April 29th, 2011

Building your unsigned artist support network (part 1)

Being an independent musician doesn’t mean doing everything yourself, nobody has all the skills that you’ll need to build a fan base. In the early stages of your career you won’t be able to pay people so you’ll need to rally friends and band members to fill these roles. You may find you have a bass player who is also your press person and driver or a best friend that can sell merchandise or is a good photographer.

Picture by Paul Linus Claassen

Don’t be afraid to ask your fans, family and extended social circle for help, you’ll be amazed how often people want to get involved. Make sure you thank everybody who helps you, motivate them with praise and make them really feel part of the project.

If reaching out to your contacts fails you can try asking at the local colleges if there are any students looking for work experience in the area you need help in. In some areas (like photography and recording) professionals are not essential but ultimately a high quality product will improve your chances of connecting to an audience more quickly. The best way to build a fan base is to have brilliant, remarkable, exciting and edgy music but if it’s not well recorded and looks rubbish no one will be interested.

Here are a few of the people you will need on your team:

  • A merchandise person – Someone to sell merchandise at gigs, they’ll need to be trustworthy and able to add up and keep records. It is a bonus if they have some basic screen printing skills as well. There are loads of ideas for merchandise for bands here.
  • A legal person – This one you will probably need to pay for as they really need to know what they are doing, but you may know someone who can help. Good legal advice saves you money in the long run, try and get recommendations from friends and other bands before you agree to use a lawyer. Anything you are required to sign will need to be looked at by a lawyer, if you sign a bad publishing/record or management deal it can damage your career for years to come. If in doubt seek advice and never use the same legal representation as the person you are negotiating with. If you are unsure at any point seek independent advice, you can’t take chances at this point.
  • A photographer and video person. Sometimes a mate with an iPhone creating rough content for your blog, sometimes a professional creating the perfect promo using a great camera, lighting and photoshop in a studio environment. It depends on the context, but if it’s for for high quality photos for a press kit it is probably worth getting a professional involved, unless you happen to have a friend who is a professional. A high quality photo on your Live Unsigned profile or CD promo can make all the difference. Video is the same, you can get away with some rough material in a social media/blog context but a high quality, credible video can open a lot of doors. A call to the local film school can help here.
  • An accounts person – Never the most exciting of roles but well kept records in Excel will save you a lot of hassle from the tax man. Good book keeping will save you money in tax, especially as most bands make very little actual profit in the early stages of their career. The state of the band finances are well worth reviewing at every band meeting and it is worth checking the records are all in order to avoid any liability. It is a lot easier with Excel format spreadsheets – for example you can download sales from Bandcamp directly as an Excel document. If you haven’t got Excel the excellent free program Open Office does pretty much the same thing in the same format.
  • A driver/roadie – A basic one, but you won’t be doing many gigs without one. It is very difficult to gig via public transport unless you are a singer songwriter with limited equipment in a city with good public transport links. Be careful with your insurance, some companies charge more if you are a professional musician (and if you lie your insurance will be invalidated). Make sure any car/van/bus you use is safe for you and your equipment and the driver avoids drink/drugs. It’s an obvious one but so many bands have been injured through this.

In part 2 of this post we’ll look at adding publishers, bookers, web and sound people to your team.

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April 26th, 2011

How to get booked for festivals

Festivals are a great way for an unsigned band to get in front of a decent sized audience, but they aren’t easy to get to play, as everyone wants to do it. From the Benicassim Festival in Spain and the wonderful Strawberry Fair in Cambridge to the local folk festival, there are opportunities for artists of all levels.

Picture by Paul Linus Claassen

Here are a few ideas for getting your band in front of a festival audience:

  • Start small. You may not get booked for the main stage at Glastonbury but there are numerous other opportunities for bands to play at smaller local festivals. Even at Glastonbury itself there are small stages like Croissant Neuf, Tadpole, Small World, Manadala, Avalon Cafe where unsigned artists can play (although places on theses are also highly prized). Aim for a place on a small niche, local festival first. There are lots of them and the promoters are more likely to give you a chance.
  • Apply early. Many summer festivals start booking bands the year before so you need to get in quick. Thoroughly read the application instructions on the site and follow them to the letter. Start looking at getting the festival gigs booked for the summer in January not June (depending on where you live in the world).
  • Have a great press kit. There is more info on how to put one together here.
  • Be flexible about payment. It is a sad fact that festivals have to work to a tight budget. If you are flexible about how much you will except for payment you have more chance of getting booked. You need to work out if the exposure and the potential CD sales make it worth playing for free. If there are only going to be 20 people there and you have to hire a van and drive 300 miles don’t bother.
  • Send them a link to a video. Prove you are amazing live by sending them a link to your fantastic live video (in front of a decent sized audience) as part of your introductory email, it might just swing it your way.
  • Apply only for relevant festivals. Your indie rock band is unlikely to go down well at the black metal festival. Don’t waste the promoters time, do your research.
  • Have a decent sized mailing list and social media presence. Think about from perspective of the promoter, times are hard and festivals are going under all the time. If you can give them the chance to have an extra few thousand people know about the festival they will be more interested. Tell them if you have a few thousand people on your mailing list, it can make a big difference to how seriously they take your band. Send a link to your Live Unsigned profile so they can see how many gigs you are doing.
  • Volunteer to help. If its a small community festival get involved yourself. Offer to help out and you’ll find it a lot easier to get on the bill.
  • Festival promoters often aren’t regular promoters. Often organisers of small festivals only put on one gig a year. Find out the names of the people who are running the festival (don’t start an email with Hi!) and personalise your email. Make an effort to get to know people and these relationships will give you a lot more chance of getting a gig. It is all about who you know (and how hard you work and how good your music is).
  • Follow up, but don’t be annoying. A few weeks after submitting your details contact the promoters again to make sure they got your press kit.

Festival gigs are always tough to get, by approaching them in the right way you’ll have more chance of getting the gig. All of the above will only work if your music is great. You need to be confident and amazing live before you start playing at festivals.

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April 21st, 2011

Planning a DIY album release (part 2)

In the second part of our post on planning an album release we look at the final few months before the album comes out:

Picture by Paul Linus Claassen

2 months before the release:

  • Work out and allocate your advertising budget and place ads. Remember to focus on a small niche audience, ideally of a few thousand people. If you’re placing print ads be aware that different magazines have different lead times for copy, make sure you check. It is very easy to waste money on ads, make sure you are targeting exactly the right audience.
  • Ensure you are reading and commenting on (not spamming!) the blogs that are relevant to your genre, find them by using Google blog search to look for acts that sound similar to you. There is more information on getting your music featured on blogs here.
  • Register the album’s songs with the relevant performing rights society for your part of the world (it is the PRS in the UK) so that if they are played live or on the radio you get the royalties.
  • Get promotional items printed. Flyers and stickers are very useful at this point. Review the gigs coming up in your area on Live Unsigned by bands in your genre and flyer them. If you have a street team/loyal fans/friends that will do it in other parts of the world get them involved as well. It is essential to build this awareness now.
  • Upload the album to your digital distribution company of choice, delivery to the various download distributers takes a while and it varies from company to company. Remember to tell them the release date or they will simply post it straight away, not good for your release strategy!
  • If CDs are part of your release get them duplicated NOW! There is nothing worse than a CD release event with no CDs (this has happened). Check all proofs and masters yourself, then get someone else to double check them. Work out with the CD duplication company exactly how much lead time they need to get the order completed and shipped out to you. Get quotes from a few companies and try to get a recommendation from a friend for a reliable supplier. Think carefully about how you want your CD to look, for example Digipacks are nice but will make the CDs more expensive. Work out how much you can charge your fans for them, are they even interested in having CDs or would they be happy with a digital download?
  • Are you doing any special promotions for the album – remix competitions, give aways, videos, streaming gigs etc? Now is the time to plan them and include them on your calendar. As with everything the more remarkable and interesting they are the better.
  • Post a pre-order offer online and send it to your email list. This is an opportunity to get fans to pay up front. This is very useful for improving cash flow, you can use this money to pay for your CDs (as long as you have enough fans). Explain to your fans how important it is for them to pre order and don’t forget to say thank you, without your audience you have nothing. Email out to your list and only mention the one thing you want them to do, make it clear how much it will help support your music if the fans pre-order.
  • Prepare a press release and update your press kit. Make sure the headline isn’t just “xxxx releases CD”, if you want people to write about what you do make it remarkable. Are you the first band to record an album only using a dictaphone or did the singer have to phone in the vocals from prison? If you want the press to write about you give them something to write about. If you need new photos now is the time to get them done not on the day you release the album. There is more information on press kits here.
  • Send CDs (or CDRs if you don’t have your CDs yet) off to traditional press and radio, along with your press release (if you are doing the PR yourself). As with advertising remember to check the magazines lead times, some magazine are only published quarterly for example so you’ll have to send them off a bit earlier. You have more chance of having your music reviewed if you are also advertising in the same magazine.
  • Post some tracks across social media as teasers. Perhaps a video on Youtube or a demo on Soundcloud? Don’t give them too much, just a couple of tracks to build interest.
  • Plan your social media, work out if you are doing blogs or videos daily or weekly and who in the band will be promoting on Facebook and Twitter. You need to tell your story and take your audience along with you as you go. Getting your audience involved at this stage will make it more likely they will purchase the album when it comes out. Ask your fans what they think of your CD artwork and demos (you don’t have to agree) and try to finish all of your social media with a question, this will get people talking.

1 month before the release:

  • Increase the amount of social media you are doing, more blogs, more tweets and more videos. Make sure you are not spamming people and don’t just talk about yourself, on Twitter if only 5% of your tweets are about your music you are probably OK. Every time you post something online make sure it is interesting enough for people to talk about, don’t just post things for the sake of it.
  • Send your album as a download to podcasters and bloggers, using the list of contacts you have built up over the last few months . You can host your album as a private file on Soundcloud or one of the various sharing sites and send links to the relevant bloggers and podcasters. Make sure you say which tracks are OK to post on blogs, at this point you want tracks to start to appear to get people interested in time for the release.

  • Email your fan mailing list on the day of your release and make sure your fans are aware of what is happening, this is essential. Include links to buy the album in every place it is possible to do so, remember some people prefer to buy their music from specific places i.e. Emusic subscribers.
  • Stream your release event on Ustream if possible. Ustream allows fans from across the world to watch your gig. Share your event with your online fan base and get them involved. There is more information on Ustream gigs here.

After the release:

  • The promo of your album must not stop here! The release is just the start, carry on connecting to bloggers, podcaster and the press. Put out more videos and upload more remixes. Play the long game and build your fan base over time. Try and keep up the momentum with social media. If people write about your music, blog about it and share it online via Twitter. Keep the blogs and videos coming and tell fans how the album is doing. Make it “you and the fans against the world”.
  • Gig heavily and list your gigs on Live Unsigned. Make sure you blog about the process. Make as much web content as possible when you play live by taking photos and making videos.
  • Do interviews with press/podcasters and blogs. If anyone has reviewed your album favourably, follow it up and ask if they would like to interview you. Make yourself available to everyone, you never know what a contact will bring. A play on an obscure podcast can lead to lots of other interesting things.

Every album release is different and there are things that everyone would do differently, the above list is just the start. There is always more you can do and each act will have different factors that effect the release. Make sure that your album release is an event that is truly special, not just “band releases CD”. Make it remarkable and you’ll get people talking and that is when the word of mouth buzz works really well.

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April 15th, 2011

Planning a DIY album release (part 1)

It is a big job putting out a new album and every release is different, with its own problems. Working to a very specific plan will allow you to ensure everything gets done.

Picture by Paul Linus Claassen

What follows is our step by step guide to putting out a DIY album.

6 months before the release date:

  • Work out an overall budget for your release and stick to it. Calculate the cost of everything include manufacturing, advertising, PR, pluggers, artwork, recording, mastering, licensing any cover songs, session musicians, recording, flyers, an event to promote the release, videos, new equipment etc. This will only be the start of the full actual cost. Working out these expenses will give you the chance to spend money where it really matters and not waste your budget. Ensure you allocate a significant amount to promotion and advertising, there is no point making a great sounding record on flash equipment that no one will hear. Remember if you spend your promotion money wisely, aimed at a very specific niche audience the money will come back and your audience will grow.
  • Identify your audience. Think of the music you create and what artists are similar to your act. If you don’t know who your target audience is it is very easy to waste money on promotion and ads. Focus your efforts on building that audience now through social media and playing live now, not in six months time when the album comes out. A slow build to a release works best. There are loads of ideas for building a niche audience in the previous few Live Unsigned blogs.

3 months before the release:

  • At this point the recording should be complete. Ensure that you document every aspect of the writing and recording of the album using video cameras, blogs, photos and audio recordings. This content is great for creating videos and blogs to post online in the run up to the release of the album. Marketing of the album should start even before it is finished.
  • Ensure any session musicians have signed a standard music release agreement. You can download standard agreements online, it only takes a minute but it is a very wise move.
  • Arrange a release date (and keep to it). All your efforts going forward need to be focused on this date. Avoid releasing it just before Christmas, it will just disappear amongst all the seasonal releases.
  • Book a venue for a release party. List the event on Live Unsigned and invite all the local press, bloggers, podcasters and your fans. This needs to be a success to set everything else in motion. Give out flyers and promote it everywhere you can. Arrange a decent support to ensure the event is sold out. Think of anything else you can do to make it special, something that is unique to your band that will get people talking. Everything you can do to start word of mouth buzz is useful at this stage.
  • Are you looking to get the new release played on the radio? If so you’ll probably need to get a radio plugger, unless you have built up a relationship with specific DJs. You can spend a lot of money with pluggers without much success so be careful. Make sure you let them know clearly what you want and only use a plugger who is personally recommended by someone you know. One play on a radio station will have very little impact and the majority of commercial radio won’t even consider indie artists. There are however plenty of outlets with podcasters and online broadcasters and you won’t need a plugger to contact them and get your music played. What you need is a DJ to really champion your band and play your music multiple times. This works really well if the DJ has a loyal audience, like the legendary John Peel.
  • If you are going to release the record to retailers look for a distributer. Unless you have lots of buzz about your band don’t even consider this, retailers are having a tough time and will not even consider taking a risk on an unknown band. Also if you sell via retail you will make far less money per CD sold, so you will need to factor this into your costing for the overall project. If you are looking at getting CDs into retailers sort out a barcode. If you google barcodes there are various ways of doing it, depending on where you live in the world.
  • Sort the artwork out – if you’re good with Photoshop and understand the formats/templates that the CD manufacturer require you can do it yourself but if not get someone who knows what they are doing to do it. Don’t let your album be let down by rubbish artwork. If you aren’t good at creating art get a friend to do it or ask your fans on Twitter or your mailing list for help. This is important, people will see your CD cover before they hear it. Think of the artwork of artists that define your genre, what you do needs to be that good. And don’t use the font comic sans (no exceptions).
  • Sign off the masters and final mix. There is a full post about mastering here. Get some friends to double check it is all correct, you don’t want to be sat on 500 CDs that have a mastering error on them.
  • Decide if you are going to have physical CDs or be purely digital. If you are going down the digital route you’ll still need some promo CDs as some reviewers won’t review downloads. If you are getting CDs done work out realistically how many you will sell. Think about how many people are on your mailing list but don’t expect them all to buy one. Only a small percentage will, what this percentage is depends on how engaged you are with your audience. It is better to get 100 and see how you get on if you’re not sure. Generally speaking you get better deals on CDs the more your order, but it is only worth it if you are actually going to sell them. No one wants a loft/basement full of unsold CDs. If you need help on growing your email list there is more information here.
  • Work out if you are going to use a PR company or do the promotion yourself. If you’re going to use a PR company ensure they come recommended by someone you know. Ensure they are experts at breaking bands at the stage you’re at with your career within your genre. Don’t let a PR handle your social media, it is you the fans want to talk to, not a PR person. If you’re doing it yourself put together a list of people to send promo discs to. This is where you’re months of building relationships with the press and bloggers really pays off, using the techniques we’ve been writing about in the last few months on the Live Unsigned blog.
  • Are there any interesting ways you can release the album? Perhaps a box set or an extra disc of demos that you can use as a higher value version of the album? Think about how you can make a higher revenue from your “superfans”, like Radiohead did when they issued In Rainbows, they had a special box set for fans with extra tracks, vinyl etc. Interesting formats are another way of getting people talking. Be remarkable!
  • Work out if you are going to issue a download single in advance of the album, perhaps a free track you can give away in exchange for an email address. The more email addresses you have the more chance you have of selling the album when it is released.
  • Use social media to leak demos and videos online. Post something every few weeks then increase the amount of content until you are posting things daily in the last few days before the album is out.
  • Post a teaser video on Youtube – perhaps a tiny part of a track with a slightly cryptic coming soon message? The more you can do to get people talking, do it. Now is the time to start the slow build buzz.

In part 2 of this post we’ll look at what to do when you get closer to the actual release date of the album.

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April 13th, 2011

Acts wanted for artsfest

Artsfest is the UK’s largest free arts festival and they are currently looking for performers. From indie rock to bhangra to hip-hop all styles are represented, but you’ll have to be quick if you want to apply, the deadline for entries is the 18th of April at 5pm.

Artsfest takes place in Birmingham (UK) 10-11th September 2011 with over 600 acts. It’s not just music there are opportunities for visual artists, poets and more. As the festival takes place in an urban setting it is also mud free! There are performances, workshops, exhibitions, installations, talks and screenings celebrating the performing, digital and visual arts. Its primarily aimed at people from the West Midlands but artists who are performing in the West Midlands or have a connection to the West Midlands are allowed to apply, even if they are not based in the UK.

As a free festival it presents a great opportunity for unsigned bands to build an audience and make connections. The event is heavily publicised online and in the print press and will certainly raise the profile of the acts that get to play. Application is via the website here.

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April 12th, 2011

Online collaboration for DIY musicians

Up until recently the only musicians you could work with were the ones in your local area, but thanks to the web this is no longer a problem. With the correct software and connections you can make records with musicians from around the world. Never again will you be unable to find a drummer for a specific task, although you will need either great contacts or some cash to pay for international session musicians. You can even put together a complete band project where no one has ever actually met. Working with other talented musicians is a good way to make your music really stand out on your website, video or Live Unsigned profile.

Picture by Paul Linus Claassen

To find collaborators either post on Twitter or across your social networks and blog and ask for what you need. You never know who is reading what you post. Ensure you agree the terms of the collaboration before moving forward. Are they playing on your record for free or is there a fee or some other arrangement? Agree this before you start recording, one of the best ways to do it is to offer to play on someone else’s record in exchange for you playing on their record. It’s especially good if the person you are collaborating with has a fan base of their own, it’s a great way of building your audience.

Some musicians share tracks online by sharing WAVs, via a digital audio workstation such as Logic, Pro Tools or Cubase. Here is an example of the way a virtual recording session works:

  • Send the musician a rough mix of the tracks along with the details of the session. (perhaps via YouSendIt, Dropbox or Soundcloud)
  • Explain exactly what you want from the performance, either via Skype or an email. It’s best if the track they send you is without effects as this gives you the most flexibility in the mix at your end.
  • The musician records a track along with your performance then sends it to you.
  • Let the musician know if you want any changes to the performance.
  • The musicians send you a WAV of the final performance and you place it into your mix.

One example of this process in action is Intercontinental Music Lab, a project where musicians from around the world come together to make records based around a specific theme. Backing tracks are swapped online and vocals and lyrics are added that are based on the same theme. All the music is available as free downloads, licensed under a creative commons agreement. Projects like this have only been possible in the last few years and they are likely to become more and more common in the future.

There are also sites where you can hire session musicians from around the world to play on your tracks. One of the most popular is eSession which allows you to post details of what you are looking for and thousands of musicians from around the world can see your post and apply to work on your project. Fees vary depending on the musician that you choose. One very exciting feature of eSession is Virtual Glass which allows you to see what the session musician is doing via a webcam within your digital audio work station as they record.

The technology is all moving so fast with regard to online collaboration. Sites like Ninjam have developed tools which allow bands to play together in real time, although this is not quite at the point where it’s available to mainstream musicians as it requires a lot of technical knowledge. It’s now possible to make music with anyone across the world (providing the broadband access is good enough) and it’s a very exciting time to be a musician.

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April 11th, 2011

New online music awards – for unsigned bands

The St. Helier Cider Online Music Awards is an new online event for unsigned bands, now in its second year. It is only open to unsigned acts.


There are seven categories:

  • Best Urban Act
  • Best Rock Act
  • Best Pop Act
  • Best Dance Act
  • Best Music Website
  • Best International Unsigned Act
  • Best Music Video

You can nominate your act, create a profile and upload your music and information. The deadline to register is before May 2011. A panel of industry experts will choose the top five acts in each category. Each nominated act will be judged on originality, presentation, lyrics, arrangement, musicality and vocals. The top five acts will be announced in May where the public can vote online for the winners.

As the competition is sponsored by a cider company you have to be over 18 to enter. This looks like another good way of gaining exposure for your band and winners will be announced on the 25th June 2011 by acts including Roll Deep, Tim Westwood and The Noisettes.

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April 8th, 2011

Do you need to get your music mastered?

Mastering is a subject that most bands find confusing and one that’s a lot easier to explain by demonstrating the effect it has on a recording. Once you hear the difference you’ll hear how important it is. The mastering process will allow your recordings to stand out and give them that final professional sound (and it’s why your home mixes don’t sound like the ones on the radio). Mastering will make your tracks stand out whether on a CD, your website or your Live Unsigned profile.

Picture by Paul Linus Claassen

Many engineers focus completely on mastering and it’s a highly skilled process requiring specialist knowledge and equipment. You can do it yourself, but it’s one area probably best left to professionals unless you are willing to spend a serious amount of time learning the skills. Before agreeing to use a mastering engineer ask to hear examples of their work and see testimonials from clients.

Mastering happens when you have recorded and mixed your project but before duplication or uploading tracks to the web. The benefits of mastering are:

  • Levelling out the overall volume – There is always debate about how loud mixes should be and how much dynamic range they should have. It’s the job of the mastering engineer to set this level. The mastering engineer often applies some compression and limiting to the entire album to normalise levels and prevent digital distortion. This gives your album an overall consistent sound and puts all the songs into the same dynamic range. It’s wise to agree with the person doing the mastering how loud you want your album to be before starting the process. In the last 10 years albums have got louder and louder (the so called loudness war) and some people feel this is to the detriment of the music. Agree this in advance by giving examples of albums you like the sound of for reference to the engineer.
  • It adds EQ – The mastering process will add EQ to the entire recording rather than specific songs (this should be sorted in the mix down process before mastering). This overall EQ will give the entire album or EP a consistent overall sound.
  • It finalises the running order and timing of the tracks – These decisions are normally made at the mastering stage, so make sure when you get to that point you know what the running order of the album is. Also agree the amount of time between tracks as this is set at this point. Deciding the running order is really important to the way the album will be received, ensure that you put your best/most interesting song first. Try and keep songs that sound similar or are in the same key apart. Be conscious of the BPM of songs and don’t put all your fast or slow songs together (unless this is the effect you are going for). The recent trend has been to top load albums with all the best songs/singles at the start. How you want to do it is up to you, but spend some time on it. Try a few different running orders using iTunes playlists to see how they work at home so the decision is made long before you start the mastering process.
  • Adding additional effects – Some people have been known to add effects during the mastering process, although this is not standard practice. One thing worth doing during mastering is running your digital mix through some really good valve pre-amps to give the recording some warmth and a more analogue feel. Once again agree with the mastering engineer how you want this to sound.

Use a mastering engineer that has been recommended by a friend or someone you respect, be very careful as this is an important process. Ideally get one song done before you agree to have the entire album mastered so that you can make sure you get the result you are looking for. Agree in advance what will happen if you are unhappy with the mastering and make sure that you are happy with what the overall price will be (watch out for hidden extras). Some bands ask to attend the mastering session and although it’s not essential it can be useful. Avoid automatic online mastering services, they just apply a standard pre-set process to your music, use an experienced engineer with a good reputation.

Ensure the final mix downs you want mastering are exactly as you want them long before you start the mastering process. Ensure there are no errors, level problems or digital clipping on the mix down as this can’t be fixed in mastering. Don’t worry about making your mixes loud, that’s what the mastering process is for. Bring them the WAV files of your mixes (never MP3s) and let the mastering engineer sort out the volume of the overall album. When the process is completed you will have WAVs ready to present to CD replicators or to upload to the web.

When done by an expert mastering makes a huge difference to a recording, it’s often what makes an album stand out from the standard home recordings. If you want to deliver a product that sounds as good as what you hear from “signed” bands it is essential.

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April 5th, 2011

Putting together a great press kit

Last week we wrote about how to get journalists interested in your band. So when you have their attention what do you send them?

Picture by Paul Linus Claaseen

You need a press kit, a standard pack you can send to journalists or anyone interested in your band (including promoters/podcasters etc). A press kit can be electronic or sent  as a physical promotional pack. If it’s an electronic press kit you can have it on a specific part of your website that is password protected (you can also keep your press releases here). Generally speaking they will contain the following elements:

  • A covering letter (offline press kit only) – This must be personalised with the name of the person who you are sending it to, make a phone call and find out who deals with reviews if you’re not sure. Explain why you are sending the package and specific information about the release you are asking them to review. Bonus points if you can say something nice about the publication you are sending the press pack to (and make sure its sincere and specific to the publication).
  • A biography – Only include relevant information, nobody cares what your first pet was. Make it chronological and include information on the band members, important gigs played, albums released and some quotes from the press. It shouldn’t be longer than a few paragraphs and only include details of your previous bands if they were successful or remarkable. Avoid hyperbole (journalists will see straight through this) and focus on the facts of where you are at with your career. Include your contact details, website and online profiles (including your Twitter/Live Unsigned profile etc).
  • A CD, or for an electronic press kit a few download/streaming songs  - Don’t send a CDR, get some professionally printed ones (a digipack ideally) with professional packaging if you want to stand out and be taken seriously. Make sure your contact details are on the CD itself as well as on the case (they do go astray). Put your best song first, without a long intro, it sounds obvious but people do make that mistake.
  • An information sheet – Including some basic information (band members, etc), your discography, website, radio plays, successful gigs, press received and what the band has happening in the future. Keep it to a few lines for each subject, well spaced out in bullet points to make it easy to locate information quickly. Journalists are busy people.
  • Some press cuttings – Stick to a few press cuttings from the last few years and make sure they are not just good but glowing and very positive. Try and include live reviews as well as album reviews and remember national press is better than the local free paper.
  • Some decent promotional photos – Not your mate on his iPhone round the back of your garage. Decent promo photos, with the best looking/most interesting person at the front of the picture. Get them taken by someone who knows what they are doing, well lit and preferably in a studio. Anyone can look good with decent photos. For online press kits the photos will need to be 300 DPI Resolution JPEGs, you can set the DPI in most photo editing software. Would you like someone to ignore your music because the photos are rubbish? A good photo makes all the difference.

Of course, none of this guarantees that your press pack will get looked at but by presenting yourself professionally you will stand much more of a chance.

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April 1st, 2011

6 reasons social media doesn’t work for some bands

Often musicians complain that social media doesn’t work, that they aren’t making any money and that marketing shouldn’t be their concern. They think its the job of the industry to market their music and they want to delegate updating their blog/Twitter/social media to others. This attitude won’t inspire much confidence from anybody (especially not managers and record labels).

Picture by Paul Linus Claassen

The reasons that bands fail to gain an audience are numerous, but here are 6 of the main ones:

  • The music isn’t good enough. The number one reason why most bands haven’t got any fans is that they aren’t interesting/remarkable/great. Bland rehashes of what has gone before won’t get people talking online. If you sound like everyone else, why will people tell their friends about it? Weird/bizarre/ scandalous/controversial/talented will work more quickly. Better to go away and practice and get better, then try playing your music to a few people you respect (not your friends). If they like it then start promoting it online. Repeat this until you’re ready to really impress an audience. The better you are the less money it will cost to build an audience because word of mouth will take you further. Its fine to be a musician without an audience if thats what you want, its your decision.
  • They lack consistency or don’t put the time in. If you go on to social networks once a week/month you won’t get many results. If you put in a lot of effort for a few weeks then give up, nothing much will happen. Building a following online happens over months and years, not days and weeks (unless you have a weird viral hit or are prepared to spend serious money in the right places).  Sites like Twitter and Live Unsigned are great ways to build an audience but it won’t happen overnight.
  • Not talking to fans/spamming fans. Spamming people on social networks and never replying to other peoples Tweets is one sure way of failing.  Tweeting “@yo check out my music” isn’t a way of building an audience, you will just annoy people and possibly get banned from Twitter. Listening to your fans and replying to them will build a more authentic relationship over time.
  • They delegate their social media. You have to do it yourself. Fans want an authentic connection with the artist not a PR person, they want to feel part of it. You can’t outsource it, its you they want to talk to. If you just talk about product and sales you will just annoy people. Open up and talk to your audience, tell them how you really feel and make them laugh. Once you have a relationship with the fans then you have permission to sell them downloads and talk to them about gigs.
  • They don’t know who their audience is. If you think you’re a metal band but the people who like your music are indie kids, go with that. When you find an audience that loves your music continue to build on that. Find out who likes your music and hang out where they hang out, from forums to gigs by artists in the same genre.
  • Charging for music when they haven’t got an audience. If you have less than 2000 people on your mailing list ensure your music is available free in exchange for an email address. You can’t sell to an audience you haven’t got, without a decent sized mailing list you haven’t got a business. Make it free until you have an audience, then you can sell more than a just downloads, such as merchandise like T-shirts, Box Sets etc. If you want a career you need to think of the long term opportunities not a £1 download. Also bands who only offer 30 second downloads are just making life harder for themselves, its like stopping a radio station from playing your music. Let the fans hear what you do, piracy isn’t the problem, obscurity is.

Every band will use the web in different ways to grow an audience, but saying that social media doesn’t work is just another excuse along the lines of “we didn’t get the breaks”. Of course luck does come into any bands success, but to allow those breaks to happen you have to put the work in. One thing that you can guarantee, success in the music industry won’t come looking for you.

 

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