTube.

So, getting a link to your site that offers viewers a free download of the track that they are watching if they sign up to your mailing list is really special.

The instructions are great but they leave out a couple of key points.

1. Don't worry about paying for the clicks. Although this is supposed to be about using Google Adwords and Youtube Promoted Videos together, you don't have to aim to get the video ranking high in YouTube's paid search in order to get the off-site 'call to action' link on your video.

Set it up and bid very low - 1 cent will do it - and you'll be allowed to add the link but you'll get very few, probably no paid clicks and it'll cost nothing.

The video will still show the off-site link everywhere that it is played.

2. This link is better than the link in your description as it will display everywhere that your video is embedded. So, make your video, put the CTA link in and then try to get it spread to other sites where your description wouldn't show, but this CTA link will.

DO THIS, it's brilliant marketing for almost free.

Here's the link again.

 

Tunesat - monitor your music on TV and the internet

Tunesat
We wrote a piece about an amazing radio airplay monitoring service on the main site.

Then I heard about this service, Tunesat, which is a similar service in that it uses audio recognition to track plays of your music, but its focus is on plays that happen on TV and on websites.

As such, it is particularly useful for people whose music is getting used a lot for soundtracks or licensed for synch uses.

Since a lot of use of music for background scenes on TV is covered by blanket licences (in a lot of countries, but not the US) you will often not know when and where your music is being used. Tracking it like this will mean that you can have the data you need to make sure that the collection societies are paying you what you're owed.

Of course, if you're making music for commercials, this service will be especially useful.

It's not free but it is reasonable on a track by track basis.

Check it out here.

Thursday 13 October 2011

Music Blogs are great - but beware the hype

Blog_hype
So, following the previous post about how a blog review can break a band, you also need to watch out about the hype.

There's a new artist breaking through right now called Lana Del Rey - I'll be surpried if you missed the buzz!

Strangely enough, two of my songwriter clients have worked with her and they both think she's the real deal with real talent and vision.

But, that's not the point here.

The point is that in this Pitchfork article there is a very telling paragraph that you need to consider when you head down the route of pitching to and being loved by blogs.

As of 2011, the closest thing we have to MTV's old "buzz bin" is music blogs-- entities with the exact same vested interest in mainstream cool-hunting that your television once had. The only problem is that the people who read, write, and obsess over them are hyper-aware of what a tempting audience they are: They're sensitive to pandering and "fakeness," wary of being used to piggyback toward another audience. Appeal to them successfully, and long arguments about music-industry machinations and "authenticity" are more or less inevitable.

In other words, the bigger the blog, the harder it is to get them to take notice and the more you'll be accused of hype and style over substance if you succeed.

Nothing's ever simple, eh!?

Read the whole thing though as it's got a lot of insight into how an artist can come to attention in the web 2.0 world and also how the imagery and style can help send the mesage that the artist wants to get across.

Blog reviews REALLY make a difference!

I owe this post to @Lefsetz and to @iancr - one mentioned it and the other made it!

It's from Ian Rogers must watch weekly online TV show - This Week in Music - which is geting better all the time.

He's talking to Marc Geiger, web-head, tech bloke and long-time promoter about the power of the music blogs.

At the end, he says, "you can break a band off one review"!

Think it might be worth getting blogs to talk about your music?

Wednesday 12 October 2011

How to use Facebook as a musician - Free Guide

Facebook_music_guide
This is a REALLY good guide from CD Baby on how to set up and use Facebook as a musician.

Not much else to be said other than you'd be foolish if you didn't go and get it.

Here's the guide on CD Baby.

When to send emails to your fans

I got this infographic from the Kissmetrics blog, where you can see it at full size.

It's made for businesses who send email to consumers, but the info is just as valid for musicans.

It can make a MASSIVE difference to how many people open and respond to your emails if you time it right.

Science-of-social-timing-part-2

Tuesday 11 October 2011

Why YouTube, Facebook and Mobile matters to you

I just got these images from a post on Google+ by Mike Stenger.

I hope neither he nor the CEO of Salesforce from whose presentation they are taken are offended!

These images tell you why you need to be promoting and marketing your music on Facebook, YouTube and on mobile.

The Growth of Facebook and YouTube:

Facebook_and_youtube_growth

Facebook and iPhone app growth:

Facebook_and_iphone_apps

The growth of Smartphone use:

Smartphone_growth
The growth in use of Mobile Apps:

Mobile_app_growth

 

 

 

How and where to flyer your show

Flyers_dumped
If you don't want your flyers to end up all over the street like the guys above and to actually bring some people to your shows, then you need to learn the best way to use them.

Chris 'Seth' Jackson has some great ideas in this post.

Usually, bands scatter their fliers across the city. This is wasted paper and money. If you’re going to scatter fliers across the city, don’t do it for a show. Instead, just do it to promote your band’s website and your band’s name. That will get you more mileage.

For maximum effect, you should put the fliers in places close to the club with a lot of foot traffic. Better yet, pick spots where people have to wait like the bus stop. Try outside of other clubs where people smoke. Ask businesses if you can put fliers up in their shop where people have to wait in line.

Read it all here.

Also, you might find Amanda's post about getting a gig useful here.

Sampling - a cautionary tale

Sample_clearance
What was supposed to be a quick comment on a Danish sampling case turned into a pretty complete piece on sampling and what every musician should know!

So if you want my take on sample clearance - get over to the main site!

 

Monday 10 October 2011

More Facebook 'How To' Guides

Facebook_page_guides
Thanks to AngeliqueSC - a social media, digital world pro!

She reminded me that I had posted about the 'How To' guide written by Facebook for musicians to help them (you?) understand how to promote you and your music on Facebook.

It is a MUST read.

But what she pointed out is that there are now a bunch of these guides - for Celebrities, Politicians, Journos etc.

A lot of the content is exactly the same - all the basics on page creation and general best practice - but there's different little tips in each one.

Well worth a look at them all to see what else you can learn about marketing your music on Facebook.

See them all here.

 

Friday 7 October 2011

Making a demo

Here's another good video from TruSound - this time all about making a demo.

What's great about these videos is that the people being interviewed are successful musicians, producers and label execs and they are simply telling it like it is from experience.

This is good quality stuff!

Once you've made the demo, read our thoughts on submitting a demo.

Thursday 6 October 2011

CD Baby's Facebook Music Page

I'm going to keep posting stuff about how musicians should use Facebook despite knowing that in a matter of weeks the introduction of Timeline is going to radically alter the best practice!

We'll deal with it when it happens!

So, for now, CD Baby have rolled out a new tool for all their users which is a way to sell your music (that you have on CD Baby) directly from your Facebook Fan Page.

Great stuff if you use CD Baby, and being able to sell directly from Facebook is going to become increasingly important.

But, I also think that this 'Music Store on Facebook' now needs to be added to your shortlist of music page apps (along with BandPage and damntheradio and ReverbNation's MyBand) as a slick all-in-one way to have all your music activity on one tab.

Well worth a look. Read about it all here.

Future of Music

Future-of-music
Go and read the brilliant presentation by JWT on the future of music in our new post on the main site.

It's full of insight and great ideas that you can use.

Read it here.

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Don't forget about the physical!

[[posterous-content:pid___0]]We all get misled by the digital revolution and end up believing that everyone is happy to have a digital version of music, movie, photos or art.

But, that's clearly not the case.

We are tactile creatures and like to collect physical objects.

There's still a place for physical media.

If you use Topspin and follow their 'rebundling' philosophy, you're used to offering the digital version of a record as the entry level and the enhanced offerings will include physical CD's vinyl, special packaging, merchandise elements etc.

This, as ever, great piece from Prescription PR looks at the need to include physical goods in your offers to fans.

I thought  I’d devote a bit of time this week to underlining something important: that although the digital revolution has in general made the likes of CDs, tapes, minidiscs and records look very obscure, and cheap as chips, paradoxically it has also – in certain contexts - made them look very hip and a potential source of lots of moolah.

Raed the whole thing here.

Monday 3 October 2011

Direct to Fan 4 'The Fans'

Direct_to_fan_4_fans
I just read this piece in the NY Times all about Topspin and how great 'direct to fan' is for artists.

The “direct to fan” connection has existed in various forms since the earliest days of the Web. But musicians and managers say that only in recent years, with the rise of companies like Topspin and its competitors — among them Bandcamp, FanBridge and ReverbNation — have the tools become sophisticated enough to run all aspects of a band’s online business. Among the services are selling tracks, running fan clubs and calculating royalty payments.

Read the whole piece here.

But then I watched this video below of Ian Roger's weekly online TV show and I realised something that I knew, but that I hadn't really realised the true significance of before.

Direct to fan is and needs to be great for your fans as well!

Running your music career with a significant 'direct to fan' element is great for your fans. I know that sounds kind of obvious. I also know that an artist shouldn't look at 'direct to fan' as just a marketing technique to extract dollars from fans - it's an ethic to be applied as much as a way to maximise revenue.

But it's easy to think that you're building a direct pathway to fans and to lose sight of the fact that it's a truly reciprocal relationship. You can't lure fans in with a freemium offer and then just pummel them for cash!

They need to be getting plenty out of the arrangement - the much lauded 'engagement' is important from their side too.

This was highlighted to me in the video at 43.55 and on from there where the guys are talking about the latest Pixies ticket offer offered via Topspin.

The tickets were for shows in California and they sent the offer out to their Topspin hosted email list of those people only in the SoCal area.

BUT, more importantly, they didn't tweet it, didn't do any press releases and embargoed anyone on 'the team' from talking about it.

So, you had to be a Pixies fan to hear about it. The hardcore on their list heard about it and spread the word fan to fan.

The tickets were sold out before the news got past the Pixies fanbase.

And that's how it was supposed to be and should be.

What's my point? Well, just that if you're building a direct to fan part of your business, treat those fans with the utmost respect and consistently give them the chance to be first in line.

Here's that video (see 43.55 for the bit I mention), but the whole thing is great, talking about Facebook, streaming and how it's all going to affect music.

Friday 30 September 2011

Are you going to lose your Facebook Fan Page?

Facebook-secure-browsing
Probably not, but Facebook's change to SSL encryption for Fan Pages tonight is going to make some elements of many Fan Pages disappear.

You need to make sure that yours isn't affected.

Read our post on how to make your Facebook Fan Page SSL secure.

Thursday 29 September 2011

Pay what you want

Pay_what_you_want

Great post from Joy at Grassrootsy.

You read so much stuff about how 'freemium' or 'pay what you want' pricing works for musicians and other creatives, but you don't often see artists (who aren't major label escapees!) prepared to test it and then disseminate their results.

So, it's great to see a post where the artist has done it and passes on their experience.

I am sure you have come across this model recently, artists making their work available for whatever fans want to pay for it.  It has been called by many names (pay what you want, pay what you can, pay what you think it’s worth etc), but they all essentially mean the same thing.  The artist gives the audience the choice as to how much money they spend on the music.

And with this in mind, I come to the main point of this post: using the pay what you want model with merchandise at live shows.  I started doing this over two years ago when I toured around the UK.  I know of a few musicians who do the same now, but have mainly encountered a response of fear when encouraging others to try it.

You can read the whole thing here.

And this is a link to a post that they refer to by Derek Sivers on the same topic.