Indie Advice
Persistence Leads To Success
Sep2302:00 PM
As an artist you are just like any other entrepreneur, hoping that your passion and talent will lead to a sustaining career. But as with any entrepreneur, simply having a great product isn't enough.
How will people hear of what you have to offer? How will you develop a buzz around your music?
Creating a solid business and marketing plan with a clearly defined goal is the first step. But as you work through your plan and make all of the necessary calls, you'll undoubtedly be confronted with many closed doors and unanswered emails. This is where the majority of bands falter and begin to lose their way. They give up far too early and aren't prepared for the countless hours of working the finished product...your album.
So what sets successful artists and entrepreneurs apart from the rest of the pack? Persistence and perseverance. It may sound like an overused cliche, but it's the truth: Persistence leads to success.
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How To Make Successful YouTube Videos
Sep0411:18 AM
I had a conversation with someone this morning about how to create successful viral vidoes for your band, so I figured I might as well share my thougths with everyone on The Bleeder Blog since it's something that most artists can improve upon.
In a world of expensive marketing and promotion campaigns, creating online video content for your band is a no brainer. It's inexpensive, quick and easy, and more often than not it leads to a source of discovery for new fans.
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Metadata And The Name Of Your Band
Aug0504:46 PM
There's a new, major label Canadian band that just popped up recently, a product of Universal Music Canada and Much Music's "reality show" disBAND, and they're called Stereos. Their name actually sounds kinda cool. It's almost daring, to boldly name yourself after such an archetypical item of pop culture is risky.
Personally, I can't stand the band. Their music makes me angry. They're a young, hipster, tattooed band in skinny jeans and dayglo t-shirts that tries to look rock, yet they sing with a digital vocoder/auto-tuner thing, not unlike all of the poppy hip-hoppers. You know, that damn voice modulation thing, that dreadful device originally brought upon us by Cher (you know the song I'm talking about).
But the point of this post isn't to bash their music or their style (I'll save that for another post). The point I want to bring up and discuss is their name, Stereos, and whether it's a wise choice considering the time we're in, the age of Web 3.0?
The Online Artist Report Card
Jun1708:48 AM
Some of the things I discover online are far too important to just send a quick little tweet about, and this is one of them. In today's world of Web 2.0 and the development of independent artists, what you do in the online world is quite possibly the single most important aspect of your career.
Are you hunkering down at the computer every day, connecting with fans or trying to find new ones? Are you easy to find online? Is there enough interesting content about your band to keep fans interested and excited about what you're doing?
I found this Online Artist Report Card on the music marketing and social media blog Way Cool Jnr at this link, which was originally developed from Native Digital.
So if you're pursuing a career in music, take the following quiz and see how you measure up with 'Social Media Marketing'.Click To Read More...
Show Success Before Asking For Help
Jun1112:17 PM
Regardless of how everyone is probably sick of hearing all the press and buzz about Twitter, myself included, I continue to use it daily to spread music industry related news and articles, free mp3's, and tips for music marketing and promotion. To the uninitiated, Twitter is an over-hyped, social web-thingy that doesn't really make any sense. But if you give it a chance, and 'follow' the right people with similar interests, you'll find a wealth of information and knowledge that would otherwise be lost.
Here's an example of the type of thing I send out on Twitter: http://sivers.org/success-firstClick To Read More...
Top 5 Touring Tips for Artists
Jun0809:16 AM
Martin Atkins, drummer from Public Image, Killing Joke and Nine Inch Nails wrote a book called Tour Smart. A video was just posted online at New Music Strategies where Andrew Dubber gives him a quick interview and he shares some touring tips with everyone.
See the video interview below, followed by another video of Martin Atkins talking about his book:Click To Read More...
3 Axioms of 21st Century Music Biz
May3110:59 AM
The following summary regarding the marketing and promotion of music in the twenty-first century comes from James Lamberti, VP Of Marketing & Artist Services for Topspin Media, a new technology startup.
These three tiny bullet points summarize the business perfectly for today's artist and content owner. Of course, it does over-simplifiy things greatly as none of these steps are simple to excel at, and each requires a tremendous amount of time to successfully develop. Click To Read More...
Give 'Em What They Want
May2702:02 PM
To be a successful business you need to understand your customer, how they relate to your product, and what they want from your product.
Is the music business doing this? Are you doing this?
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Podcast: Media, Gatekeepers, Fandom, Gaming & More
Mar2304:23 PM
Have a spare hour to listen in on a captivating discussion from music industry insiders?
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Twitter Music Promotion and Marketing Guide
Mar1110:44 AM
Are you on Twitter yet? Is your band?
It can be confusing at first, regardless of how simple it may appear to be.Click To Read More...
Five Tips for Musicians to Engage Their Fans Digitally
Mar1110:25 AM
In today's wired marketplace, musicians have to forge a personal relationship with their audience to keep their fans' interest. And for many, that means creating opportunities for fans to have an inside look into all aspects of an artist's life.Click To Read More...
6 Hot Tips For Building Your Fan Base
Jan2006:24 PM
Our special guest contributor Kimberley Bjorklund, from K&B Management/Consulting in California, weighs in with some great tips for the independent artist.
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Building Your Fan List
Jan1911:24 AM
What's the most important part in Music, that has always been there, and always will be, but is the most Ignored?
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Why Give Music Away For Free?
Jan0603:28 PM
I've had a lot of people ask me recently why The Bleeder Blog and Thorny Bleeder Records would give away music for free. As I approached bands for our Get Thorny free album download, you can imagine what some of the reactions were.
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A Band As A Brand
Jan0512:50 PM
When the word "brand" comes up in indie music circles people are often turned off, insisting that the branding of music dilutes creativity and reduces artistic expression into a commodity, devoid of expressive merit. But what is a brand? Is having your band as a "brand" that awful of a thing?
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Music. Life's Bookmark.
Jan0209:46 AM
It's a wonderfully strange world we live in. Our time on earth is such an incredibly short footnote in the history of mankind, yet our memories still seem to escape us. They're stashed away and filed into the dark depths of our memory, often lost forever and never to be recovered. However, we do have a unique emergency backup to recover our lost memories - our senses and their amazing memory recall abilities.
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The Power Of Goal Setting
Dec3010:26 AM
Are you in a band committed to making music your full time career?
If so, do you have a 12 month plan? a 24 month plan? What goals have you set for yourself, other than "playing lots of shows and selling lots of CDs"?
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5 Key Elements To Success
Dec2106:33 PM
I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what the key elements to success are and I've come up with this list of traits that should be an essential part of your every day life. These aren't intended to be exclusive to a musician's career, they're for anyone pursuing a goal in life, business or otherwise.
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