Are your CD sales sluggish? Are you down with digital distribution channels like iTunes, but you want to complement it with something a bit more creative — actually putting something in the hands of your fans? If so, Pittsburgh band Dawn Canon might have an option: USB music distribution. The concept is simple really. Your tracks are put on a…
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Who Controls Your Online Music Sales? Thanks to DirectStereo.com YOU DO!
Sure, you probably sell your music digitially on iTunes or Amazon (or both). But do either really give you enough control? Wouldn’t you like a little more flexibility in setting your MP3 prices? Wouldn’t like a bigger cut of the sale? How about widgets that let you easily sell your music on any website, blog, or service were you can…
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Stealing Jane – Does Size Matter?
What does an 8-man band like NY’s Stealing Jane have that others don’t? My initial reaction was that there’s an obvious benefit for an indie band sans label with so many members – they can all help foot the bill, whether that be for studio time, touring costs, or promotion. Then I thought, hey, I’ve seen bands half that size…
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Fiance on Band Self-Management
As an indie band, should you bring on a band manager to handle your business affairs, or does it make more sense to handle things like promotion, bookings, and recording by yourselves? I talked to Colorado-based Fiancé about their decision to self-manage their band’s business, and whether or not it’s really important to have skills beyond making music to be…
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Fan-Sponsored Music: Two Perspectives
Fan-sponsored music sounds like a great concept, doesn’t it? Thanks to sites like SellaBand and SliceThePie, fans have the opportunity to invest in a band or solo artist, financing the artist’s album (for a cut of the profits – they can even buy and sell their “shares” in a sort of stock market environment). The artist doesn’t have to give…
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Social Media for Musicians
Specializing in online PR, you may think I’d tell you that you have to be everywhere and using everything when it comes to using social media to promote your music. You’d be wrong if you thought that. Social Media Tools for Musicians Before I get into why you shouldn’t worry about trying to use every social media tool you can…
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Do or Die: The Band-Fan Relationship
Recently on my book marketing blog, I talked about why author publicity is more important than book publicity. The same is true in music promotion – the image of the band or artist far outweighs the publicity of any specific album, song, or product, and it relies on the always-important band-fan relationship. Why Build “Relationships” with Fans? The reason I…
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Band Newsletters, Blogs, or Both?
Two common music marketing tools for bands and other independent artists are blogs and newsletters. Given that their purpose is to do essentially the same thing – keep fans up-to-date on your goings on, do you really need to use both? Unfortunately there’s no simple yes-no answer here. While on the surface, they do the same thing, there’s more to…
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Artist Resource: Unsigned.com
Resource: www.Unsigned.com Full Disclosure: The company running Unsigned.com is a past client of mine. The Web gives artists and bands seemingly unlimited resources for promoting your music directly to fans. Unsigned.com is one of those resources you may want to check out. One of the best things? Unlike sites like Myspace where the major label artists encroach on your territory,…
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“Requested Materials” – Really?
I receive a lot of press kits from bands wanting to be featured here (and I’m just talking about print kits – let’s leave online submissions out of this). I hate to think of how many larger sites and print pubs are getting. It’s hard enough sorting through it all, but what really makes me insane is when I get…