JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum What sites have you found useful in getting your music out there?

Hey all,

I'm a singer songwriter who has tried the 'traditional' route of getting my stuff out there - which seems to basically amount to writing a fat check and crossing your fingers.

Having worked my *ss off for a year to pay for my last record, I've decided to go DIY the whole way in future. If I spend any money at all it'll be on recording gear and paying musicians (gasp!) So I'm approaching this whole online promotion thing fresh.

So now I'm madly curious. Which sites work, and how well? What sites are people crazy about, which ones absolutely suck, and how on earth does anyone manage having their stuff on SO MANY sites and communities?

CD Baby would be my first recoomendation. It is a great place to sell your CD's and downloads. I cna't say enough good things about them
Great customer service!
I have sold more downloads of individual songs than CD's...but
I love CD Baby!!

Emily

Hello Ben:

Welcome to JPF. I've enjoyed my relationship with CDBaby but they have recently sold to DiscMakers and, although I expect things to remain the same or even improve, the jury is still out.

I've only used them for "digital only" albums 'cause I did not want to be involved in printing and mailing CD's at the time.

A newcomer to the same scene is called WATUNES and, although I have not used them, their pricing appears to be very competitive.

Good luck, whatever you decide to do. Glad to see you here and hope to hear more from you.

Regards,

Dave Rice

http://www.showcaseyourmusic.com/DaveRice

CDBaby is a site to distribute your music, as a CD and as a download aggregator. They don't promote your music.

In terms of promotion, the sites I have found the most useful are MySpace and Last.fm. However, I like MySpace less and less, so now, I wouldn't really advise using it now, but www.last.fm is a must in my opinion.

Check out artists such as Jonathan Coulton and Scott Andrew (who is a member of JPF), who have built up a nice fanbase on the internet. They both have blogs, and if you look into the archives, you will see they have written about strategies that have worked for them (and some which have been a waste of time).

In my opinion, the only way your music gets effectively promoted is if somebody performs it. For the most part, finding that "somebody" entails looking in the mirror.

I subscribe to a couple of OMDs (Online Music Databases), Soundclick in (I think) the U.S. and Whitby Shores in Canada, but those are *repositories*, not promotional tools. I keep music there to answer the question potential venues and purchasers will have, "But what does it *sound* like?" But most of the people who frequent those sites regularly are other musicians and writers, not customers. You're preachin' to the choir, asnd the choir ain't buying music--they're selling it, too.

Taking Bobbie Gallup's proverb to heart--"It's not who you know, it's who knows you"--I belong to a songwriters' organization and a musicians' organization, and I try to attend their functions and events the other members are playing at. I haunt open mikes--not only are they good places to test out new material, but I can trace everry paying gig I've ever gotten back to somebody hearing me at an open mike. And I promote the hiring of me everywhere I play. Like the old proverb says, "never stop selling."

I have the "joelist," an e-mail list I assembled earlier this year to notify people when and where I'm playing, and when CDs will be available, and I use it; a notebook travels with me to every gig to solicit more names for the "joelist." There are some CDs in the car--always. I also use MySpace "bulletins"--MySpace is pretty useless, in my opinion, but I know some people who don't respond to anything else, so I use it. I don't want to lose them. (One of those is my own daughter, after all.)

I had resolved that when the new CD came out, it was going to be for sale on CDBaby (right now, you can only get it from me or a retail outlet--yes, I have a music store that's selling them). I suppose any CD-selling-online outfit would work, and there are a bunch of them, but people seem to know who CDBaby is (or are) and that may make it a little easier for 'em.

But performing (or getting somebody to perform it) is the big thing, I think. Madonna said that, and I believe she's right (she's the Material Girl, after all). I have managed (I'm not sure how) to have a few other performers performing some of my stuff, and I encourage it. It's like cloning myself. And I do occasionally get e-mails from people I've never heard of, saying things like, "I almost ran over a [insert animal] last night, and thought of you." Makes the li'l heart go pitter-patter, it does.

Joe

Hi Joe (Wrabek): You make several great points. Any advice for those of us who sing but don't perform?

Hi Nat (Freewheel): Glad to see another post from you. In 25 words or less, tell us the details regarding Last.com. (Lol!)

I took a peek at their site but just didn't have time to read all the whereas' and wherefor's... rules and legalese. Is their service free? What are the plusses and what are the negatives?
Thanks for letting us know about it.

Best,

Dave

Hi, Dave. I think I'd start with a one-word answer: Perform.

If you sing, you're already halfway there. If you didn't live two [expletive deleted] thousand miles away, I would suggest we work together: I've got the other half--I perform, but can't sing. Performing is a learnable activity; crowds scare me--always have, probably always will--I do it because *somebody* has got to perform my stuff or it's not going to get heard. Period. I think Madonna's right--performing is the only way into the music business that isn't controlled by somebody else. Somebody, moreover, that (my opinion, here) is determined to keep people like you and me out.

If you sing, you have an instrument--your voice. (That was a lesson I picked up from Frank Sinatra--the voice is a musical instrument.) It's just an instrument that doesn't work well solo. So you find more instrumentation. One easy was (though not a fast one) is to do favors for other people: offer to sing for them--demos, maybe, performances, definitely. Get yourself known among writer circles as somebody who can and will do this. Then you can start asking them to help you, and they'll mostly be happy to. After a while, certain groups of those people will start acting like bands (it's inevitable), and you'll start getting gigs.

Joining an organization, if you can find one, helps you find those people. Sometimes you have to stretch a little. War story. When I lived over in eastern Oregon, the only organized group of musicians I could find was the Blue Mountain Fiddlers (and I don't play fiddle). But they put on a concert every weekend in the summer to raise money for their Scholarship Fund, and if I showed up at a concert, I got to play, because I was a member. And some of those guys would try to back me up, because I did the same for them. Yes, when I played, we'd be doing my stuff, and not traditional bluegrass--but after a while, people would start requesting some of my songs, and we was, in a word, in. I've done it in other places, too, so I know it works generally.

And if there isn't such a group, you can start one. I've done that, too. It takes longer, but that also works.

That help? Corollary to the above one-word answer is I do not know of any way that's easy, or any way that's fast. If you've got a day job, I wouldn't let loose of it for a while.

Joe

Last.fm is a community focused on music. Last.fm recommends music to you based on what you listen, and you also see a list of users who listen to the same bands as you so you can make friends that way, and your friends can recommend some music to you and so on.

As an artist, it means that you can target listeners by the bands they listen to. Let's say your music sounds like The Beatles, you can go to their page, check out their top listeners and contact those people, introducing your music to them.

Yes, Last.fm is free to join. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will find a section called "upload your music" - you can register either as a label or as a musician.

I strongly suggest that you also register as a user and build up a profile, listening to music that is in the same genre as the music you make, so you can start making contacts based on your list of "neighbourgs" (=users who listen to the same bands as you).

There is a paying service on Last.fm, which is a "subscriber", ie a type of privileged user, but don't concern yourself with that, you don't need that to promote yourself.

I wrote a PDF about how to promote your music on last.fm. You can find it on my blog at www.quaxle.com - scroll down, you will find it on the right side, under the list of the most read posts. It was written quite a few months ago and last.fm has launched a few new things since, but the basic principles are the same.

my suggestion is

instead of trying to draw a crowd
find a crowd then
perform for them

How to Sell 15000 CDs in 18 Months
Terry Prince explains how he sold 15000 music CDs in 18 Months by playing 30 hours a month on the Santa Monica Pier.
An inspiring interview!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUfXB5uY9KA

Hello again, Joe and Nat:

Joe, I'm just too old to tour or perform. Old and ugly! LOL! I'll just have to find another way... if it can be done.

Nat, thanks ever so much for your informative reply. I've sent them an E-mail and they have acknowledged receipt. We'll see where it takes us from there. Sounds a little complicated for a multi-genre songwriter turned "artist." LOL!

Thanks again to both of you.

Regards,

Dave

http://www.showcaseyourmusic.com/DaveRice

Natalie:

Thanks ever so much for taking the time to prepare the document regarding Last.fm I will begin pouring over it asap and then make my decision on whether or not to play the "game."

Have you heard of (or know personally) anyone who has succeeded in "selling" songs (CD or Digital) via this route? I'm not looking for "make believe" friends... I want to generate income from my music without having to jump through hoops. As a songwriter who does not perform (but I do sing) I experience lots of obstacles in a world seemed aimed at folks looking for fame as performers. (I want others to do "covers" of my songs.)

If I have a model or game plan... I would say that I hopefully fit somewhere in the same scheme employed by Hoagy Carmichael years ago. (A multi-talented songwriter who could also sing.)

Naturally, I am looking at the other aspects of creating income from my songs via licensing. Any other ideas? Please don't say, "Yeah, Dave... commit Hari Kari!" LOL!

Thanks again for your efforts on behalf of folks in the lower rungs of the Musical Totem Pole. Very much appreciated.

Dave

Last.fm is really more suitable for performers, because you are going directly to the general music audience, and not specifically musicians/performers.

However, it can also help you to place songs with other artists, as simply, that is a way for people to hear about you.

Through last.fm, I have made sales of CDs and downloads - in fact, about half of my sales come from people who discovered my music on last.fm (usually, people send me a message when they order my stuff so this is how I know this). Of course, we aren't talking about a huge amount of sales but enough to make a part time living (and hopefully full time living soon).

I have also made contact with a few other musicians, some of them have done a cover of one of my songs. So this can help you as well to place songs.

A lot of musicians hang out on last.fm, so you can make connections there, but the added bonus if you also go directly to a general music audience.

If you sing, I advice you set yourself up as an artist, but you also make it known you are a songwriter (you can write a bio about yourself both on your user page and your artist page), so potential performers can hear your music and want to cover your songs. This won't get you in touch with current stars as I guess they don't hang out there lol but there are a lot of kids on there, some of them might be the stars of tomorrow.

Great advice, Natalie:

Thanks again for taking the time to share this with us here at JPF. Best wishes for success in your career.

Dave

Brilliant advice- thanks everyone who's contributed!

Everyone's experience really brings home that for all the many sites out there, the thing that counts is the music, and performing for people. Whodathunkit.

I also LOVE last.fm- I'm pleased to hear that others are having positive results with it. Nat, I'll try your ideas about working with the site.

and I'm also nervous about the acquisition of CDbaby- but they seem to have their sh*t together in any case!

i'll let you know how I get on...

I think CD baby is awesome as well and I do agree that performing key. Dave, have you thought of doing shows where other artists interpret your songs and you come out and share the stories behind the music? Might be a nice way to get your music out there and get people locked into YOU as the writer/composer.
Anybody else nervous about the CD Baby acquisition? I miss Derek, but I know he's on to bigger and better things. I just released a new album and put in up on CD Baby. Can I expect the same level of service?

Wow Ande! Great video! You just inspired me at 5:40 in the morning! A million thanks!
Stanley

Check out tunecore.com. The site gives you access to put your music for sale on iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, Amazon.....I don't play out much so this is the only way I've been "selling" my stuff. Mostly single song downloads from overseas markets.

Stanley:

You may be on to something there. My objective has always been to seek performers to do "covers" of my songs. I'm not certain that an old "geezer" like me has any "stage presence" left, even if it's just to tell the story behind the song... but it's a great idea. Thanks for sharing. B-T-W... nice website. I hope to be hearing your album soon. I share your concerns about CDBaby but the folks at DiscMakers have a pretty good reputation... and I like the things they have said here at JPF. Time will tell.

How do you like the Korg?

Best,

Dave