BANDCOCKTAIL.COM

indiedatabase.com Best way to sell your music and beats online either as mp3 or physical albums. Indiedatabase.com the new fast growing website i ran across i thought id share with you. Has soo many awesome features i couldn’t even start to list them all. This site is and will be mega!

Finding a distributor is hard. It can take months and months before you find and secure a distributor, which is not an easy process for independent labels or individuals.

Don’t give up or get discouraged; keep plugging away, even if you can’t find a distributor after months of searching. Distributors get a lot of packages on their desks every week, so it’s imperative that you contact them first before you send them a package. When calling a distributor, you may get them on the first try, or it may take you weeks before you get a live person to talk to.

If you don’t contact them first, and send a package to them unsolicited, it might get tossed or sent back unopened. But you may think, ‘My product is awesome! They would never do that with mine.’ Sorry to bring you bad news, but your package may never get opened. As a matter of fact, it may never get past the receptionist’s desk without prior clearance. So why not make sure that your product has a much better chance of getting heard by getting permission first?

For those of you who feel you could never make any cold calls, you will have to get over it, or have a friend do the calling for you. Getting through the first phone call is always tough, but then you will see, as you make more and more calls, that it gets easier every time. You are in competition with a lot of people who are making the calls. If you don’t call, the chances are very slim that you will ever be heard.

If, after the first time you call, you still feel that you are just too embarrassed, try making up a character and make your call as that character. Become “Jicki Wicki” from “Nagawicki.” (You never know; it could lead to an additional career of acting!) Make it a game.

It is important that you submit your CD to a distributor that distributes your kind of music. The person you send it to is not necessarily the person in charge of final decisions. From the time you start contacting them, it may take you six to eight months to get the actual product in their hands and get them to finally listen to it, before you find the right distributor. Once you finally get one, it can take an additional few months to get added to their database. Here are few words of advice on finding a distributor:

• On your first call, tell them your name and label. If you haven’t picked a name yet, make one up.
• Ask about their submission and distribution policies.
• Ask if being the only act on an indie label is going to cause a problem. Many distributors will not take products from Indie labels unless they have at least three to fifteen CDs in their ’stable.’ Additionally, many distributors will not take you on unless you already have established airplay. The catch-22 is that many radio stations, while they may play an independent artist, will only do so if they have national distribution.
• Ask what they want in the press kit. Some want an entire press kit with a CD (forego sending a headshot unless specifically asked for one), while others just need a letter of summary which contains recent happenings, targeting ideas, and review excerpts, if you have any. It’s important to find out this information beforehand. We found out, after much wasted time and money, that several distributors only wanted the letter. They had opened the package, read the tear sheet, and thrown the rest away. Once we started calling frequently, they asked for the whole package again. What a waste of resources!
• In your letter/press kit they will want to know your “SRP,” which is your Suggested Retail Price. For those of you who are unfamiliar with retail versus wholesale, retail is the price the consumer would pay in a music store and wholesale is the price the distributor pays to the product owner.

My suggestion for SRP is $11.98 – $12.98. You don’t want to price yourself out of the market. When you look in a music store, most major-label artists’ CDs are “on sale” for $11.98. Distributors will typically take 40-60% of your SRP as their cut (which at 40% x $11.98 gives you $7.19 per CD), and the music stores will typically mark up your SRP by $1.00 – $4.00. If you set your SRP at $11.98, and the store adds an additional $2.00 to the price of your CD, the cost to the consumer would be $13.98. However, if you set your SRP at $13.98 and the store adds $2.00, the price to the consumer would be $15.98. Which price do you think a consumer who had never heard of you would be more likely to pay?

• Double-check what style of music they currently distribute.
• Ask if they require your music to be played on a particular radio station.

There are some distributors that require you to be played on specific stations before they will distribute you. If that station does not play your genre of music, you have wasted your product, money, and time. Let me give you an example of why this is another key question. We had asked all of the above questions, with the exception of this particular one. Then we shipped off the package. When we contacted them later, they asked us if we were playing on a certain radio station. We said no.

It turned out that the station only played alternative music, while our CD is Country/Jazz. You can see the problem. When we approached them about this fact, they said they did not distribute Country Music. We asked when they stopped distributing Country Music. The gentleman we spoke with during our initial call said he was considering presenting Country Music to the company, but hadn’t had the chance. He realized that we would never be played on the station on which they require airplay, so he dropped it. A great example of wasted time, effort, and money!

• Inquire where their distribution arm reaches. Ask for specific states and regions. Some distributors only distribute in certain states. If your radio airplay, live gigs, and promotion are not in those regions, they cannot help you.
• When is the best time to reach them?
• Who are some of the major stores they distribute too, and in what areas? Call several of the stores and double-check their references. If the stores have never heard of them, they may not be a legitimate distributor. Save your product from an unscrupulous person who may be trying to rip you off.

This is just a sampling of things you must do in order to obtain a distributor. Don’t forget to get your music listed with iTunes, Sonymusic and all the other online distributors. Once you actually obtain a distributor it’s an entirely different playing field, and a lot of work, but well worth it.

Downloading MP3 music online is really a normal daily affair for music lovers. There is nothing fanciful really. People have this misconception that as long as you are not paying for your MP3 music files, it is not legal to do so. And the contrary may not be true as well. So it can be quite enlightening to know that there are places where you can actually download music MP3 online for free legally. This article will take you to several sites where you can find music online to download for your MP3 player or computer.

Amazon.com

This site actually has a free section to download MP3 music online. We are not talking about music that is unwanted and unpopular here but some of the greatest and most exclusive music pieces from the hottest musicians around the world today. Not only do you get to download selected tracks from popular artists, you can also download music from various genres like Indie Rock or Jazz. It is quite likely that you can find your favourite band of music there.

Epitonic.com

Epitonic offers you a rather extensive and large database of MP3s. In fact, users are amazed at the collection of music MP3s and the variety of music genre they have. When you download MP3 music online at this site, be prepared to find lots of high quality free downloads for your MP3 player.

CommonTunes.org

This is a community music directory where you can freely download MP3 music online of all kinds of music from classics like pieces by Beethoven to music by Bright Eyes. It is a good starting point for anyone who wants to get hold of some MP3 music downloads.

Garageband.com

This site is another site that gives you the chance to download MP3 music online for free. The uniqueness of the site lies in the fact that the music is originally produced by independent bands and musicians that you have not heard of. These are the wannabes waiting to be discovered by talent scouts. One such musician is Bo Bice of American Idol 4. So if you are a great fan, you can download the music there.

Matador Records

Matador is one great place to find music MP3s from popular Indie groups as well as other music genres. This site allos you to download free and totally legal music files from groups like Spoon, Stephen Malkmus, Guided By Voices and so on. All you ever need to do is to drop by at their free MP3 music online page to download the music pieces.

When it comes to finding the right music sites to download MP3 music online for free, it becomes quite clear that there are trusted places to do so. But not all sites that you find online allow you to do so safely and free from harmful malware. So be sure to check carefully. Read up more on where you can download unlimited numbers of MP3 music files for less than a dime per download at my music blog.

No other type of music stirs the soul and is more widely loved among all groups of people than instrumental music. Solo guitar music is passionate, alive, and full of artistic expression. It crosses social boundaries including ethnicity, religion, and geographical region. Solo piano music is relaxing and soothing. Whether you listen as you relax or listen as you work, great instrumental music can help eliminate distractions, introduce a gentle rhythm to your system and leave you feeling refreshed and restored.

Finding free instrumental music online used to be extremely difficult, but the internet has changed all of that. New and established artists are now able to upload their favorite pieces online for people to download and enjoy. This has enabled artists to utilize the low-cost advertising methods of the internet to get their music out there where it can be heard and enjoyed. But…not all freely-available music is worth listening to. Different level of creativity, performance talent and recording quality can lead to wild variations in the quality of free music. So, quality is the first problem.

What’s been good for the internet has largely been bad for the mainstream music business. You’re likely to find it difficult to locate and purchase quality instrumental music in brick-and-mortar stores due to the limited selection that most music stores carry these days. Those stores which have survived so far generally focus more on stocking big-name best-sellers…and most quality instrumentalists these days fall into the category of “indie musicians”…so they are ignored. So, you may ask…why not simply go for peer-to-peer music sharing (stealing) services? Well, in addition to the moral issues…you have to be careful not to download viruses, spyware, and adware along with your music selections. So, availability is the second problem.

Virus-free music that is uploaded by up-and-coming indie artists is generally easier to find, but it often requires visiting several sites to download a large enough selection to fill up one CD. You’ll likely have to visit many artist websites individually find what you’re looking for. This can be an incredibly time-consuming process. So the third problem is accessibility.

But I’ve recently discovered two sites which offer all three…without fear of viruses and without the need to steal to discover new music:

quality

availability

accessibility

The distribution format is MP3…so there are no hassles with Digital Rights Management (DRM) issues, either.

For a delightful variety of fingerstyle and tapstyle instrumental music performed on acoustic guitar: FreeSoloGuitar.com

And for a great selection of beautiful new-age solo piano pieces: FreeSoloPiano.com

Now I can find music to suit my mood no matter what it is. These sites have quickly become some of my favorites for downloading free music.

The Internet has proven to be where music can be discovered, reviewed, discussed, shared, and purchased. Musicians know this and get online to upload their music and become a part of the world wide music machine process. They come on the Web at every age, at every experience level – musically and computer savvy. From youngsters starting out to seasoned musicians just learning where the computer on switch is, the workings of being on a computer can be overwhelming with everything else they have going on in their lives.

The Web also allows musicians access to music knowledge. Artists will come across difficult terminology and phrases that they do not understand. Compiled in the following mini glossary are music business, digital, organizations, record biz lingo, computer terms and basic need-to-know info. Hopefully, something listed here will help you navigate music online a bit easier, and so you know, this glossary is an excerpt of an extensive list found on Artistopia.

A&R – Artist and Repertoire, aka talent scouts: a record company liaison whose duties may include to find, select and develop the music artist, band and/or songwriter.
Affiliate Program – a way to earn income by linking your Web site to another site, depending on the action taken by the visitor.
ASCAP – American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers which licenses and distributes royalties to it’s members’ copyrighted works.
Bandwidth – has nothing to do with the size of a band but is a measure of the amount of information (data) that can be sent over a network connection in a given period of time. Bandwidth is usually measured in bits per second.
Bitrate – The number of kilobits per second of data in your audio file. The bitrate you choose when creating an MP3 file determines the size and quality of the resulting MP3. The highest commonly available bitrate is 320 kbps and the higher the bitrate, the closer the encoding is to the original source of music.
Blanket License – allows the user to perform any or all, in part or all, of the songs in the ASCAP repertory. What a warm and cozy license.
Business Manager – an artist or band manager that specializes in the financial matters, including planning, investing, income, taxes, decisions and contracts.
Buzz – to get people talking about a new artist, band, song or album, creating intense excitement and/or rumors.
Clause – a chubby fellow in a red suit is Claus: in a record contract, there might be certain limitations, specifications, or modifications that stipulate the final outcome of that contract.
Concert Promoter – with duties including ticketing, PR, marketing, and booking, this agency or agent responsibilities are for concert event promotion.
Content – to make the Search Engines happy and have pages rank well in a search result, a good quantity of well written text aligning with the site’s keywords and theme updated regularly is a Webmaster’s steak and potatoes.
Cookie – no, not chocolate chip, but a piece of software that records info about your visit to a Web site, then holds the info until the server requests it.
Copyright – a set of exclusive rights regulating the use of a particular expression of an idea or information, in our case artistic properties, the songs and sound recordings.
Derivative Work – a new work based on or resulting from one or more preceding works.
Digital Licensing – the use of copyrighted music compositions including downloads, on demand streaming, limited use downloads and CD burning.
Distributor – the agency or agent that handles the sales and shipment of the music (records, CDs) to the marketplace or basically, gets the product to the consumers.
Domain Name – a sign post on the Internet, it is a unique name that identifies an Internet site.
DRM – Digital Rights Management is a technology that protects a piece of intellectual digital property such as a music, video, or text file.
Encoding – the process of converting audio to or from a compressed format like MP3 or WMA.
Exclusive Rights – under copyright law, the privileges that only a copyright owner has with respect to the copyrighted work.
Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) – a file format for audio data compression that does not remove information from the audio stream, as MP3, AAC, and Vorbis do.
Grammy Awards – an award ceremony for all genres presented by the Recording Academy for outstanding achievements in the recording industry: a gold megaphone for your mantel.
Groupie – what’s the point of being an act without groupies? Overly enthusiastic fans with much love to offer.
HTML – HyperText Markup Language, programming language for the world wide web. A web browser interprets the code written and displays it for a web page and web sites. Some very basic knowledge of HTML may help on some sites.
Hook – a pirate: a music phrase, a passage, an idea – something (catchy and/or repetitive) that makes the song stand out and be more appealing and remembered.
Hype – sensational and extreme promotion of a person, idea or product.
Indie – an independent artist or band that desires to do-it-all-themselves and/or not affiliated with a larger record label.
Intern – usually a college student job at a record label in a no or low paying position, more of an apprenticeship learning the ropes and gaining business experience.
Internet Service Provider (ISP) – how and who connects your computer or network to the Internet, whether dialup, DSL, Cable, T1 or T3.
Master Recording License – pertains to the recording of a performance itself, which are usually controlled by the record label.
Mastering – the final stage and preparation in a recording before weapons of mass duplication, includes the consistency of audio levels and quality perfecting.
Mechanical License – the use of copyrighted musical compositions for use on CDs, cassettes, record albums.
Music Contracts – all the various bits of paperwork used in the music business, always read the “fine print” to the many contracts – recording, management, finders fee, general release contracts. When the contracts come in – time to get an Entertainment Attorney.
Music Industry – all things pertaining and related to the business of music, dominated by the Big Four major labels: Sony BMG, Warner, Universal and EMI.
Music Publisher – provides services such as marketing, pitching and promoting works written by songwriters. Deals with the commercial exploitation of music catalogs and songs.
Press Kit – aka media kit, a prepackaged set of promotional materials for a music artist or band for distribution including song samples, bio, historical info, photos and contact information.
Producer – duties include: controlling the recording session, guidance of the artist(s), coaching, organizing, scheduling of production resources and budgets, as well as supervising the process of recording, mixing and mastering.
Publishing Royalties – income paid to the writer of a song.
RIAA – Recording Industry Association of America, the organization that represents the interests of record labels and producers in the USA.
Ripping – means to take an audio CD and record it to a computer in an uncompressed file format (wav). Digital audio extraction from one media form to a hard disk.
Roadie – the road crew that travels with a band on tour. These hard working individuals do everything but the performance, are technicians, do the set up and take down, security, bodyguards, pyrotechnics, and lighting.
Sampling Rate – the number of samples taken per second when digitizing sound. The higher the number, the better the quality of the digital reproduction.
SoundExchange – an independent, nonprofit performance rights organization that collects and distributes digital performance royalties for recording artists and record labels when their sound recordings are performed on digital cable, satellite TV music, internet and satellite radio.
Sound Recording – the copyright of the recording itself (what you hear, the entire production) as distinguished from the copyright of the song (words and music owned by the songwriter or publisher).
Synchronization License – aka “synch” license, allows the user to reproduce a musical composition “in connection with” or “in timed relation with” a visual image, motion picture, video, advertising commercial – from the copyright owner of the music.
Talent Agent – or booking agent, the representative of the music artist(s) that sets up the live performances.
Vanity Label – a celebrity recording artist is given a label within a label and runs under the umbrella of the parent label.

So why so much buzz about music download websites? There’s a large amount of legal concern surrounding most music download sites. Websites that offer free music downloads are often done illegally. When free music download sites are discovered, they are quickly shut down, and the webmaster faces legal action.

The Double-Edged Sword

The music download debacle is a double-edged sword. People download free music against the wishes of music labels everywhere. Many labels complain that downloaded music is cutting into their clients’ profits. Some have produced statistical reports showing how sales are decreasing and place the blame on websites that offer free downloads of music.

On the other hand, some music labels are publishing increases in sales due to free downloads. They claim that people listen to their music online and rush out to purchase the CD. Some say they have seen as much as a 28 percent increase in sales. What better form of free advertising than a free download here and there?

According to one report, an estimated 2 billion songs are downloaded illegally each month. In a related report 23 percent of music listeners said they are not buying CDs because they have the ability to download their favorites for free. Many readers would like to know where these reports and statistics are coming from.

The Down-Side to Downloading

The biggest concern facing those who download music from free sites is probably the legal ramifications of their actions. When under investigation, peer-to-peer download sites could have all clients tracked. If they are required to track activity to their site, they are required to report their findings to authorities. Some of this information is the Internet Protocol address of the person downloading the music. Your IP address acts much like your home address for your computer. Authorities may trace your IP address and arrest you at your home for downloading illegal files.

In addition to potential legal problems, many peer-to-peer download sites are chock full of computer viruses. Computer viruses may cause uncontrollable and uncountable pop-ups to invade your monitor while you’re trying to browse the Internet. Other, more serious computer viruses can completely debilitate your computer, making it worthless.

Good News for Independents

Independent musicians are those who have no recording label. Independents are responsible for their own recording, marketing, advertising and so on. One of the most expensive parts of gaining your fame in the music world is exposure. Having your music played on the radio is very expensive. The Internet and digital recordings have become the independent musician’s best friend. Indies can record their own music, using the proper equipment, and promote their music as free or inexpensive downloads all over the Web.

Popular social and viral video networking sites have made it even easier than ever for independent artists to promote their music. When people listen to their music via one of these sites, they have the option to add them to a friend or buddy list. Their other friends see this new independent band profile on the list of someone they trust, so they visit as well. Independents usually place a snippet of their music on their website so visitors can listen. They also offer individual downloads of songs for as little as $0.99 per song.

Downloading music online used to be a dream on the coffee table. People even talked and fantasized about the imaginary music jukebox that can play music on order and anyone can just download whatever music they want from an inexhaustible jukebox. Today, downloading music online is a piece of cake. And you have a few options. Anyone can be downloading free or paid music online. Before you get too excited, we shall take a look at both options to download online music and how you can save your money while downloading music online.

Free Music MP3 Downloads

Now, downloading online music can be free but you need to know where to go to. Here are just a few places you can go to on the internet to find free music MP3 downloads.

Indy.tv – Indy makes it possible for you to find new independent music. Go ahead and download Indy. It allows you to rate the songs you listen to. What I love about Indy is the artificial intelligence is quick to pick up what kind of music you love and would keep sending you music that you would find enjoyable.

Epitonic – Epitonic gives you a chance to listen and download music online of independent and underground artists in US. They are normally in MP3 or WMA format and generally playable on our computer.

Paid Music MP3 Downloads

Downloading paid music online should not be unfamiliar to you. These are several established places to download music for a fee.

iTunes – iTunes is synonymous with iPod music. You can find a whole range of music genres there. Each music MP3 download costs 99 cents. Downloading is fast and easy and the search function is sophisticated.

Connect – Connect is Sony’s pay-per-track service. It serves many different brands of music from a large network. But the problem is it is not so user-friendly. The music files are in ATRAC3 format, a proprietary audio format which can be recognized and played only on Sony MP3 players.

There are also other online music stores that offer similar downloading services. Each site can vary in the number of music MP3 downloads they have, the music genre, the customer service and so on. These sites allow downloading music online for a membership subscription fee. Most nowadays charge you a one-time fee for unlimited access. For more details on how downloading music online can be done cheaply, check out my music download blog.

Let us face it. Music lovers normally own many CDs, download music online and will not stop buying music. That is why the music industry has always been vibrant and new singers are born, and new songs are written. The trouble is music lovers have an insatiable desire for new music all the time and it can be really painful on the wallets and the credit cards if you are building a music library. Ask a teen how many songs he or she has in the collection and chances are there are at least a few hundreds and they are still downloading music online everyday. Imagine paying $1 for each piece of music they download online. Is there a way to download music online without hurting your wallet?

There are tons of music online stores nowadays. Ever since music becomes downloadable online, more and more are going to these stores to download music online. Trouble is many kids and teens are downloading music from free places. It is great news for parents who are paying the bills for our kids’ needs every month. But there is no free lunch really.

Downloading from free sites would expose your computer to unnecessary harmful attacks by viruses and malware like adware and spyware. The damage may be light and only your computer speed is slowed down because of the drain the malware is putting on your computer resources. In worst case scenarios, your computer hardware suffers from permanent damage and you lose all your important documents and information.

For those who are downloading music online from free resources, be prepared for slow download speeds as well. Some of the online sites that offer free music downloads crash quite often or hang up on you because there are way too many freebie seekers downloading at the same time. Save yourselves the trouble and frustration by using online music download sites that offer paid services.

Music stores like Rhapsody and AOL are great places to download music online since they offer monthly subscription packages which are cheaper than those pay-per-download stores. If that is still too expensive for you, why not consider the new batch of online music download sites that offer unlimited music downloads for a lifetime fee? In other words, for a one time membership fee, you get to download unlimited music and songs from the music site as long as you wish even if it is 3am in the morning.

Such online music download stores offer a wide selection of the latest music from record labels and also keep a good stock of oldies. So it does not matter what brand of music you are looking for, as there is a high chance you can find it. If you are unsure, check with the music site. For a price that ranges from $30 to $50, you can download all the music media files in the collection which is in the range of millions. Teens and young adults love this since they are a tech-savvy lot who want more options without having to pay big bucks.

While it sounds great to download music online from these sites, there are many factors you have to consider when selecting the ideal site for unlimited music downloads. If this looks complicated, find out how you can simplify the whole process as you learn more from my music blog.

While it’s important to properly design, prepare, and optimize your web site for the search engines, search engine placement is only the very beginning of your music marketing plan. The first audience you need to target is your existing fan base. As I will demonstrate shortly, your fans are going to play a big part in how you lay the groundwork for future marketing strategies.

If you’re just starting out in the music business and feel like “I don’t have a fan base,” think again. You have family, friends, co-workers, classmates, former classmates, church members and neighbors all around you. If you sit down and start writing down the names of every person you’ve ever known in your life, you’ll be very surprised how quickly that list grows without much effort. Don’t underestimate the power of your friends, family, and immediate circle of acquaintances. You’ve heard of the fabled ’six degrees of separation.’ Well, you really only need two of those six degrees to start building a pretty large mailing list.

The Internet is a fantastic tool for finding old friends and acquaintances. One of the first things I recommend you do when building a mailing list is pull out your old high school and college yearbooks. Remember Fred? Sue? Or Tom? I’ll bet you forgot about all those old chums of yours! Go through the class pictures and write down the names of anyone you think would be interested in your music career. Now you just need to find them!

There are a large number of resources on the Internet you can use to research old school pals. Most everyone knows about Classmates.com, which charges a fee to join, but there are other resources, many of which offer free registration.

Make Contact – Newsletter

Whether you are a performing musician or not, mailing out a printed newsletter to your fans twice a year is one more way to drive fans to your web site. Your newsletter is your key to getting inside the home of each of your fans on a semi-regular basis. While many suggest e-mail is a good, inexpensive substitute for postal mail, in reality, you should consider using both methods.

E-mail is too easy to discard and people change e-mail addresses all the time. Not only that, but not everyone has a permanent e-mail address or Internet access, and for those fans, your newsletter may be your only means of keeping in touch. For the fans that do have Internet access, your newsletter is a great way to stir up curiosity about your web site.

Your newsletter should include much of the same information as your web site: band photos, a performance schedule, product reviews, news, articles, contests, song lyrics, merchandise info and, of course, contact and booking information. Newsletters have several benefits:

• A newsletter keeps your act fresh in the minds of your fans.

• A newsletter keeps your mailing list up-to-date. If you include the phrase “Return Service
Requested” on your newsletter just below the return address, the post office will return
undeliverable mail to you with the correct new address so you can update your mailing list.

• A newsletter is a great source of information for those fans of yours who do not have Internet
access.

Information and news about your web site should be a main topic of your newsletter. The objective of your newsletter, much like live performance, is to drive your fans to your web site where you can sell them your product.

So, in your newsletter use some of the same methods to promote your web site that you do when performing. Announce contests, offer coupons, give away free stuff, whatever you can think of. The more your fans visit your web site, the more opportunities you will have to sell them your merchandise.

The internet has revolutionised the music industry and how music is sold and distributed online. We are all aware of the issues facing illegal music downloads and the heavy impact it has on bands to generate payment for their music. But we are talking about the best ways for you to sell your music and generate publicity for your band.

With the increase in internet usage throughout the world and the easy availability of internet based tools and software, you can now record a professional sounding record in a home based studio or promote yourself through Sites such as MySpace, MyBandMate, YouTube and similar sites. There are a number of key avenues to pursue for bands and musicians when it comes to selling music online and these sites are providing free resources and tools to showcase your music.

If you are a budding musician or band and are looking for ways to sell your music online then below are some proven tips to get you started. They are free and will generate a lot of exposure in promoting your music.

Forums are a great way to promote your music and ultimately drive potential fans to your site and music. You need to find forums that are not only specific to music but also to your genre of music. For example, if you are a Christian rock band, there is no use trying to promote your music in a reggae forum. Promote your music to your target audience. You never know who is reading your forum posts and the whole game is about getting your name and music out there in a number of forums.

Free music networks such as MySpace and YouTube allow you to upload and share your music. MyBandMate is an example of a site that allows you to target your specific audience by promoting your music in various ways via online forums, chat, article postings, music and video uploads, classifieds and much more. Remember, it is a numbers game so the more sites you get onto the more exposure your music will get. Take advantage of these free music networks and you may just get discovered in a big way!

Chat rooms can be useful in spreading the word around about your music. Once again you need to choose the right chat rooms otherwise you will just be wasting your time. These chat forums can be a great way to network.

Blogs have been all the rage of the last few years and they have a powerful presence in ranking highly in the search engines. A well written blog that provides the reader with valuable and informative content can keep that reader returning on a regular basis. In your blog you can have links for fans to buy your music or CDs online.

Classifieds are often under utilised by musicians. Most people think that classifieds are only there to post jobs, sell instruments or look for new band members. However, you can generate a lot of traffic and eventually sales by posting your music for sale in the appropriate category.

Have you heard of Squidoo? If not then this is a great marketing tool that’s free and allows you to create a page about your music or band. You can then use their powerful marketing tools to achieve a high ranking in the search engines.

Having your own website is not essential but it’s definitely worthwhile. A simple one or two page site can cost you less than $100 a year so the cost is not too high. Many webhosts such as GoDaddy allow you to register a domain name, sign up for a years hosting and use their easy to use software to create your own website without any technical or previous website knowledge. If you don’t have your own site then MySpace and MybandMate are definitely two free music networks that allow you to create your own profiles and mini sites with all the required features to promote your music. If you are a musician and are not using these free music networks then you better ask yourself why not! You can’t sell your music if you aren’t willing to put in some time promoting your music.

Many bands are using Google Adwords to promote their music. This has proven to be successful for many bands but it can also be quite costly. These small ads are not only displayed in the Google search results but also on sites with related content for your topic. Remember to carefully select your keywords to bid on and learn more about how much you should be paying per click.

Another great way to generate free publicity is to type up a brief news release and submit it to be launched all across the internet for free in one of the many free press release sites. Often these news releases will achieve high rankings on the search pages. Be sure to use the keywords in your title, summary and content.

Other key points to note are that you need to build a relationship with your fans. This can be done via these music networks or your own newsletter. By building your list you can promote and sell your music to people who you know are interested in your style of music. You can also send out samples of new songs.

Musicians need to be aware that the majority of their income will come from the money they make from their gigs and selling merchandise at these gigs. This is why you will want to have a box of CDs with you to sell at the end of your gig. You need to target potential customers while they are pumped about your music. This is when you want to sell your CDs.

Ultimately, to sell your music you need to firstly promote your music via the various avenues as outlined above. You could have the next best hit single or a top selling CD but if no one knows about you or your band then you will never sell your music. It is such a competitive market and you should use all of the free tools out there on the internet to showcase your music to the world. Everyone who has a computer is a potential customer and therefore you have a global market!