Todays musicians need to learn just how important of a role the web will play in their bands promotion. You can do an innumerable amount of things to earn your band exposure, collect fans, send out mass notifications, and earn money. Here is a quick getting started guide to a musicians online PR.
First and foremost, get a Myspace Music Page (Unless you already have one). Myspace sets the standard for online band promotions, and will act as your home base. It isn't necessarily the best, but it has the largest number of users, a great amount of customization, and the ability to sell tracks online(which we will cover later). You get a four track limit, unless you befriend a MySpace affiliate, BoDog.net. Make them your friend, and you get a fifth song for your profile.
Second, go to ReverbNation.com, and set up a profile. Reverb Nation is similar to Myspace, except this entire website is dedicated to musicians. Reverb Nation has a plethora of tools available for the online musician. From music players you can spread accross the web with your music, the ability to get on facebook, and a fan reach widget which lets people add themselves to your email list from your web page. They also have a show schedule widget with map and directions to your shows that is much more functional than the myspace tool. Your music will also be available on the Reverb radio, their website's streaming radio station. You also get a complete statistic section to see how many people are playing your music, from where, and a complete age and gender demographic of who is listening to your music, and submitting to your email list. Pricless.
OK, so you have an online prescence, with promotion, and graphs to understand your bands growth. Now, if you have a digital version of your bands logo, and maybe even a catch phrase, take them to the site, www.spreadshirt.com. Spreadshirt offers you a free printing service of t-shirts, hats, bags, underwear, anything. You pay nothing, and you actually earn about a 30% profit off of every item sold, and you are spreading your seed in the digital and real world. Promote your spreadshirt store from your myspace page, and you can sell from your main hub.
Now you can set your tracks up to be sold. There are two major websites that can enable you to sell your tracks, and both differ greatly in their pro's and con's. I suggest you use both, but you decide what works best for you. The first is SnoCap.com. SnoCap is a free service where you uplaod your tracks, create albums, and then have a digital store, capable to be linked with myspace and reverb nation to sell your tracks online. They take a pretty sizeabe commission from each sale (for every .99 song, you make roughly .59), but its more than your making now. Your SnoCap store can be displayed on your myspace page, just under the songs you are allowing to stream.
The other site is TuneCore.com. TuneCore works similar to SnoCap, but doesn't take a comission, and gives you a barcode for your album so it is retail ready. For a small charge your album can be placed in iTunes Music, Windows Media Player Music Database, and RealPlayer. People can also purchase a physical CD, rather than just a downloadable version.
So there you have it. You now have a great head start to an oline enterprise, and your band can start maximizing your success on, and off, the internet. Enjoy!
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Saturday, January 5, 2008
The Music Industry is Killing Itself
The music industry is killing itself with its constant feelings of having to manufacture the next big star. The people running these industries are looking only at their pocketbooks, and missing touch with the one thing that actually matters, the music.
People have completely forgotten the thought of doing something for ideal, rather than its marketability. Musicians get lost in dreams of the limelight, and lose complete focus of why they even began their journey in the first place.
The birth of digital music, on line streaming and downloading, all landed huge blows to the industry. Something they just were not prepared for, and a service that tore the whole entertainment industry apart at the seams.
Similar to the strikes in professional sports, Music stars started demanding more security, more compensation, and fighting their potential loss in profit, and the labels doing just the same. Legal ramifications became a mainstay, and the freedom that so much of our best music stood for, suddenly became lost.
Even some of the independent, outsourced labels are finding it difficult to adapt to these new circumstances standing between them, and the mainstream. Mainly because it is no longer a stream, but an ocean of music and artists associating with countless categories of taste and preference.
With the American public becoming bored with the manufactured success created by big record labels and Television Channels like VH1 and MTV, they are starting to find new places to turn. As well, musicians are finding new and innovative ways to distribute themselves to the masses with the medium created by the Internet.
If the Big 5 labels are going to survive, they will have to utilize new and freedom based ways of enticing artists to work with them, rather than treat them like indentured servants, at the disposal of some corporate suit. When a band can release their music world wide, while retaining rights, and making near 100% profit, it will be difficult to sway someone to the creative blocks created by labels and managers.
A new age of music is being born, as the dust settles from the turn of the century. All we can do, is wait and see who comes out on top of this musical drought we have been instilled in for almost a decade now. Your best bet is to start looking into the cracks of the Internet, and watching who has what it takes to be our savior in these times of darkness.
People have completely forgotten the thought of doing something for ideal, rather than its marketability. Musicians get lost in dreams of the limelight, and lose complete focus of why they even began their journey in the first place.
The birth of digital music, on line streaming and downloading, all landed huge blows to the industry. Something they just were not prepared for, and a service that tore the whole entertainment industry apart at the seams.
Similar to the strikes in professional sports, Music stars started demanding more security, more compensation, and fighting their potential loss in profit, and the labels doing just the same. Legal ramifications became a mainstay, and the freedom that so much of our best music stood for, suddenly became lost.
Even some of the independent, outsourced labels are finding it difficult to adapt to these new circumstances standing between them, and the mainstream. Mainly because it is no longer a stream, but an ocean of music and artists associating with countless categories of taste and preference.
With the American public becoming bored with the manufactured success created by big record labels and Television Channels like VH1 and MTV, they are starting to find new places to turn. As well, musicians are finding new and innovative ways to distribute themselves to the masses with the medium created by the Internet.
If the Big 5 labels are going to survive, they will have to utilize new and freedom based ways of enticing artists to work with them, rather than treat them like indentured servants, at the disposal of some corporate suit. When a band can release their music world wide, while retaining rights, and making near 100% profit, it will be difficult to sway someone to the creative blocks created by labels and managers.
A new age of music is being born, as the dust settles from the turn of the century. All we can do, is wait and see who comes out on top of this musical drought we have been instilled in for almost a decade now. Your best bet is to start looking into the cracks of the Internet, and watching who has what it takes to be our savior in these times of darkness.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Reviewing LuLu.com
In todays entrepreneurial world, everyone has a product to be produced. Thanks to the net, and all of the options now available, there are plenty of ways to produce, promote, and distribute products that you come up with, free. Lulu.com is one of these pages that will hand you the opportunity to do all this, with a simplistic interface, and tons of options, paid and not, to keep you working with your product.Whether you are writing a book, making a CD, or publishing a photography album, LuLu will enable you to keep all of these projects held in one place, and offer you tons of tools to help get the most put of your work. You even get your own website called your Store, simply enough. With your store, all of your products are on display, and people can view a small bio of you, and you can post your contact info.
All of the prices are set by you, and lulu takes a percentage of every item sold. You will make your largest profits working with digital download, because there is no physical product, and you wont have to pay for production, but there is retail space, made to order, or digital options for whatever project you are working on.
If you have something you are developing, or are just not happy with how your current publisher is handling your work, take your career into your own hands. Take advantage of this great service that LuLu is offering, and start your project today!
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