1. Promotion on Networking Sites
The 3 main networking websites are MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/), YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/). MySpace is the only one among the 3 to have a specific community. YouTube is the video specialist, a very good way to centralize your videos, and “embed” (integrate) them into your website’s pages, and your MySpace. Facebook seems to be more and more THE local community site. Create a page for your band or subscribe to a group in your city, and post messages or send invites to all the group members at once.
2. Digital and Physical distribution
This is the CD Baby arena (http://www.cdbaby.net/ to register your music and http://www.cdbaby.com/ to search for music). However, two new competitors are worth some attention: SNOCAP (http://www.snocap.com/) and Tunecore (http://www.tunecore.com/). CD Baby allows you to manage both physical and digital sales for a one-time fee of $35. They also have many agreements with other digital music companies such as iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon, Napster… They will automatically, and on a regular basis, send your music to their partners for distribution. No additional fee for this service, but they keep 9% of what these companies pay them when they sell your music. Tunecore does not have a physical distribution service, and focuses on all digital. They charge $0.99 per track, $0.99 per store per album, and $19.98 per album per year storage and maintenance. You can also put up one song as a single for a flat price of $9.99 per year. SNOCAP is a very interesting, because complementary, option. It allows musicians to upload their songs to the SNOCAP website, then copy the html code provided, and plug their “Store” on their own website or MySpace. You don’t even need to have a physical CD, and don’t need to rely on other websites than your own to sell your CDs! It is useful to have a dedicated PayPal account to actually cash the sales (http://www.paypal.com/).
3. Internet Radios
The leaders in this category are Pandora (http://www.pandora.com/) and Live365 (http://www.live365.com/). With more and more listeners every month, it is becoming a very serious trend! There are still ongoing discussion regarding rights and royalties, but it will become a great way for songwriters to reach a new audience. Internet radio does not mean “less professional”, and these radios have their submission policies, and require good quality recordings. The concept behind Pandora is to allow you to create your own stations based on the music you like, live365 is a sort of group of stations of all genres.
4. Electronic Press Kit
The king in the EPK world is Sonicbids (http://www.sonicbids.com/). You can send, to you professional contacts, a very well organized Electronic Press Kit by email (from Sonicbids’ website). They will have access to your bio, music, pictures, video, calendar, and of course your contact information. It is also a great source for songwriting contests, gigs opportunities, new compilations in need of independent artists… for which you can directly submit your EPK. Subscription is $5.95 per month, and all submissions to contests include a fee (anywhere from $2 to $30, depending on the promoter who organizes the contest).
5. Information & Education
It is important to remember that Internet is a source of information! Songwriters have to stay well tuned but also well educated in music, recording techniques and business. Let’s start with music. Song U (http://www.songu.com/) is fully dedicated to songwriting. You can become a Platinum Member for $25.95 per month, and have access to literally everything available on the website: self-paced and interactive courses (all of them), coaching and song evaluation services (60% discount, $30 for 3 songs), personalized member profile, eligibility for “Best of SongU” etc… Berklee Online (http://www.berkleemusic.com/) is a real music school online, with real Berklee faculties. It is quite expensive for the Internet, but more affordable than actually attending Berklee College. You have the choice between for-credit and non-for-credit (less expensive) classes. Each class usually takes 3 months, and the catalog includes production, guitar, theory… For recording techniques, you have first and foremost AudioFanzine (http://en.audiofanzine.com/) ! Also a very good source is TweakHeadz Lab (http://www.tweakheadz.com/), the electronic musician hangout. It includes a great guide to recoding success, from beginners to more advanced level. Finally, two very good sources for Music Business are Bob Baker’s Buzz Factor (www.bob-baker.com/buzz/index.html) , Music Biz Academy and (http://www.musicbizacademy.com/) . Bob is the author of the bestseller “Guerilla Music Marketing”, and a specialist at “getting the word out” for independent musicians. David Nevue’s Academy is an incredible source of articles, tips, books references… that everybody serious about promoting its own music should have in their browser’s favorites.
6. CD Duplication/Replication
Even though you can sell your digital tracks directly on the web, it is still very important to have a physical CD if you play live, but also for your promotion to the media. One idea, as everyone is on a budget, would be to start with Duplication (less expensive than Replication), and if you make enough money with the sales of your duplicated CDs (priced lower, if you’re honest!), you can invest in replication. Also, replication requires a minimum order of 500 or 1000 CDs, which not every band will be able to sell! Once again, duplication is the alternative if you want to start with a test of 100 CDs for example. Many companies offer these services, one of the most famous being Disc Makers (http://www.discmakers.com/). Disk Factory (http://www.diskfaktory.com/) has a lot of duplication packages, and proposes a all-in-on service approach “Make-Promote-Sell” you CDs. Indeed, they created the “DFJams Store” which is another online store. Both of them also offer merchandising products (T-shirts, flyers, posters) and graphic design services.
7. Blogs
If you like to write, you can use a blog to promote your music, or simply get your name out by publishing articles on your favorite music style, artists, or the last concert you went to. Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/) is obviously the one I chose! Band Weblogs (http://bandweblogs.com/) and Vox (www.sixapart.com/vox/tour) for example would allow you to do that too. If you want to streamline your blog activity (RSS feed) FeedBurner (http://www.feedburner.com/) is a great free service to help you do that. You can also use a service like Social Poster (http://www.socialposter.com/ ), if you want to post to all of the social sites.
There are plenty of opportunities on the web, but also a lot of time to waste! It requires self-discipline, organization and planning to make the best out of them. However, the bottom line is still the same: this is the time for artistic independence! A freedom that any of us can enjoy, benefit from, and most of all, have fun with!
Olivier (NO)
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