Album release checklist for the DIY musician - success plan!

This kind of post comes up all the time and this latest one from CD Baby listing what you need to do when that huge box of CD's has just been delivered is a good checklist to have to hand.

When your album is finished, your work is only half done; and oftentimes, that first half is the easy part.

Radio promotion, PR, booking, web maintenance, and all the other “business” elements of a music career generally don’t come naturally to artists. But if you can learn to embrace the fact that these tasks NEED to get done in order for anyone to hear your music (and chances are that no one else is going to handle all those things FOR you), then you’ll eventually find a sense of fun and accomplishment in the non-musical chores too!

Not only does it then list 12 steps that you need to go through but it also links to loads of further articles that expand on those steps. This is one worth bookmarking!

Whilst we're on the subject, there's a great pre-release checklist on MusicianWages here and you'll then need to check out Cameron's mind bogglingly good series of posts on everything you need to know about self-releasing an album here. It's awesome!

BUT, and this is CRUCIAL, this is all bollocks unless your album is worth releasing in the first place (read our post here) and you MUST have built a fanbase first - READ this post from Topspin dude Ian Rogers (he really is actually a dude) which is the best one post description of how to build that fanbase that I have ever seen.

I'll be sending endless people who contact me and ask about how they should release their album to read this post - I'd hope you'd bookmark it and refer to it as this is pretty much the plan on how you acheive DIY success!

The Guide to making social video that gets shared

If you're a regular reader, you'll have noticed that the posts have dropped off dramatically since I took up a job at a major management firm - read a bit more about that here - as I simply don't have the same time to pick up on great tips.

As promised, normal service will resume as and when Steve gets on board and I find that extra bit of time to keep this up!

One thing I have had confirmed from the first month back in the mainstream music business is that there really is a level playing field for the DIY musician and what we and the other musician advice bloggers tell musicians is EXACTLY the same stuff that big music marketing agencies charge labels and globally succesful artists loads of money to do.

So, what we're telling you is what works!

Anyway, here's the tip that I've come across today.

This free eBook is called the 'Social Video Blueprint' and it explains what makes a video likely to be shared and therefore likely to get more likes, views and comments.

It's written for brands rather than musicians and some of the specifics don't apply. In fact, there's a lot of general theory in the first two-thirds of the book, but read it all and in the last third you'll find loads of good solid tips and advice that will help you make videos that are more likely to get views.

For musicians part of the message is that you can make a video that seemingly has little to do with your music (as well as making lyric videos, music videos, backstage and live videos etc) and let your music soundtrack be part of the video. If both are good, you can direct some of the viewers on to your music elsewhere.

There's plenty of specific ideas on what type of content works in that context.

In fact, when you sign up for 'Social Video Blueprint' you'll also get 'Video 101', a basic short overview of video marketing that is also extremely worthwhile.

Go and get them here and see what you can learn to apply to your videos.

 

We are all weird - and what that means for musicians!

Success Mag interview, 2012 from Seth Godin on Vimeo.

I got this Seth Godin interview from @Lefsetz who was raving about it.

It's not entirely, or even mainly, about musicians, but it's all about why we do what we do and how that affects how we market stuff and why niches are a place to focus and begin.

I particularly love the line at 11.08 - this repeats what I've written in my post called 'Is my music good enough?'

And it's crucial -"Who are the first people who are in your tribe? Who are your friends, who trust you, who you can tell about your idea? If they don't tell their friends, then it's a lousy idea and you should start over!"

This is the truth about your music - it has to be good enough for people to be desperate to pass it on. If it isn't, go back and work on it some more!

But that's not all. Listen to the whole thing and see how Seth sets out why appealing to a niche means less competition and a raving fanbase. I learnt this from Tommy Silverman of Tommy Boy Records who always argues that every artist breaks out of a niche. So, don't go for the jugular of the mainstream (unless you're overtly pop and have a major label behind you!), but rather focus on a niche, own it and build from that!

There's one more thing too - at the end of the interview where Seth is asked what one piece of advice he'd give to business owners - his response is to start a blog and post every day. Great advice for musicians too!

Learn from Ginger - a fan funding masterclass

This is pretty much the gospel when it comes to how to fan fund a record.

Ginger Wildheart has raised more than 5 times the money he asked for to make a triple album.

Sure, he has history and a fanbase to fall back on, but you should have some kind of active fanbase before you even attempt fan funding. Maybe not as many as Ginger, but the fabled 1,000 fans is a minimum really.

Read the interview with his manager here.

There's a lot I love about the interview:

People love music, they love great bands and they love a great story. The industry is very different than it used to be but in many ways is stacked more in the artist’s favour than ever before. With such a direct line into fans, an artist has complete creative freedom to explore, and at the same time fans also have complete control as to which projects they want to see come into fruition. Its an ideal scenario for both parties.

And then there's his view on what's essential for every artist:

The importance of honing your craft can never be underestimated. There are so many bands that rush to play live and record. It really is a false economy. You only get one chance to make a first impression, so make sure it’s one people won’t forget in a hurry. No amount of tweeting and Facebooking will make up for your band’s miserable live performance!

Read the whole thing as it has general insight for every musician plus great detail on fan funding.

Once you've read that go and watch Ginger's pitch for fan funding and look at how he updated pledgers with almost daily videos (the Activity area at the bottom of his pledge page). I know he has that heritage to rely on, but that didn't stop him doing a great job just to make sure anyway.

A lot to learn here.

 

Remix your favourite songs & sell them, legally

Legitmix Empowers Artists from Legitmix on Vimeo.

Legitmix is a new service, currently in Beta, that allows you to remix or re-edit other people's copyrighted music and sell the remix legally....or at least that's what they claim is the legal position.

I hope they're right, because it's a great idea that sees the orignal artist and the remixer get paid for making something new and might legitimise the world of bootlegs in dance music.

This is what they say:

Legitmix fosters a symbiotic relationship between artists and the copyright holders they sample— and music fans benefit. Artists, producers, and DJs create freely, avoid licensing headaches and profit from the sale of their Legitmix files and the associated source music. Musicians, labels, and publishers get paid when their music is purchased as part of the Legitmix process. Websites receive a commission when they refer sales. Fans get a convenient, legal way to support their favorite artists while building their music collection. Legitmix makes this possible by keeping a percentage from the sale of Legitmix files and source music.

And, I think they're probably right, under US law. The issue might be a bit more murky in other countries where creators have what is known as a 'moral right', but I am asking some UK lawyers to have a look and let me know what they think the position is.

Let's assume for now that Legitmix is right in the advice it has taken and this service survives - what does that mean for you?

Well, primarily for dance music producers, this is a massive opportunity. You will be able to create remixes and re-edits of existing tracks (old classics, current club hits, songs from other genres) and have them available for sale....and, crucially, to promote your name.

We'll let you know what the lawyers say, but hopefully this is an innovation that will shake things up and create new opportunity for budding producers and artists.

Check out their site here.

Why you really need to cultivate relationships with Bloggers

I owe this post to Bob Lefsetz who covered it on his site.

But, it's such an important topic that I thought we should cover it here too!

Read Bob's post for sure, but the really interesting stuff is in the Forbes post that he refers to.

The Forbes article is all about how one writer (but also various others) had enormous boosts in traffic to their websites, spikes in sales and long-term fanbase growth by being mentioned on ONE authority blog.

In the cases talked about, these are what they call 'single author' blogs - and that's a key point. These are blogs where a blogger who has become a trusted source and authority in their 'niche' has a massively engaged following who react to their recommendations.

But, in music, this could easily be describing the leading blogs such as Pitchfork, but equally the leading blogs in much smaller niches. We have regularly mentioned Chris Bracco's eBook that explains how to target these blogs. It's worth $2.99 of anyone's money.

In short, the traditional forms of promotion (radio, TV and press) now regularly have a far smaller effect on building fanbases and sales than the backing of a leading blog or blogger.

Nowhere near enough musicians understand, believe or pursue this opportunity!

Here's the choice quotes from the Forbes piece, but I heartily recommend that you read it all.

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• There’s a big difference between being exposed to a large audience, and being exposed to a comparatively smaller (but still large) audience which is ridiculously passionate.The more effective way is to take a long-term approach. The real misfortune is that nobody else does it. So people will nod and say, ‘Yeah, I should really do that,’ and then they don’t.
• “You want to focus on the idea, ‘I’m going to add value to this person over time.’ The first thing you could do is leave some thoughtful comments on their blog. Next, you could send them some email saying, ‘Hey, that was really great, but I thought you may have missed this one point. Here’s an interesting article with a different perspective on it.’ If you thought it through and did some research, the author will think, ‘Wow, thanks very much!’ and you are not asking for anything."
• “All of a sudden now you’ve differentiated yourself first by adding value. You are not going directly for the kill. Eventually, you could reach out and say, ‘Hey, these are a couple of things I noticed you’re doing that I think that I could help with. I’d love to connect you to this person, etc.’ Then eventually, you can ask, ‘If it’s okay, I just want to ask you for about 60 seconds,’ and ask them about your thing and say, ‘Do you have any advice?’ and ‘Do you think maybe this might be interesting to your audience?"
• “No pressure. One mistake people make is they often have a ‘one shot and done’ attitude about this: ‘If I don’t get my pitch in, and they don’t like it, it’s over.’ Wrong. It’s really about building a relationship over the long-term. Sounds like a lot of work? Good! Because 99% of people will not do that."

Here's the link again.

 

 

 

 

 

Get more fans to your show!

I love learning from people who have tried an approach and then taken the time to write down what they've learned from that real experience.

That's exactly what Seth Jackson does here in his free eBook, 'Get more fans to your shows'.

And it's great.

Seth says:

In the book, I discuss how to get your shows listed everywhere, how to use social media to really engage your fans, and how to attract the media’s attention.

Also included:

• Managing your time to handle social media
• How to use Twitter and blogs to get more attention from the tastemakers
• How to squeeze every opportunity from your current shows
• Simple strategies to engage with your current fans and gain more.
• How to know what will make a show successful for both yourself and the club.

It's a no-brainer - go and get it. Every artist will learn something.