ARTIST 101

Why You Need To Play Live

Just as it is important for a musician to record an album it is important that this musician also plays live. Playing live brings your fans and potential fans right before you. Once this happens you open the gates to many great things and promotions. Here are three reasons why you as a musician need to play live.

 

Playing live at shows gives you immediate feedback to songs by crowd reactions. If a song is a true hit the listens will surely let you know and if a song is a dud you’ll figure that out to. You also get a chance to work on other important things like imaging. While you are still a little known artist is the best time to practice and change your image around. Once you’re more well known the public may be reluctant to take to any new image changes you make.

You won’t know what works.

No other way puts you this close to potential fans. You have a huge opportunity of converting people into fans at live shows in ways that only a cd could never do. The greater the show and songs the greater the response should be. Once you get a killer show together expect more gig requests to follow.

Playing live is a great way of getting fans.

Not just by album sells, but from the live performances themselves. Starting out a musician can usually expect a percentage of the door (money collected at the door per person), but as your fan base grows and enhances you should begin to get guarantees. Guarantees are when you begin to get paid an amount regardless of how many people show up any given night. This is why live performances are such an important thing to musicians in terms of salary.

Playing live brings in money.

Many times as a group begins to grow locally members of the press will begin to take note and start looking for a chance to catch a show of the artist. Write ups in your local newspapers and magazines make for a killer press kit and also a great way to get word out about your band.

Playing live bring you press.

These are four reasons why you need to play live as a musician. It is highly important to the career of any musician that they play live. Your band will have been expected to have some level of on stage experience before any major label would sign you so give it a try.


Are you actually getting music sales on iTunes?

Written by Kavit Haria

Apple iTunes is probably the most popular place people can buy downloads on the internet, but why do many musicians not make much money from it? The key reason is because they’re not directing their traffic properly.

I tell all my clients that although building a mailing list and community is very important, the next step is all about creating and taking your fans on a journey that allows you to build trust and sell your music products to them. When you have a clear idea of what path you want to take your fans on, you can direct them in the right direction and avoid getting them in a state of confusion.

The first step is to get your fans to want to buy your music, whether by having built up a good relationship with them (and they buy into you) or you give them lots of samples of your music (and they buy into your music).

Once you have got them into a state of ‘wanting to buy’ you can then direct them to one reliable place they can buy your downloads or physical CD, be it CDBaby, iTunes, Amazon or any other retailer.

The key thing is to direct them to just one retailer rather than multiple retailers. The decision of having to choose one, however silly it sounds, can cause buyer confusion and so by building up your profile and creating momentum with one retailer you’ll see better results.

As a side point, the benefit of selling your music at another retailer compared to your own website is that all the billing and fulfillment is done by a 3rd-party credible system. Many of them also give you customer details so you grow your list. 

Here is one specific way to increase exposure of your music within iTunes itself:

The best way I have found to promote music on iTunes (and it gets people a lot of exposure and sales) is to create iMixes, a collection of songs that are uploaded as a playlist to the music store. The idea is to take a specific niche and create a playlist for it, including your song(s) in it. iMixes are popularly searched and an easy way for people to find you.

Over time, as you create more iMixes, your album/song will start to appear in the “Listeners Also Bought” section and it will market virally like that. Within a few months you should start to see some results from your efforts. The key is creating momentum and not to give up. It’s not about overnight success.

INDIE LABEL

"Can You Imagine Yourself Making $140,000.00 a Year

as an Independent Artist?"

There are over 6 Billion people in the world, imagine if you where able to grab just a tiny fraction of them, say 20,000 a year and get them to purchase your music.

Would you be satisfied with the amount of money you made? Of course you would

20,000 x $7.00 = $140,000.00 a year

These are conservative numbers, imagine if you where able to reach more people and/or sold your music for more then $7- a pop. It is all very possible once you know how and how NOT to screw up the process,

 

Advice For Submitting Packages to A&R's   

By Jesse Atkinson. CEO of Urban Threshold Enterprises Inc.

When submitting a demo package, my advice regarding cover letters is to keep it simple and to the point. Most A&Rs are really focused on how your music sounds and whether you have the visual qualities to stand out from the huge pack of unsigned acts out there and be stars. They could care less about a cover letter and having great letter writing skills will be irrelevant if your demo contains incredible hit songs.

That being said, there are a few basics that you should adhere to: the cover letter should be personally addressed to each person you are sending a package to, contain no spelling errors and highlight any key points that could hook in interest from an A&R. These points should be put in bullet-point form which lends itself better to catching the attention of short-attention span A&R's (or their assistants) who may only quickly glance at your package to see whether it warrants further attention. Such points include:

- the name of any one who may have made a referral to the particular person you are sending your demo to

- key sales or airplay data if you submitting a package of an independently-released project

- other notable marketing data such as whether you have toured with or opened for national acts etc.

- the names of any marquee musicians or producers who may have been involved in the production or recording of your demo.

- the names of any other key industry players who may be involved in your project, if that involvement is significant. For example, "We have just signed for management with The Firm..." or "CAA has already signed us for tour bookings" would likely catch someone's attention if either were the case.

If none of these points are applicable, keep the cover letter to the most basic but relevant points: who you are (e.g. "we are a 3 man alternative/punk group"), where you're from and what kind of a demo you are submitting (e.g. "this is an 8 track, home-studio recorded demo...", "self produced," "produced by Joe Blow..." etc.). As for the tone of the letter, keep it professional, this is almost like a job application letter, but lighter and breezier, after all this is the music industry. End the letter by thanking the A&R in advance for their time and attention in listening to your demo. You should then end with your contact info should there be any further interest in your demo. The whole thing should be no more than the equivalent of 2 short paragraphs in length.

By Jesse Atkinson. CEO of Urban Threshold Enterprises Inc.