Tag Archives | DIY Musicians

23 May 2013

Is DIY the only way for your band?

You often hear experts online saying how great things are now for musicians, how there are so many tools online to build your fanbase and get your music out there. However, not all artists are good at social networking. Some people don’t have the people skills or the time to do all the thousands of [...]

18 April 2013

What is your band’s Elevator Pitch?

What happens when someone asks: “What does you band sound like?” This is never an easy question to answer, it’s the question most musicians dread. Everyone likes to think their band is unique and special but often people need to get a rough idea of what sort of music you perform. Sometimes you only get seconds [...]

18 May 2012

How did Amanda Palmer raise over half a million dollars from her fans in under a week?

Well known social media user and musician Amanda Palmer recently started a campaign using Kickstarter.

09 April 2012

How do you get influential people interested in your music?

When you see bands with thousands of Facebook likes or Twitter followers it can seem really intimidating and it is easy to feel that as a new artist you will never be able to build that kind of audience. Building a fan base takes time and most people with lots of fans and followers don’t [...]

10 March 2012

How do musicians really earn a living?

It used to be relatively simple to work out how successful musicians got paid, you signed to a record label, put out an album and toured in support of it. If you made a profit after paying back your advance and all associated costs you got paid. This is called recouping (most bands failed to [...]

02 March 2012

How can your band benefit from piracy?

Many musicians are looking to stop piracy but some bands are finding ways to use free music, illegal downloading and so called “piracy” to grow their audience. In a recent interview on Forbes.com Joy Williams from successful indie band The Civil Wars said: “Sure, piracy has its drawbacks, but it also has positives, we’ve had [...]

24 February 2012

How do you define success as a musician?

As a musician you often feel that what you are doing with your musical career doesn’t compare to what others are achieving. Other bands often seem to gain fans more quickly, get better gigs and get more attention from the press. It’s very easy to lose your motivation.  One thing to bear in mind is [...]

13 February 2012

Can your band achieve mainstream success via social media?

Recently we highlighted the story of Jon Gomm’s viral video hit Passionflower and the how it received over a million views thanks to Reddit and social media. Many people see viral hits as useful but can’t see that they cross over into the mainstream press and TV. It depends who is talking about your music [...]

04 February 2012

How much does it cost to “make it” in music?

On the Time magazine website there is an article by an obscure indie rock band called Two Lights talking about how expensive it is to become a rock star. It is always a bad idea to complain in public. GQ called them “Hapless poster-bros for self-importance…full of whiny self-entitlement” and across the web people are ridiculing [...]

09 December 2011

Over 25? Are you too old to become a full time musician?

At a recent music industry event a well known music industry manager said that he wouldn’t even consider working with an act unless they were “under 25, good looking and ready to sign to a major label in 6 months”. Many people within the music industry are the same. But when you look at how [...]