Monday, April 23, 2007

How to Become a Successful Independent Artist or Songwriter

By far the most important skill to have if you wish to become successful with anything, is ATTITUDE. An old Chinese proverb once said, "90% of the journey towards success is over once you have stepped outside your front door". The reason many people fail, is because they'd rather stay in and watch the TV.

Of course, that first step outside is a philosophical one. As a musician or songwriter, you spend the vast majority of your time being creative. If you thought that writing a great song, or playing an instrument well, was the hardest part of being a successful artist, you are wrong.

Despite all the skills you need to know and perfect in order to make your music shine, this pales into insignificance compared with the hard work and other skills you need to learn in order to record, market and sell your art successfully.

Fortunately, most creative people also seem to excel at other things. The term "Jack of all trades" could quite easily apply to most musicians or artists. After all, the first thing most artists have to learn, is how to find time for their art whilst running a home AND holding down a Day Job in order to pay the bills! It is therefore not unusual to find musicians who are also Physicists, Engineers, IT Professionals or Teachers, to name but a few.

Most of these people are quite content to keep music as a hobby, at least whilst bringing up a family. However, we all get to a stage in our lives (usually once the kids have grown up and left home), where we want to cease working for a "Living", and instead, work for our own "Satisfaction".

There are few things in life more satisfying than being admired for something we created. If our creations also manage to influence others, then it is even more rewarding.

This "first step outside your front door" is taken when you decide to pause from the creative aspect (the ideas), and take a positive step towards learning new skills, or employing others who can do those things for you.

There has never been a better time in the history of mankind, to take those steps, either by yourself, or with others who would help you.

Where you used to have to pay for tutoring, or buy books, in order to learn the techniques of songwriting, or playing an instrument, you can now find scores of articles on the Internet (like this one!) that will help you for free.

Where you used to have to save up a considerable amount of money to pay studio costs and hire session musicians to make a decent demo recording, you can now find all the neccessary tools, and even the musicians, on the Internet who would help you for little or no cost at all.

Where you needed to sign a record deal in order to be able to afford a producer and a master quality studio, you can now buy your own PC and some music software, and collaborate with a producer online, who will give you the capability to make radio-ready recordings.

Where you needed a record company with a huge advertising budget to market and sell your recordings, you can now (with some hard work), market and sell your CDs to the Whole World for next to nothing.

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The Music Industry doesn't like the changes that the Internet has brought to the business. Digital media can be freely copied by anyone with a PC, anywhere in the World. No longer do the record companies just have to worry about the CD pirates who manufacture illegal copies to sell on the black market; they also have to now worry about every PC-literate man, woman and child, making their own copies too! This has led the music industry into a perpetual fight against filesharers (making enemies of many consumers in the process), instead of embracing the business advantages that the Internet brings to us.

The Music Industry still believes that 8-16 year-olds buy most of the records, so they are still catering primarily for that market. Recent industry figures are telling a different story, and the secret is the "Baby Boomers".

Yes ... The same people who created the above market perception in the 70's by buying the largest proportion of records ever, whilst they were teenagers, have now grown up! The largest age group to buy CDs TODAY, at 26% of the population, are over 45. Not only that, but they still like the same kinds of music as they did then. So there is no need to change your art to fit today's teenybopper market if you aren't that way inclined.

Now that we know the secret, we also know that the next big thing in music, isn't going to be another form of Hip-hop, Techno, or R'n'B; but a return to real music, such as was made during the 60's and 70's. However, we'll be creating it with modern tools on a Home computer DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) system, instead of in a multimillion pound studio complex!

So, whilst the Music Industry is still hesitating by trying to shun the new digital era in favour of antiquated business models, hardware in the form of CDs, and markets that still only cover limited territories; we can now jump ahead of them onto a more level playing field, find our own markets, and sell to the Whole World with only a simple website!

Sounds easy, doesn't it? ... Well, that is the first hurdle you will face. So many musicians think it is easy, that there are millions already doing it! So to be successful you will need, like any other business, a proper business plan.

CONCLUSION
The road to being a successful independent musician, begins with ATTITUDE.

You need to find enough time in your schedule to drop the guitar & scoresheet and use your creative energies towards developing a proper BUSINESS PLAN. This means taking a step back and listening to your music through Joe Public's ears. You need to think up a business name, logo, and short slogan that encompasses what you are, and what your music is trying to say to people

Register your business "name" by buying a domain name that suits you as soon as possible.

Pages on free MP3 sites and Free domains do not give you a professional image. You MUST have your own site, or at least something that offers you a unique look and features of your own. If you want people to find your music unique & special, then you also need an image that is unique and special. That goes for your email address too. Genuine business people don't use their Hotmail, AOL, or Yahoo addresses for formal communications

Make sure all your paperwork is in order.
If you are planning on making an eventual living from your art, you will need to be registered as a business or as a self-employed sole trader. You need to make sure your tax and income are all accounted for, so you may have to buy yourself an accounting package, or learn to use Excel Spreadsheets, or employ an accountant. There is also a lot to learn about how copyright systems work and whether you feel you need to form your own publishing company, record company, or register your copyrights with an agency. Much of this will depend on the laws of your home country. Alternatively, you can sign a non-exclusive deal with a small independent label or publisher to handle all the music-related paperwork for you

You need to either take the time to develop some basic web design skills, buy ready-made templates, or employ someone to design a site for you.

Make sure your logo and colour scheme is fluent throughout your site, your stationery, your CD artwork, and any other communications device, such as email. Make sure your site includes some way of gathering a mailing list, such as a response form or a "double opt-in" form of registration

Plan a marketing strategy.
Marketing is all about finding the right market for your product. This may involve a certain amount of consumer research. This can be expensive, so use the Internet as much as possible to find groups of people who like similar music to yours. Try to find out other things about these people so that you can get a clearer picture of who would be interested in your music

Plan a promotional strategy.
Gather contact lists of magazines, local newspapers, TV and radio stations. Plan an 8-week promotional strategy leading up to the release of your CD. Use any press, or airplay you get as a news item on your website. If you have some money to invest, plan a set of concert dates in local venues for dates close to any publication dates. Plan a poster or postcard campaign. Contact local charities, hospitals, schools and shops, in fact anyone who might be prepared to play your CD in a public place. If you want local record stores to stock your CD, you will also need barcodes and counter display boxes. Use the mailing list you have been gathering from your site to promote any news to your fans with a regular newsletter. Offer free tickets to gigs, or run competitions for free CDs. Use your fans as extra leverage to increase the momentum of your promotional campaigns.

Don't under-sell yourself.
Make sure that any music you decide to give away as a promotional MP3 is different in some way to the music you are selling. E.G. It will either be an early un-mastered mix (demo), or a different mix, or a song you are never going to release for sale. Otherwise, make sure all samples you make of your records, are either short clips, or low-fi mono samples. The price you set for your releases should never be too far below that of major record company releases. Your price tells your customer what "stage" you are at in the business. Price yourself too cheap and you are more likely to lose customers because they will automatically assume you are an "amateur

Make yourself and your CD easily accessible to your fans.
Always answer any emails promptly. Check your emails at least once a day and reply to any new enquiries immediately. The avarage time expected by most people for a response by email is 12-24 hours. Do not SPAM. Make sure you only send bulk emails to people who have opted into your mailing list, and if anyone wants to opt out, make sure you delete them straight away (not several weeks and 10 disgruntled emails later!). To contact businesses, you will need to write individually and personally to each of them. Always use a business "signature" with your artistic or business name, slogan, web site address, and possibly your telephone number, on every email you send. If you have released a CD, make sure you add the link to that too! If you have had your CDs duplicated professionally and are barcoded, you can also expand from selling them in internet stores such as iTunes, Amazon, and CDbaby, to high street stores. You must also sell them from your own site or at least provide links to the stores where they are available

Never stop "Networking"
Carry your business cards with you at all times. At every conversational opportunity, if someone happens to mention music, or gigs, make sure you advertise yourself as an independent artist. If you have a modern mobile phone or MP3 player, make sure your latest CD is on it! You never know who you'll bump into in the supermarket. The first thing someone will ask when you mention you are a recording artist is "What kind of music do you play?" If you have your MP3 player with you, you won't even have to answer! (This is always a difficult question for an artist). You can just play it to them! Also make sure you frequent all the music-related newsgroups, forums, bulletin boards, MP3 sites, chat rooms etc. at every opportunity.

Finally, my "Promotional Tip of the Week"
Familiarise yourself with all the P2P filesharing systems that the music business hates so much. You can use them to your advantage. Make ads or lo-fi samples of your music or CD and label them like this...
"John_Mckeon_Friends_SoundsLike_Simon_&_Garfunkel.mp3"
Make copies labelled with every well-known artist you think you sound like, and keep all the files in your shared folder. Then, whenever you are logged onto the service and someone searches for music by these well-known artists, your music will be on their list of results!

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Find out more about our artist services and recording contracts at http://www.WobblyMusic.net

Learn all the Internet marketing techniques that will help you be successful as a recording artist at http://www.DoThisToWin.com

Learn how to acheive a residual income as an affiliate to support you whilst you are building your music business at http://www.Music45.com


About the Author

Lynn Monk has experienced over 30 years in the music business as a musician, concert sound & lighting engineer, DJ and record producer; and is now the proprietor of Wobbly Music. An indie record company dedicated to supporting the "Mature Independent Artist". Lynn can be contacted at lynn at wobblymusic dot net

Never Pay Full Price for DVDs Again

There are many articles on the net that perport to advise the consumer on how to buy the best DVD player - and justifiably so, some might say. The sheer volume of choice a new consumer is faced with means that a friendly word in the ear certainly would not go amiss, especially when you have to consider things like SCART, RGB, S-video, Divx, VideoCD, Picture viewers, Dolby Digital, DTS, Progressive Scan or HD Upscaling - the list is daunting and seemingly endless as is the range and disparity in price of all the DVD players on the market. Despite this there are comparatively few guides offering advice on where you can purchase the DVDs to play on them without repeatedly handing over the sometimes extortionate RRP (which can break the £100 barrier if your interest lies with complete TV series boxsets). But fear not help is at hand and the first thing you have to remember is this: Seek and ye shall find.

The internet is literally filled with online stores offering the best available prices for DVDs, a quick search in any search engine for "Cheap DVDs" will bring out the best of these stores available in your locale. The majority of these sites will come with a glowing reputation and offer free postage and packing on all orders (although be aware that some sites, such as Amazon will only offer free postage if you spend more than a preset amount in a single transaction). These sites can offer better prices than the high street for a number of reasons,not least of which being that they are not bricks and mortar businesses and as such dont have the overhead involved in managing a vast chain of high street shops as do the likes of HMV or WH Smith. Many of these etailers are based offshore (Jersey is a popular outlet for many of the UKs most popular online stores, such as www.play.com or www.sendit.com to name but 2 and this means that they also benefit from certain taxbreaks which they can then pass onto the consumer. A highly recommended dvd retailer is CD-WOW, who deal in DVDs/CDs and Video Games, and are actually based in Hong Kong but offer free worldwide shipping on everything

So once you've identified your favourite online stores (and will find that they are numerous), you may be like a kid in a sweet shop - you might see your chosen DVD at a great price in Play.com (£10 cheaper than it was at that high street store you were in last saturday afternoon!!) so you place your place your order and wait for it to arrive, only to find as you skip across to Amazon that they had the very same DVD for another £10 less than you've just paid. Aargh. Quickly you cancel the order with Play and re-raise the order With Amazon with a secret smile and a pat on the back as you congratulate yourself on a lucky find, while you put the kettle on and check your email. But whats this? CDWOW are advertising the same DVD for another £5 less? Yes, shopping smart applies to the internet as much as to the high street. Fortunately, help is at hand in the form of price comparison sites. These are almost as numerous as the stores themselves. The biggies include Kellkoo.co.uk, and Pricerunner.co.uk - two sites that will search the internet and compare prices for just about anything you can buy online. Then there are the more specialist comparison sites which will compare prices on DVD's only - such as dvdbargainalerts.co.uk. You can search for your DVD by your chosen keyword (eg Harry Potter) and the engine will return a list of all matching DVDs (this might include Harry Potter and Order of the Phoenix (Single Disc) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2 Disc) ) You can then select which DVD to compare prices for and a list of online stores and prices will be displayed with the cheapest price at the top, another click of the button will take you directly to that store - Simple! The legwork done for you and you dont have to worry about stumbling upon the same DVD at a cheaper price elsewhere.

Finally sites such as dvdbargainalerts.co.uk, or thedvdforums.com, effectively combine the price comparison feature with another popular internet price finding mechanism - the community forum. These are powerful tools for keeping abreast of all the latest bargains using online communities who dedicate themselves to finding and posting the best bargains around, either genuine sale prices or the more lucrative and worthwhile Mis-price - Yes occasionally the online store will muck up their prices and if they do you can guarantee that you will learn about it in one of these bargain forums first. So remember the price can always be right, so long as you can find the right price.

About the Author

Badwolf is the administrator of Cheap DVD, Video Game & CD Website DVD Bargain Alerts. Dedicated to finding the best prices on the Internet.

Unique Gift Ideas

Introduction:
Unique gift gives an impression about the gift provider. Gift should have been purchased keeping in mind the occasion for which the gift is being selected. There may be a number of occasions for which a special gift or unique gift is required. It is also an occasion at which you can express about your feeling to someone you care for. The unique gift not only gives you immense satisfaction, but it also you reminds about your attitude towards the recipients.

A unique gift suitable for particular occasion may not necessarily be suitable for another occasion or selection of unique gifts depends on the occasion for which the gift is being selected. Some of the occasions are being discussed below.

Gifts for Marriage:
If you are selecting a gift for newly couple and depending on your budget, you may select a unique honeymoon package from any travel agency. The package may include air tickets or air tickets with hotel accommodation. This unique gift is especially for those couples that are very close to you. If your budget does not permit this, you may select a jewelry item of diamond or gold. Whatever you select you should decorate the gift in such a way that it should reflect your love and affection for the couple.

Housewarming Gifts:
Housewarming gifts can be a number of types depending your relationship with the recipient and your budget a suitable unique gift can be presented. The gift may be house-decorating accessories such as beautiful sofa, wall curtains, table and sofa covers matching to the design of the rooms. The unique gift may also be some crockery, items required for preparing foods and kitchenware. If you are very close to the recipient, you can further select electronics item such as TV, refrigerator, washing machines, CD or DVD player, kitchen grill etc.

If your budget does not allow you the above, you can simply select a few less expensive decorative items, such as candle holders, vase, indoor plants, CD stack and Feng Shui articles.

Anniversary Gifts:
Anniversary gifts are again preferred as jewelry items. If you want to present some one very close to you, select beautiful gold make jewelry for the recipients. If your budget is limited, you may select beautiful designer clothes for both the persons.

Unique Father's day gift:
If you want to present a beautiful gift to your father, select a beautiful purse for the father. A beautiful leather purse for father will be an ideal gift for him on the occasion of father's day. You may also select a beautiful designer watch or designers clothes for your father.

Birthday gift:
If you want to present a birthday gift to one of your best friend, a personalized card along with flower bucket and beautiful gold make jewelry is one of the best gift for her. If you want to present a birthday gift to one of your male friend, you should select a personalized card and present the card along with flower bucket and an invitation to dinner in one of the restaurant.

Unique romantic gift for her:
To say 'I Love You' not only from your mouth but the gifts presented by you should also endorse. Beautiful gifts such a heart shaped pendant of gold makes, silver bracelets, earrings and necklaces can remind her about your love for her. Each one of the present is unique and will make long lasting impression.

About the Author

Henry writes about Cool T-Shirts for Gifts on http://www.uneetee.com

Why People Have different Tastes In Music

Music is such a diverse area of the arts in that there are literally hundreds of different genres that people from around the world listen to. whether it be classical music from the time of Bach or mozart, through to the latest rap music, there is something for everyone to listen to. how does this come about?

Why do people have such different preferences for music? There are many reasons that range from the period that people were born or the country and culture that they were raised in. Let's examine some examples so that this can become a little clearer.

Personally, I was born into a musical family, my father was a piano player and my older brother a singer and multi instrumentalist. Now because of that family influence I too became involved in music and pursued a career in music and music education. I was influenced by the music my family listened to and so was fortunate to appreciate a very wide range of music from jazz to contemporary music. My studies extended into the genres of classical music as well. Therefore, I have come to enjoy many varied musical styles.

Another example may be of a person born into a culture that has a very strong folk music component. for example, the country of Hungary has a very rich and valued musical culture and young children grow up involved in music on a daily basis. Therefore, the tradition of their folk music is passed on from generation to generation.

People who were part of the teenage generation of the 1960's will have extremely strong ties with the various social and political movements that were reflected so strongly through the music of the day. Who can forget the wealth of songs written to protest about the Vietnam War or the songs that portrayed the new hippy culture. Songs by The Mamas and Papas or Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Buffalo Springfield......the list goes on. This era was an extremely powerful one in terms of social, economic and poliitical events that occurred during this time and so you will find many people who are reminded of such momentous events through the music that was written at the time.

More recently. there are many more new styles that seem to convey a message to our younger generation, in particular, rap music has found a place and though some of the messages are very dark, nevertheless, they are messages that give younger people reason to listen to the music. Also, you will find the world over, that lots of people just like to listen to music to dance to or for relaxation purposes. It really doesn't matter - this is a great thing and it is good that all people have different tastes in the music that they liten to. It keeps things fresh!

so, next time that you walk into a CD shop remember that you a one of millions who possess different tastes in music for a whole range of reasons. This may make you think a little wider about music and give you a greater tolerance for those who may not like your kind of music but other styles completely foreign to you. How does the saying go?.....Variety is the spice of life!! You betcha!

To read more articles by Greg Culver, check out www.myrecreationweb.com

About the Author

www.musicweblive.com is a website dedicated to providing articles and information related to music, the arts and entertainment. Greg Culver is the owner.