As I’m working today, I’m reminded about how important it is for you as a music artist to stay on top of your emails, social networks and other types of correspondence that relate to your music career. If you read Making it in Music on a frequent basis, you know that I’m all about giving tips and bits of nuggets to improve your game and get one up on the other person. Randomness does nothing but place you in the pack of a whole lot of ot...

As a music artist, your fans are the centerpiece of your career. It doesn’t matter about the quality of your songs, how good you play or for that matter, how good you look! If the only people supporting your efforts are your mom, dad, girlfriend and brother-in-law, then it’s time to go after some fans! Building a great fan base – one that is both effective and sustaining, is not out of reach, if you are willing to learn some simple strateg...

It’s no big secret that playing and recording original music for a living is an incredibly sexy notion - a thought that provokes a mental orgasm at any given moment! It’s the building block in which this very blog was created. But is it possible? Can you really play original music and pay the bills at the same time? The answer to that, is yes - of course. People are doing it all the time. But there are four things to keep in mind if you wan...

This guest post was writ­ten by Dave Scotford. Dave is a music industry entrepreneur from the UK with experience as a promoter, manager, booking agent and more. He is the author of No Bull: The Music Industry, which will be available July 1st. You can contact Dave at dave@davescotford.co.uk. We’ve pretty much all got social networking profiles, probably two or three different sites too. It’s rare these days for anyone with regular access ...

Bending the ear of the music industry used to be narrowly defined around album sales. An act that could sell 5,000 units and above would normally garner attention. I know this from personal experience. As we all know, file-sharing and loss-leader tactics from big box retail changed the attitudes of what music consumers were willing to pay for music. There is a significant differentiation between the record business and the music business. The fir...

With all the buzz about the long-tail in the last few years and how giving away your music will drive more fans to your show, I say to all those advocates to give me proof - that is, any hard data that this model consistently works in generating profit. I mean, even Marty Winsch hasn’t been as lucky at duplicating the success of his largest client, Corey Smith, the poster boy of the long-tail theory in music. I’m by no means knocking this str...

Think fast. What is the one thing that you really want as a composer and/or music artist? My guess is to get out of the haystack.  There are too many needles and most of them are dull. I mean, geez. There is a TON of music in the digital pipeline. 10-15 years ago, distribution was a controlled entity. If you wanted to get distributed, you had to normally be signed to a record label.  Obviously this is no longer the case. However, one thin...

Technology is a wonderful thing but I cringe whenever someone tells me how much it has “leveled" the playing field” for an artist (I mean, how easy is it to distribute your music worldwide compared to 10 years ago. Anyone can do it.). Nevertheless, the impact that technology has in getting exposure for an artist is substantial. Just look at all those incredible websites out there ready to make you the next Rihanna. The volume of them is mi...

If you’ve been searching for an updated guide to market your band and music on the Internet (one that actually pertains to 2010…not 2002!), then you need to pick up a copy of 101 Ways To Market Your Music On The Web. Authored by leading UK music promoter Simon Adams, this book is brimming with useful music Internet resources to energize your music career and get the notoriety you rightfully deserve. So yeah, you could say that I may be ...

One of the newest and coolest digital publishing/distribution platforms on the net is Bandcamp. While MySpace offers more features, such as blogs, videos, tour dates etc, Bandcamp focuses on a cleaner, less cluttered look with NO ADS!  This means you won’t have to share your page with a mobile phone or singles ad. With no ads, you would think it comes with a membership fee. Nope. It’s FREE! Bandcamp offers some distinctive features th...