I forgot to mention Noel. We all have something to promote. Ourselves.
We have to be visable. And attractive to the field we want to be seen grazing.
Yeah tee shirst are a good way to get amessage out.
They are no sweat to put out in limited numbers with iron on media you can print out and then iron onto tee shirts.
I do them on cotton sqaures and pin that to the back of my coat for short term ventures.
I have done thuis a couple of times for visiting artists who were playing at a pub. I then went and had a few beers at every othre pub in town. Works.
Publicans can get stroppy but as I point out to them if they have an act which needs a bit of promo I will do it for them as well provided provide the few beers money.
I make posters and stick them on my vehicles and park where it wil be seen.
Have even done the drive around town in the horse and cart with posters attached.
I did this for a florist chain one day and they had to call me to stop adertising as they had ran out of flowers.
The current compilation CD we have out here is working well.
it took forever for the club to actually do it but the resuls is worth the wait.
We named it The seae Breeze Collection after a popular island cruise boat here and they are providing the Boat and their holiday island for the launching.
We are going to rotate musos throughout the launch trips to and from Woody Island and have a couple of bands there as well to keep it flowing.
If you have a puter it is pretty easy to make PR stuff even if you are no great shakes graphically.
I use Corel Draw and Word Art for the most part but have used Serra's Print Artist to good effect in the past. It has so many editable templates to work with, anybody can bang out eye catching graphics.
Something like Microsoft Picture It which has a distortion factor in it can be a whole lotta fun to bang out wierd and wonderful posters.
If you do something you think the locals would like to know about. Let the local media know. Theay are always looking for local news and quite a lot of then are syndicated so your little local snippet may go a long way toward broadening your chances of world fame.
I get pulled up all the time by people who didn't know i write now Deedee's Cde is out with seven of my songs on it.
And Deedee is getting sales from peole who are buying it because they know me.
So it is a two edged cutting edge type of promo we have going.
My last little stint of shedding the clothes and relying on my old beach guitar to maintains some mystery, then getting The Australian Naturist to run the story which included a lyric and a link to my IUMA site.
I know the local bookshops sold out totally and believe the American sales have topped any previously attained.
My IUMA hit rate has been great and have had a couple of inquiries for music from bands. This was the aim of the excercise. To reah bands at a non mainstream music level. Skinny dippers have live gigs and they use bands.
Another thing I do in music is always use my name.
Apart from the fact I find using nick names in boards such as this confusing, I beieve it cuts down our visability.
I do use other names in general writing but not in songwriting.
Michael. There is no question of what you are doing being promotion.
It is and very effective promotion in my book.
If you are both writing for and promoting the artist it makes you visable too. And that is self promotion in the best way as it slowballs.
basically, the artist needs you for your writing and has to appreciate the PR bit you do. Nothing like having a tame artist who thinks the sun shines from a person.
summing up. We are creative people otherwise we wouldn't be writing lyrics.
Don't let the creativity stop at the lyric.
Reads a bit harpie i know but it is how i see it.
Regards.
Graham


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http://artists2.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Graham_Henderson/

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