(The video can be seen here if you’re reading this post via a feed).

This is the first of many videos I will be doing. Make sure you subscribe to Youtube.com/iMusicAdvice to be kept up-to-date with any new guides. Feel free to ‘like’ the videos as well.

Here’s the transcript of the video:

How To Upload Your Music To Facebook Transcript

Hi guys, my name’s Shaun from IndependentMusicAdvice.com, and today we are going to be looking at how to upload your music to Facebook. Before we start, there are a couple of things we need to do. First of all, you need to make sure you have a Facebook page page. If you have not got one of these already, you can check out www.Google.com and search for ‘Create a Facebook fan page’. The first result will allow you to do just that.

Second, you need to make sure you have a SoundCloud account. If you have not got a SoundCloud account, you can go to SoundCloud.com, create an account for free, and upload your music from there.

Next you need to go to BandPage.com as you can see I’ve done here. We need to click on this big blue button in the middle, ‘Create My BandPage’, and a new window should pop up asking us if we want to connect our Facebook and our BandPage. We click ‘Allow’ because we want that to happen. It’ll take a second to load.

If you’re already logged into Facebook, this should happen straight way and automatically. If you’re not logged in, they may ask you to log in. Just click ‘allow’, log in and give your details. Next, you should be taken to this screen right here.

As you can see, our Facebook page and our BandPage are now connected. Next, we have to click ‘Add Track’. We choose ‘SoundCloud’ from the drop down menu because we want to take the tracks from SoundCloud.

As you can see here, BandPage has uploaded both of our tracks as I’ve got two tracks on SoundCloud. What we need to do is hover over track 1 (Or whatever track you want). On the right hand side here, it says ‘Add To BandPage’. We click that.

From here you can change the name of your track; I’m just keeping it Track 1.

If you have a link for people to buy your music, say for example on iTunes, you can add the link here. Let’s just say my link is www.Buy.com, but you can add whatever link you need.

If you want people to download your music (Be able to download it), you can click ‘download’, but I’m not going to do that. Next we click ‘save to BandPage’, as you can see it’s saving here.

Next, for example, I’m going to upload my second track. So let’s just do the same thing again: Add to BandPage, people to buy it(?), no, no link, save to BandPage. And that should be done.

Now we have two tracks on my BandPage. You can also change your appearance, for example if you want to upload an image you can do so here: Upload New. You can change the colours, say for example you want red or whatever colour. I’ll just keep it white.

You can also see what other tools BandPage has.

When you’re finished, click back to Content. Come on the left hand side, and as you can see, it says “This is not your real Facebook Fan Page, click here to see it”. So I’ve click and it’s opened up. And now you can see my Facebook Fan Page.

As you can see, it has my first track, and it has my second track. People can play there tracks right here. You can buy it if you have the link. And yer, that’s it.

So that’s how to upload your music to Facebook. If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to the channel: Youtube.com/iMusicAdvice, and check out the website www.IndependentMusicAdvice.com. Thank you.

End Of Transcript.

Please let me know any thoughts or question about the video in the comments section below. This is my first video of this type, so go a bit easy on me. I’m sure as I do more video guides for you I’ll sound that bit more relaxed.

So what do you prefer: Guides via video, or guides via text?

If you are a musician trying to making a living in the competitive music industry, you may have come across the Musicians Union (MU). The Musicians’ Union is an organisation that protects the interests of musicians in the UK, providing legal advice, education and training, insurance, and much more. Even if you aren’t from the UK however, you may still want to read this article. It can give you an idea of the type of services that are out there for musicians, and allow you to know what to look for in your own country.

So, what are the benefits of joining such a union? Well, this is exactly what we look at below. I hope this article will give you a better idea of what help you can get as an independent musician, and show you that professional help isn’t as unobtainable as you may have first thought.

Legal Advice

A lot of musicians are only really interested in one thing: Making great music. Most of us are creative types, and don’t always like dealing with the business aspects of the industry. While professional legal advice is something any level of musicians making money should have access to, these kind of services can be expensive. Music industry lawyers, for example, can easily cost in excess of £100 per hour.

This is far too expensive for most musicians, and a ‘luxury’ that most people don’t end up taking. With the Musicians Union however, professional legal advice comes as part of the package. They can help with contract disputes, fees recovery, and many other legal matters. If this is something you’re interested in, make sure you contact them first to make sure they can offer the legal support you require.

Careers Guidance

As an independent musicians, it’s becoming increasingly important to diversify your income streams. There are a lot of jobs in the music industry that can tie in with your role as a musician. Sometimes, during early stages you may need to do more then one music related job to earn a full time living.

The MU can offer career advice, and assist you with realising opportunities. They will be able to offer advice about the expectations of different areas of the industry, as well as inform you of relevant training available.

Contract Advice

As a musician, you may find yourself dealing with performance contracts, record contracts, publishing contracts, and other types related to the music industry. The contract advisory department at the Musician’s Union can offer you advice and guidance regarding the terms of the contracts offered to you.

As mentioned before, music industry lawyers are expensive, so it’s wise to get professional advice before signing any type of contract. As a MU member, you also get access a catalogue of ‘ready-made’ contracts that you can download and use. These are legally binding, and hold more weight than a contract you may have put together yourself.

Networking

As we all know, the music industry is built around contacts. By joining the Union, you are putting yourself in the ideal position to make new contacts. You can do this by attending their in-house events, and by getting involved in their online community. You can also discuss industry related matters with other professionals in your sector, which can be hugely beneficial. The MU has regional offices, making it even easier to network with musicians in your local area.

Insurance

As a musician, getting appropriate insurance to cover your equipment etc can be a challenge. Many insurers see musicians as high risk, as often you have expensive equipment travelling around from location to location. Once again, this is something the MU can help you with.

They have negotiated special insurance schemes for musicians. In fact, by becoming a member, you are automatically given public liability insurance up to 10 million pounds. This means that if someone injures themselves as a result of your actions, you have some protection in place. This covers you at a range of locations and in a range of situations.

Industry Contacts

Often, finding the right person to talk to within a company can be difficult. To help with that, the Musicians Union publishes lists of contacts to their members. This is a reliable source of up to date contact information of managers, labels and much more.

Education and Training

As I previously mentioned, the Union puts on a range of industry events themselves. These include seminars and workshops, and give you access to training that call help you in the music industry. They also provide a lot of advice specifically for music teachers.

A good amount of musicians earn money from teaching music. The MU advises music teachers on the issues of teaching in schools, colleges and from home.

Musicians Union Rates And Conclusion

If you’re at the stage in your career where you’re looking to deal with contracts and need additional support, the Musicians’ Union could be for you. You can access all of the above for £177 per year, or only £20 per year if you’re a student. If you’re still studying, there’s no reason not to snap up this low rate asap. If you’re not a student, you may want to think about whether the MU is worth the cost at this stage of your career.

If you have the money and want additional help from experts, the benefits are clear. If you are earning money from music, joining the Union may well be worth the outlay. Even if you’re an amateur musician, it may still be beneficial for you to sign up. You can develop your knowledge of the industry, and make contacts to enhance your career. Ultimately, whether or not you decide to join will depend on your personal circumstances and goals. One thing that is clear, is the Musicians Union plays a vital role for UK musicians. After all, 30,000 members can’t be wrong.

This has been a guide by Sam Chapman of Music Live UK, the place to go to hire great wedding bands or wedding singers for your big day.

For a while now, I’ve been using Twitter to drive new fans to IMA and a few other websites I own, both music and non music related. If you’re reading this now, there’s a good chance you’ve found a link somewhere on Twitter or Facebook, and have followed it to this page. If you have, congratulations, you’re about to learn the secret to dominating Twitter!!

If you want to skip the background info and start dominating Twitter now, click the below link for your 100% free copy of our Twitter Domination ebook. Once you have shared a Tweet or Facebook message, you will be given the link to download the ebook right away. This book works whether you’re in the music industry or not:

(Opens in a new window, powered by CloudFlood)

Please note that none of your information is stored by us or Cloud Flood (The service we use to deliver you this free ebook). Once you have shared the message, you will be taken to a page which says ‘Access Link’. ‘Right click’ on the link, and choose to save the ebook to your computer. Alternatively, click the ‘Access Link’ text, and the ebook will open automatically. Be sure to save the book to your computer before you close it down. If you need any help with this, please ask any questions in the comments section below.

So, What Is Twitter Domination?

Twitter Domination is a new ebook I’ve created that shows you how to make the most of your Twitter promotion. In this book, I detail exactly how I’ve built my Twitter accounts up to thousands of followers each. I also let you know how I drive thousands of these good quality Twitter followers to my websites each month.

What I mean by ‘good quality’, is they aren’t just random numbers on my Twitter account. They are people who have a proven interest in what I am Tweeting about, and will interact with my Tweets and go on to visit my website. In other words, they are the kind of visitors you want.

In this book you will get a load of actionable promotion and fan building tactics that actually work, as I have proven time and time again. What’s more, I’ve shown a few friends these tactics to make sure I wasn’t just getting lucky, and all of them now have over 1000 interactive followers on their page (One has over 8000). By following this guide, you too can have the same.

What You’ll Learn In Twitter Domination

Download Twitter Domination to learn:

• How to automate everything you need to do, so hours worth of manual work instead takes minutes.
• How to communicate with your followers effectively.
• How to set up your first twitter account.
• How to personalise your Twitter profile and make yourself easily recognisable.
• And much, much more!

Sound good? It should, as you’re about to get a whole load more people in front of your music or whatever it is you’re promoting! In order to download Twitter Domination, simply click the below button and share the message on Facebook or Twitter. You may need to log on to your account before you do so:

I hope you enjoy Twitter Domination. If so, please share this article around on your favourite social networking websites, or write a unique post about it on your website.

Please Note: Some of this ebook may look familiar to some of you, as part of it has been posted on IMA before. Despite that, I’ve also included some never seen before tips and tricks which is key to making this strategy work. It’s because of this, that I recommend you still check Twitter Domination out.

Playing your first gig can be a very nerve racking experience. Whether it’s in front of a few friends or in front of a room full or strangers, it’s not easy to escape those first gig nerves. They can have you feeling terrible right until the ‘dreaded’ experience is over, at which point you’ll realise the actual performance wasn’t that bad. But the nerves leading up to it? Well, that part isn’t quite so fun.

A lot of the time, nerves come due to a lack of organisation and not knowing what to expect. While you can’t fully know what to expect on your first gig, being prepared can go a long way in helping ease those nerves.

I thought it might be a good idea to write down a few hints and tips for those who are going to play their first gig. As a reasonably experienced musician myself, I would like to pass on some advice that will hopefully help others out. If you find these tips useful, please share them on your favourite social networking sites, or leave a comment below.

Organisation Is Key

Be sure to have all of your equipment packed and ready well in advance of the gig. There’s nothing worse then dashing around last minute in search of your guitar or CD you’re performing too. Having everything ready will help you prevent a potential stressful situation, and make things flow that bit better.

You should also make sure that you know where the venue is, and if possible visit it some time before the gig. These are simple and obvious things to consider, but at the same time extremely vital.

Arrive Early And Complete A Sound Check

This is very important. Get to the venue with plenty of time to spare, and ensure that your equipment is set up and fully connected. Once this is done, do a quick sound check to make sure the sound quality of the amps and PA (if being used) are all ok.

Many issues could arise with the equipment, such as power failure, bad sound, and more. If you are bringing your own amps and PA equipment, you should ensure they are all set up and sounding how you want them too. If however the venue supplies their own and you are borrowing their equipment, you should still check that it all works how you want it to.

If you are in a band, each member should be responsible for their own instrument during the sound check process. For example, guitarists should make sure their guitars are tuned accordingly, and any accessories such effects pedals are connected to their amps and ready to go. Singers should check the microphone sounds ok, and that there are no issues with the mic cable or microphone levels on the PA. The drummer should of course set up his kit accordingly, and again check to make sure the sound is fine.

Once this is all done, you might well have a bit of time left to grab a drink. You may think this will help with your nerves, but often it can do more harm then good. Drunk performers very rarely sounds as good as when they are sober, which is why I’d recommend staying clear or drink before the gig.

Bring Back Ups

If you play an instrument, it is very important that you bring spares to a gig. Guitar players should pack a few spare sets of guitar strings, as you never know when one might break. You should also bring plenty of extra guitar picks, as they can easily be dropped whilst playing. The last thing you want is to be hunting around on the floor looking for your only plectrum in the middle of a live show.

It might be that the guitarist/s has more than one guitar. If this is the case (And you have the space to carry it), then it is advisable you bring along a spare one that is tuned and ready to play. That way if a string snaps, you can just pick up your spare guitar and carry on with the show. This will flow a lot better then you having to re-string during a performance, and looks a lot cooler too.

If you are a guitar player that provides backing vocals, than it would be a good idea to buy a microphone stand with a pick holder included. This will make the plectrums easily accessible. Drummers should bring some spare drumsticks, in case of a snap or loss during a gig.

Have A Set List To Hand

If this is your first gig, you should have rehearsed the songs you are going to play many times. You should also get to know the order you are going to play them in. Even if you do plan and prepare everything, it is very easy to get stage fright and completely forget the order of what to play.

This can particularly be a problem when it’s your first gig and things are still quite new to you. So to be on the safe side, it’s advisable you bring along plenty of spare copies of your set list. A couple can be placed on stage, and be referred back to if you forget what you should be doing next.

Record The Performance

While this is optional and not essential, it might prove very helpful to record the gig and listen back to it at a later date. This will allow you to hear how you sounded, and show you first hand what you need to improve on the next time around (Editors Note: This should definitely be done if you want to improve your performance skills at double speed. We talk a lot more about improving your performance skills in the Academy). You can purchase good quality mobile recording equipment at a very reasonable price, so this may well be worth considering.

Be Calm And Carry On

This is perhaps one of the most important things to remember when playing your first gig. Remember that no one is perfect, and it could well be that you make a mistake during the show. If this happens, just remember to stay calm and carry on when you can.

A first gig very rarely goes without a hitch, but the important thing is that you just enjoy it. Remember, mistakes are there to be learnt from, and to help you get things better the next time around. I hope you found this advice helpful, and they help you have a much better live performance.

Author: Andy Chubb

Andy Chubb is a guitar and bass player with over 10 years of experience playing in different bands. He now spends his time supporting Bandshop.co.uk, online suppliers of music accessories including guitar strings, guitar tuners, effects pedals and much more.

Both pictures in this article are supplied by Flickr. Above picture by ‘TheArches’, below picture by ‘cogdogblog’.

Giving out you music for free is a waste of time.

Yes I know, this goes against everything you’ve been taught so far. We all know how hard it is to sell your music to new fans, so the obvious step seems to be giving out loads of freebies until people are ready to buy your music right? Ummm, wrong!

The thing is, giving your music out for free can actually be doing more harm then good. By doing this, musicians are reinforcing the view that music should be free for listeners. In actual fact, musicians have as much right to make money by benefiting other people’s lives as anyone else does. Would someone makes board games just to give them out for free? Would a cleaner clean a hotel if they weren’t getting paid? Would a bus driver allow free passengers just because they enjoy driving? No, no, and NO!

In this article, I will show you exactly why giving your music out for free is a bad idea. I will also show you what you should be doing instead, and help you get your music distribution tactics back on track.

Note: If you find this article useful and want to stop other musicians making these common mistakes, please share it around as much as possible.

What I Define As ‘Free’

Before I go any further, I’d like to define what I mean when I say ‘free’.

Giving your music out for free is giving your songs out without you gaining anything tangible in return.

Yes you may get a few more people learning about you and becoming fans, but these results can be few and fan between. On top of that, a lot of these new fans will forget about you as time goes on. As they download more and more free music, your song will probably get lost somewhere on their hard drive.

What You Need To Remember

When you make your music, you need to ask yourself: Who do you really make it for? A lot of people claim they make music just for the love of it. If that’s the case, you don’t need to be reading this article. Independent Music Advice is a website aiming to help you learn the business side of the music industry, and therefore gain more fans and money. If you’re making music just for you, carry on singing in your bedroom.

If however it’s your aim to gain fans and make money, you need to remember one thing: People will only become a fan of you and your music if it benefits their lives. In other words, you’re offering them a service.

Now ask yourself this: Why are you paying to make other people happy? It costs you time and money to make music, so if you’re giving all this music out for free, you aren’t really getting anything from the deal. The people who download your music however are getting exactly what they want. Does this seem fair to you? Because it doesn’t to me…

Giving people an unlimited amount of your music for free is a big problem, and something that needs to stop.

The Problem With Giving Out Too Much Free Music

OK, so now why is giving out your music at no cost a bad thing? Well:

• It Doesn’t Make People Want To Listen To You Any More.
  Just because you give out your audio as a free download, it doesn’t mean that you will get a lot of people downloading it. Even if you hand someone out a free CD, there’s no guarantee that person will go on to listen to it. Many times people have given me free CDs at events and shows. Do I go on to listen to all of them? No. And I know a lot of people are the same.
  It takes more then just giving someone your music for them to listen, you have to give them a reason to want to listen. If you don’t do that, your CD will end up at the bottom of a pile and never get played.
  Now the interesting thing; If you can give people a reason to want to listen to your music, you won’t have to give your music out for free! You will be able to ask for something in exchange, and they will be willing as they already have it in their mind they want to hear your music. This largely makes giving your music out for free obsolete.
• People Start To Expect It.
  If you always give your music out for free, people will come to expect it. So when you start to make more of a name and you decide you want to start charging for your music, you will have a hard time selling it. After all, the majority of your fan base is made up of people who are in it for the freebies. As soon as they see they have to start paying now, many of your fans will disappear. They already have a load of your music, so what’s pushing them to get any more?
  While you may get some that stay and don’t mind paying for your music, you will look back and realise you spent a lot of time and effort making people happy who didn’t benefit your career in any way. Not a good feeling at all.
• Your Music Will Have A Lower Perceived Value.
  Perceived value is what people think your product is worth. If something is widely available for free, people will naturally feel like it’s not worth as much as it’s easy to obtain. This is how a lot of people think about music right now.
  If however something is harder to obtain or it’s a higher price, people naturally think it’s of a better quality. Because of this, it’s sometimes possible to raise the price of your product and make more sales then if you set a lower price point.
  You of course don’t want to charge so much that it’s not worth buying your music, but giving it all away for free will definitely make people perceive your music to have less value.
• You’ll Lose Money.
  Making good quality music isn’t free. You have to pay to use the recording studio, for the cost of pressing up products, for marketing and promotion expenses, and for anything else that needs to be done. If you do all of this only to give your music out for free, you are losing out on money. And where does that money come from? My guess is your own pocket.
  You shouldn’t be paying to make other people happy, it should be a two way thing. You should benefit from people hearing your music, and you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for something in exchange for your songs.
• You Will Lose Motivation.
  If you keep spending money on creating music that people don’t end up downloading, you will eventually lose motivation. If you lose motivation, what’s to keep you making music any more?
  We get into music for the love of it, but there are things along that way that have many a musician giving up on the industry. If you don’t want to become one of these people, you will need to start seeing some tangible results. Giving out your music free of charge doesn’t often give tangible results, so isn’t really worth you doing.

What You Should Be Doing Instead

So, now we know you shouldn’t be giving your music out for free, what should you be doing instead? Well:

1. You should be selling it. And,
2. You should have some songs available to download as part of an exchange process.

The selling your music part it pretty obvious. You should have your music on a shop page of your website where people can buy it in exchange for money.

The exchange process on the other hand is something quite different.

Instead of letting people download your music for nothing in return, you should only allow people to download some of your songs if they help you out in some way. This could be them giving you their contact details, or by them promoting your music in some way. This is a win win situation for everyone. They get to download your music and learn about you, and you get to keep in contact with them or have them promote you to all their friends.

We call the songs we use in this exchange process ‘promotional songs’, and cover this strategy in a lot more detail here. In that article we look at how to give out your promotional songs (And the best way to maximise their effect), the single to promotional songs ratio, how to encourage more people to download your promotional songs, how you can use your promotional songs to encourage people to buy your paid releases, and much more.

Should You Give Your Music Away For Free Conclusion

Giving your music out for free is a huge mistake, and one that many musicians unfortunately make. When you know how however, it’s possible to let people hear a few of your songs without paying any money, but also benefit from the deal yourself. It also gives your music a higher perceived value, and makes you appear to be a cut above the rest.

Don’t give out all of your music for free and expect to get loads of fans overnight, most people will still largely overlook your music as there’s so much free songs floating around anyway. By putting a small barrier in the way of obtaining your music, you may get a few less downloads, but anyone that does download will be more of a quality fan.

If this article has been an eye opener to you (And I hope it has), please share it round on your favourite sites. Thanks as always for your support, and I hope to see your views in the comments.

Welcome to email marketing for musicians. Building a mailing list is one of the most important things you can do to boost your music career. By getting people on your mailing list, you can quickly and easily communicate with your fans, and keep them informed about your going ons. Fans are what push you forward in terms of how well known you are and how much money your music career brings in. Because of this, communicating with them as effectively as possible should be a top priority of yours.

In this article we look at the importance of collecting email addresses for your mailing list, and how you can use this process to benefit your music career. We also point you to a good guide at the end, which instructs you on how to set up a mailing list, and how to make sure your list is profitable.

So what are the benefits on setting up a music mailing list? Read on to find out.

1. People Generally Check Their Emails

One of the best things about having a mailing list with all of your fans on it, is you can contact them easily any time you want. While some people may not check their other online accounts daily, people generally do check their emails. After all, everything goes through there. Their Facebook account, their Twitter account, their gym membership, their work related things, and much more. Therefore, having access to their email address means your message should get in front of them.

People are often very responsive to their email messages. As long as you’re something of interest to them and you have an enticing heading, there is a good chance they’ll go on to open your email and read it through. Once they get in the habit of doing that, as long as you keep providing useful information and songs, they will stay a reader for life.

2. Retain More Fans By Getting Them On Your Mailing List

When people visit your website, a lot of them will probably have a look around, download a song or two, and never come back again. That’s just the way of the web. While they may like what you have to offer, there’s just so much to look at on the net. Because of this, unless you do something to retain your visitors, many people will only visit your site once and never return.

One of the best ways of retaining a visitor is to get them to sign up to your mailing list. If you get them on your list, you will have access to them whenever you want. You can also encourage them to come back to your site when you need to.

3. Remind People You Exist Through Your Emails

Like I said, the net has so many different things to offer people. There’s always something new to see or do on the web, so unless you’re always in someone’s face they could forget about you very easily. If you manage to capture their email address when they visited your website however, you have the ability to remind people you exist. When you send them messages (Be sure not to email them too much) you are effectively appearing on their raider again. If they remember about you, there is a good chance they’ll go back to your site to see what’s new.

4. Email Marketing Builds Up A Relationship With Fans Of Your Music

Once you have people on your list, you have to market to them with emails. This isn’t as cold as it sounds however, and it can actually help improve your relationship with your fans. The more someone hears from someone or about something, the more they become accustomed to it. As long as you don’t overdo it, people will warm to you once you have been sending them messages for a while. You want to make people feel as if they almost really know you, and have them feel involved in your development as a musician. If you can make them feel like that, people will buy into you and your products. After all, why WOULDN’T you buy something that you’ve had a hand in making?

5. Funnel Fans To Where You Want Them With Your Messages

Emails are great, as they allow you to draw attention to a specific going on or area you want people to pay attention to. Let’s say for example you have a big gig coming up, you could always email your visitors and let them know that this is happening. You could also include a link to a page where they can read more information about the gig, and a link to where they can buy tickets to attend. This minimises the chance that people will miss anything to do with your music, as you can easily highlight the most important parts.

6. Mailing Lists Show The Most Dedicated Fans Of Your Music

As I’m sure you know, there are different levels of fans. Some of your fans may think you’re all right, but they may also like lots of other musicians and bands. They’ll open the odd email from you if the header sounds interesting, but they wouldn’t always open them or follow any links your provide in these emails.

On the other hand, there will be fans who open all your emails as they have a big interest in you. They will often look further into the information you provide in your emails, and most likely go on to buy your new releases.

When you sign up to a mailing list provider, you are provided with stats for free. These stats show you quickly and easily who your most dedicated subscribers are, who in turn are probably your most dedicated fans. Once you know who they are, you should go out of your way to give them free bonuses and make them feel welcome. They are generally the ones that will buy your releases and help spread the word about you, so make sure you keep them happy.

7. Easy To Promote Your Song And Merchandise Releases

Then great things about when people sign up to your mailing list, is they pre-qualify themselves as people who could be serious about your music. If someone goes on your website and isn’t too impressed with what they’re seeing, they’re not going to sign up to your mailing list, let along buy one of your songs. If they do like your music and want to hear more from your however, there’s a good chance they’ll sign up. They actually want to hear from you, and have made that clear.

These are the ideal people to sell to, as they are targeted visitors. What’s more, you now have unlimited access to them whenever you want. This is ideal if you have a song or album to release, what better way to make some initial sales then to promote your new release to your mailing list?

I’d advise you don’t over bombard them with emails during the time of your music release, as people will get annoyed by this. If they get annoyed, they will unsubscribe and you won’t have access to them any more. I’d suggest you message them twice about the release, maybe once to say it’s coming next week, and another time to say it’s out now. If you’re running a special offer e.g. The song is reduced in price for the first week, you can message them once more when the special offer is about to run out, reminding them of that. I’d say you don’t message them any more then that though, people don’t generally like being sold to so don’t push them. If they want to buy your music, they will during one of the first two emails. Therefore, sending a third will just wind them up.

8. Email Marketing Encourages Fans To Interact With Your Music

A good idea is to add autoresponder messages to your email marketing campaign. Autoresponder messages are messages that are sent out automatically once a certain condition is met e.g. Someone has been on your list for 30 days. If you send people a free songs automatically say once a month, you are reminding people what you can do, and encouraging them stay a fan of your music. You can also offer them more to do, telling them if they liked that song they can go and buy the rest of the songs on your website. Be sure to add a link to the relevant page on your website where they can buy it, as if you make it difficult for people you will lose sales.

You can also use your emails to get people involved with your music via competitions, via asking them their opinions on things, and by generally having two way communications with them. There are a lot of different ways to do this, so use your imagination and make them feel like they’re part of something special.

How To Build Your Own Mailing List

So now you know how important building a mailing list is, how do you actually go about building one? Well, we look at exactly this in lesson 5 of the IMA Music Business Academy. We also show you how to start raking in the subscribers, how to market to your list effectively, and lots of other great tips and advice that will have things moving in the right way. So if you want to learn more, check out the Academy now.

Email Marketing For Musicians Conclusion

As you can see, incorporating email marketing into your music career can be very beneficial to you. Communicating effectively with fans have never been more important to the independent musician, or musician at any level. Having them on your mailing list makes this more easy then ever, and is cheap to set up. If you want to take your music career seriously and want to start moving forward, you need to set up your mailing list and start building up a relationship with your fans today. If you liked this Welcome to email marketing for musicians guide, please share it around.

If you’ve ever wanted to know how to sell music online, you’re in the right place! Today we’ll be looking at how to take your digital songs, and put them up for sale in multiple places. Once your songs are up, everything runs on autopilot. There’s no need to stand by and manually send every song that’s bought from you, the systems we will show you handle everything on your behalf.

There are two main places you should be selling your music online: On your own website, and on other established digital download shops such as iTunes and Amazon MP3. Today we’ll be looking both at how to sell your music on iTunes (And other popular MP3 stores), and how to sell digital downloads on your own website. First however, let’s have a look at why you may want to sell your music online.

You can also see more indepth strategies on selling your music online and giving it out in lesson 3 of the Academy.

The Benefit Of Selling Your Music Online

One of the main reasons you will want to sell your music online, is because the kind of reach you can obtain.

When you sell physical CDs to your fans, there is of course a distance barrier to overcome. While it won’t be a problem getting your music into shops that local fans can shop in, you won’t be able to get into every shop worldwide. This will mean that a large percentage of people won’t have access to your music, even if they wanted to buy it.

If your music is available online however, anyone with an internet connect has access to your music. It doesn’t matter if they live half way around the world or across the road, they can still access your audio just as easily as each other. If more people have access to buying your music, you will of course have a better chance of selling more of your songs.

Another big advantage of being able to sell your music online, is that fans will have instant access to your songs. Even if you do mail a physical CD to someone half way across the world, it’ll still take a few days for your music to get to them. If you deliver it online however, they will get access to your product instantly. This is a big selling point for people these days, so much so that you can lose sales if you haven’t got a digital download version of your CD available on the internet.

Quick Note: Releasing Digital Download Only Songs

Now, here is one of the main reasons why many people have switched to releasing digital download only releases over the last few years: The set up and maintenance cost is very low!! Pressing up a physical product is very expensive in comparison, and a lot more financially risky. You have to pay for the duplication or replication, the CDs, the artwork printing on each CD, the packaging and the distribution. If you only release digital downloads however, you get rid of most of these costs. All you have to do is pay for the artwork (Which you would have also done with a physical product) and the distribution of your product either via a 3^rd party website or a shopping cart system on your own website (Which is a low one off cost).

This will save you a LOT of money, baring in mind that as you sell more songs, you won’t have to spend more money on pressing up costs. Once you have paid to set up your online sales, you don’t have to pay another penny. Whether you sell one download or a million, you will have still paid the same price to set up your selling system. That means the more songs you sell, the more profit you will make.

Although this is just the tip of the iceberg for advantages of selling your music over the internet, I’m sure you can see that it is worth doing. Instant access for fans and cheap set up costs for musicians has meant that selling digital downloads has become a no brainer. Check out the below sections to see exactly how to sell your music online.

How To Sell Music On iTunes And Other Websites

If you’re selling your music online, one of the places you’ll want fans to have access to your music is on iTunes. This is probably the biggest seller of digital downloaded music online, so being on here can get your music in front of a lot of potential fans.

The best way to sell music on iTunes, is to get them on there via Songcast (It’s free to create an account). Songcast are an online digital distributor that gets your music into all different online music stores. Some places it distributes to includes iTunes, Amazon MP3, Napster, Spotify, and many more. Many of these online stores you wouldn’t be able to get into without help from a company like this, so if you don’t opt to go with them, don’t expect to get your music into the big shops.

Check it out if you want to easily get your music into these places. The process is fully explained once you are on the site.

How To Sell Music On Your Website

When it comes to selling your music on your own site, you will need a different set of tools.

If your website is based on WordPress, one option is to use the WordPress Store plugin. This plugin allows you to upload your songs in digital format, and sell them securely on your website. It creates a shopping cart for your websites, allowing your to sell any digital downloads such as MP3s, wallpapers and videos.

Once you have uploaded everything you want to sell and added the shopping cart to your website, everything else is done securely and on auto pilot.

So say for example someone comes and visits your site and stumbles across your shop page. They like the sound of your music, and want to buy your MP3. Once they click on your buy now button, they are automatically taken to their shopping cart and shown what they have decided to buy. From here they can choose to checkout and buy the song, or go on to browse for more of your songs and merch they want to buy.

When the buyer of your music decides they are ready to check out, they simply choose this option. From here they are given the option to pay for your music via PayPal or via card. Both are fully secure.

Once they have paid, they are automatically given a link to download your song. This link will be created randomly, and will expire after the amount of time or downloads you set. This means that even if someone does try and send your link around, the link will stop working and they won’t get your song.

All this is done automatically once you have set it up for the first time, so it’s a great way of selling your music on your blog.

Another option for selling your music is through E-Junkie. E-Junkie essentially provides the same features as the WordPress Store, accept it can be used even if your website doesn’t run on WordPress.

E-Junkie also doesn’t store your music on your own website, which is handy if your website only has limited storage space.

Both of these options offer a good solution for you. While WordPress Store is a one off fee however, E-Junkie has an ongoing one. Even so, both are reasonably cheap, and will allow you to sell your music safely online.

Pitfalls Of Selling Your Music On The Internet

While selling your music on the internet is becoming common practice, there is still a minor pitfall that some people can’t get over. This is of course the whole thing about sharing and digital piracy. People sharing your music on the internet for free has become a big issue, mainly because it means people are getting your songs without putting money in you pocket.

So what’s the solution, not selling your music online? Well, no, not really…

You see, these days, even if you don’t put your music on the internet, someone else will. There’s no point not putting your music up in digital format, if you don’t provide fans with a legit buy now button, they’ll simply turn elsewhere and get it for free.

If however you release some music and no one uploads it online for free, that’s a sign that your music isn’t good enough. That, or you’re not promoting yourself enough for people to know about it. Neither of these is a good thing.

While it’s not ideal to have your songs online for free download, it’s going to happen, so just get used to it. Focus on the people who are going to buy and become your fans, these are the people you make music for.

As you can see that’s not really a pitfall, as your music will end up online anyway. As long as you sell it in the correct manner, having an online version of your songs for people to buy is a good thing.

How To Sell Music Online Conclusion

Selling your music online is a must for any musician wanting to monetize their music. People should be able to purchase your music on both you own website, as well as any other popular music stores they might be browsing.

Using WordPress Store and Songcast (More information about both of these and links to them are above), both of these things are easily achievable. So follow the above instructions to get your songs available to buy in digital download format. That’s how to sell music online.

Today we’re going to look at an extremely important aspect of your music career: Music Marketing. We’ll looking at some of the best ways to promote your music, as well as some of the platforms that work best in getting your music out there.

This article isn’t a bunch of rehashed information full of strategies that don’t work anymore, everything listed below still works for the modern day independent musician. It’s because of this that I ask you to share this article around if you feel it has been helpful for you. You can either do this by sharing it via the social media buttons at the top of this article, or by linking to it from your website.

But before we go into the best ways to market your music, let’s have a look at why you need to do this.

Why You Need To Market Your Music

Marketing is the process of raising awareness of what it is you offer, in this case your songs and brand. You may make the best songs in the world, but if no one knows they exist, how successful do you think you’re going to be? Not very, is the answer.

Once your song has been recorded, or even before, you need to think about your marketing strategy. How are you going to promote your latest release? Without knowing this, you might as well not record any new songs.

Having a poor marketing plan will basically spell failure for your music career. Do you want to be just another reject of the music industry? If not, you need to start taking your music promotion seriously.

While I’m not saying everyone that markets their music will be a success, what I am saying is you need to take part in promotion in order to give people the chance to take to your music. And unless you’ve got money to pay music marketing companies to do this work for your, the promotion of your music will be down to you.

Below we will look at some of the best ways to get your music out there for free or cheap. All of these strategies are suitable for independent musicians, and work in the modern day music industry.

Please Note: If you read this article and want a more specific step by step guide on marketing your music effectively, you might want to check out our IMA Music Business Academy. Here we guide you through everything you need to do to make a success of your music career and start earning you money from your music.

Online Music Marketing

Using the internet to market your music has become the norm, apparently it’s the ‘new age’ method to doing things. Me personally, I like to see it as another piece of the puzzle. Here are some of the best ways to market your music online.

Your Own Music Website – Your Main Advert And Marketing Hub

Before you start thinking about all the social media marketing and signing up to the popular social networking websites, it’s important to create your own website. This will be your home online, and the place anyone wanting to find out more about your music will go.

On here you can let people:

• Hear samples of your songs,
• See all your latest videos,
• Get to read about your latest going ons,
• Read more about your history,
• Buy your music,
• See where you’re next performing,
• Find out what social networking sites you’re on,
• And much more.

On top of this, you can use your website for two very important things:

• Get people to sign up to your mailing list. From here you can build a relationship with them and keep in contact.
• Create a sales funnel which will help your identify your most dedicated fans.

These are two very important things you should be doing in your music career. Building your list will mean that you have an army of fans that are clued up about what you’re all about. They can also be easily contacted when you have a release to promote, or just want to raise awareness about an aspect of what you’re doing.

Building your sales funnel will allow you to see the people who actually buy and promote your music, and allow you to give special attention to these people. Keep a good relationship with them, and they will continue to make you money and benefit your music for a while to come.

We look more at how to build your list, how to make your website, and how to create your sales funnel in the IMA Music Business Academy.

When promoting your music on other websites, you should always aim to drive traffic back to your official website and get people onto your mailing list. Here are some of the best websites for doing just that:

Facebook – For Build Meaningful Relationships With Your Fans

Facebook is one of the best places to get your music out there. Let me ask you this, how many of the people you know have Facebook? Not just musicians, I mean out of everyone you know in the world. Probably over 90% right? Or at least 80%?

Facebook is a big deal, and a good percentage of people have gone on to sign up an account. People put their real details on there, and only allow things that they are genuinely interested in on their page. So if they go on to click ‘like’ on your music page, there’s a good chance they’re interested in what you are doing.

It’s because of this, that Facebook fans are some of the most responsive around. While it may be harder to build them up, when you do have them, this is a great place to market your music to.

The key to marketing your music with Facebook is being interactive. Start discussions, share exclusive songs and offers with your Facebook followers, and generally befriend people on there. The more interaction you have going on, the more lifelong fans you’ll gain. The more lifelong fans you gain, the more people will spread the word about you. Not to mention you have the chance of going viral as people share your content around…

Twitter – For Gaining Potential Fans Fast

Twitter is another great tool for marketing your music online. It allows you to quickly and easily update your fans on what’s going on with you, as well interact with them in short burst.

The reason I encourage you to use Facebook as well as Twitter, is because they serve different jobs. While it’s not easy to gain new fans via Facebook without an initial push, Twitter fans are easy to come across when you know how. That link leads to the first of a two part series I’ve writing on how to promote your music on Twitter, and will let you know everything you need to know to get your Twitter music marketing going.

As they’re easy to gain, the targeted followers you come across on Twitter can be driven to your website and Facebook page. On these platforms you can build up a better relationship with them, and turn them into true fans.

Youtube – For Marketing Yourself As A Brand

These days, fans want to do more then just hear your music. They want to see what you as a person are about, and buy into you as a complete package.

Creating videos is one of the best ways to help your fans achieve this. And Youtube, the most popular online video sharing service in the world, is the place to be if you want your videos to take off.

Showing your fans another side to you can help them really warm to you. You want to make it so they feel like they know you, and want to buy into what it is you’re about. Videos can go a long way in creating this bond between you and your fans, especially if you create exclusive videos talking to them personally.

Videos you make could include music videos, recordings of your live gigs, interviews, special recordings talking to your fans directly, you performing live in front of a camera, and cover songs. You could also take your video marketing in other directions, such as recording short stories and incorporating your music in there.

Forums – For Reaching The Enthusiasts

As well as the above three mentioned websites, there is another type of website that can still go a fair way in marketing your music: Forums. Forums are places you can go and discuss what’s happening in your music genre, or in music in general.

There are a whole host of music forums you could join, you’ll just need to find one or more that’s relevant to you. For example, if you’re from the UK and you make Grime music, you could search ‘Grime Forum’ in google. It will give you options of some relevant forums you could join, and discuss your music.

It’s not a good idea to go straight into promoting your music on these forums however. You should spend a few days seeing how people carry themselves, and join in once you feel you will be able to fit in as part of the community.

The good thing about forums is if you get one on your side, you will have a great platform for encouraging word of mouth promotion. Become part of the community, and link to your website in your signature. You can often also let people know you have a new release out once you have a decent amount of posts under your belt. Be sure to mention this in the correct section of the forum, and link to this post in your signature for all to see.

Guest Posting – For Leveraging Other People’s Audiences And SEO Benefits

Guest posting is a tactic largely used by marketers looking to take advantage of other people’s traffic. You write a post for someone else’s websites (Usually blogs of fellow musicians or fellow marketers), and they publish it in exchange for the free content. You benefit as you will get some of their traffic going back to your website. You will also get a link or two leading back to your website from theirs, which is great for your website’s SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

For those that don’t know, SEO is the process of getting your website ranked in the search engines. If you can get ranked for certain terms, search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing will send your website free traffic every day. Independent Music Advice for example gets hundreds of people visiting this site on a daily basis, even when we don’t write any new articles on promote it. If you can do this for your music website, you will get potential fans coming to your site every day on autopilot. From there, it’s up to you to put them in your sales funnel and convert them into fans of yours.

We talk a lot more about guest posting and SEO in the IMA Music Business Academy.

Should You Market Your Music On Any Other Websites?

So, should you use any other sites to market your music on? Well, that’s totally up to you. From what I’ve seen, the above are the places where most of your potential fans will be online, so it makes sense to focus your marketing efforts there right?

I know some of you will be wondering about Google+, and whether or not you should use it. Well, not right now. Google+ is still largely used by businesses and people with something to promote, the average person is still currently using Facebook. It may be a good idea to set up a Google Plus account just so you’ve secured your name, but don’t focus your effort on there for the time being. I don’t know one person who has got a Google + account but not a Facebook one, do you?

Stick largely to the five above mentioned websites for getting your music out there. Don’t spread yourself too thin, otherwise your promoting on all of these platforms will be substandard.

Offline Music Marketing

When you talk about marketing your music these days, a lot of musicians simply feel you’re talking about marketing their music online. In reality however, you still need to do a fair share of offline marketing if you really want to get your music out there.

Branding yourself is all about getting your music in as many places as possible: The more places people see you, the more they start taking notice of your brand. If they recognise your brand, they are more likely to give your music a listen when they come across it.

Here are some offline methods of marketing your music. There are of course a lot more ways you can go about offline marketing then this, but here are my personal favourites.

Radio

When you mention radio, there are a lot of music industry figures that instantly think this isn’t possible. You need to be signed and have a big name to get radio play right? Well, not really…

While it may be difficult for a non signed artist to get played on mainstream radio, there are always other options. What about community radio stations? What about niche specific radio stations? What about online radio stations?

All of these places provide a place for you to showcase your music, and do so to a decent amount of listeners. While it won’t give you overnight success or make it so you’re known all around the world, it will get you new fans, and raise awareness of your music considerably.

The great thing about these radio stations is you may also have the chance to appear live for an interview. When networking with Djs, mention that this would be something you’re interested in. If they already do musician interviews, it will be much more likely you get accepted (Talent permitting of course). If not, then suggesting this may encourage them to do their first one with you. Make I out like it will bring their show to life, and draw in a whole new audience for them. After all, every DJ wants a bigger audience.

Live Gigs

Gigging, one of the best ways to make money from your music for musicians at any level. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing for free at a showcase event, you can still make money from performing gigs. You simply need to have your CD there to sell to people after your show, and not be to shy to approach people with this offer. Forget standing at the side and waiting for people to come over to you, go out there any make those sales! It really does work, I promise you.

As well as being a great way to make money from your music, gigs are a good way of getting in front of new potential fans, as well as communicating with existing ones. If the event isn’t yours, you are opened to a new audience of music lovers. Put on a stand out show for them and let them know where to find you online, and you have a bunch of new fans instantly. From there you can put them through your sales funnel, and convert them into mailing list subscribers or buyers of your music.

We look a lot more at making money from your gigs, how to get gigs, how to perform live shows effectively, and setting up your sales funnel in the IMA Music Business Academy.

Music Marketing Is Still Marketing, So Give Yourself A Unique Selling Point (USP)

When wondering how to promote your music, you should remember one thing: You’re not just promoting your music, you’re promoting yourself! You’re not just marketing your music, you’re marketing your brand and everything about you. Because of this, you need to create yourself a USP. In other words:

You need something to make you stand out!

You need to sell yourself as more then just a voice on a song. Your whole image, the way you act, the clothes you wear, it all counts to how brand-able you are. Even if you have good music, you can still easily get overlooked. But if you have good music and a story that people take to, you make yourself a lot more memorable.

Ed Sheeran is a good example of this. While he is a good and talented musician, there are three things that made him stand out over a host of other people doing his type of music:

1. Him having the likeability factor,
2. His willingness to jump across genres and work within different music types, and
3. His ginger hair.

While the last point might not sound like something major, him being ginger allowed him to stand out from the crowd, and make him more easily recognisable. It also added to his likeability factor, and helps him appear as ‘the guy next door’.

I’m not saying to go out and dye your hair ginger, although you can if you want (If you do please share your picture in the comments ). What I am saying however, is you need to think about what makes you different from everybody else. Why are people going to buy into you over the thousands of other acts out there similar to you?

You don’t have to go out and act crazy to make your brand different, sometimes simply being the best at what you do is enough of a USP. If you can’t step your game up enough to be the best in your genre however, you need to find yourself an angle.

Music Marketing Strategies Conclusion

What you should do next is go off and put together a music marketing plan. This should map of how you plan on promoting your music, and what platforms you’re going to use.

There is no one best way to promote your music, a good few of these methods should be used together to achieve your goals. A combination of offline and online marketing methods will raise the awareness of your music, and make it so people know your music exists. From here you have the chance of converting these people into fans.

While there are a lot of other ways top promote your music then the ones mentioned above, these are the ones I feel work well for the independent musician. Things like magazine adverts and flyers work well when you’ve got a bigger budget, but don’t really benefit you enough when you don’t have huge amounts to invest in them.

If you want to learn more about marketing your music effectively, you may want to check out the IMA Music Business Academy (Link below). We look at music marketing extensively, and give you step by step instructions on how to promote your music.

Hi guys, just a quick update today. Chris Rocket from the Promote Your Music blog recently interviewed me (Shaun) for his website. Some of the things we talked about include:

• Why mastering your talent comes before anything else with your music.
• A great trick you can use to learn from the best, and ensure you know what goes into making a good song!
• Why you should work on connecting with people who can leverage the reach of your music rather that connecting with fans one by one (Hint, it’ll get you a lot further a lot faster).
• Some ideas on what to offer fans in exchange for signing up to your mailing list, and how to tell what will work in your genre.
• A neat trick you can use to learn how to produce music from Dr Dre… Well, kind of!
• How you can use the 80/20 rule to your advantage.

We also talk about my new online music business school the IMA Music Business Academy, and how it can help you get your music to where you want it to be.

Thanks again to Chris Rockett for the interview. I hope you enjoy the interview and pick up some handy tips along the way.

Today we have a guest post by Sam from Music Live UK on how to be a wedding singer. If you have ever been interested in making some money as a singer at people’s weddings, then you need to read this article!

If you are a talented singer with good on-stage presence, then you could consider a career as a wedding singer. Weddings are big business all over the world. By providing quality entertainment at some of these weddings, you can easily build a career for yourself. Yes, wedding singing is a competitive market. But with a combination of talent and good marketing skills, you can earn yourself a very good living.

An Important Note About Wedding Singing

If you are going to pursue this as a career, you need to start considering your voice as your most important asset. Even if you are already a great natural singer, it may still be worth getting a vocal coach to help you train your voice. You may find you are singing a lot week in week out, so looking after your voice is essential. A vocal coach will be able to teach you techniques on how to protect your voice from damage, meaning you’ll be able to take up more singing work.

Even after just few lessons, you may find that there are some simple techniques you can use to improve your control. The last thing you want to do is damage your voice by not understanding how to look after it. If you’re not sure your vocal coach is going to teach you this, let them know you specifically want information on protecting your voice. They should be able to give you some exercises to do.

How To Be A Wedding Singer: Catering For Your Audience

As a wedding singer, it is important that you understand the type of songs your audience wants. Remember, it’s not about what song you’d like to sing at someone else’s special day, it’s about what type of songs THEY want. After all, they are the ones paying for your services right?

Given the occasion, romantic songs are usually the order of the day. You should thoroughly learn a wide selection of love songs, and create a set to suit the job at hand. Practice these songs regularly, and until you are extremely confident about your ability to perform them.

You should also be continually working on new material in order for your set not to become stale. It will also keep things interesting for you, rather than just singing the same songs over and over again. Some couples may want to your perform for their first dance, so you should always be willing to learn new material at short notice. This will make your service more personal, and make it more likely you’ll get more wedding singer jobs.

Sing To A Backing Track Or Live A Band?

As a wedding singer, you can do either. You may decide to perform on your own with backing tracks for music, or you could find a live band to perform with.

Ideally, you’ll want to be able to offer both of these services to couples. This will allow you to cater to all types of budgets, and mean you will get more wedding singer jobs as a result. You will have to charge a lot more if the couple want a live band at their wedding, mainly because there are more people to pay and more equipment to hire. If you’re working with a band, you should make sure everyone knows their roles and each member is reliable. You should also have fail safes in place; If one person is sick, how will you still carry on the show?

Investing In Your Own Equipment

Once you have had a few wedding jobs under your belt and you are doing well becoming a wedding singer, you may decide to buy your own PA system. This can be a significant initial outlay for you, but once you have it, you can hire this to couples for an extra charge. Most wedding venues don’t have their own PA system, so it is advantageous if you can provide one.

An extra benefit of having your own PA equipment, is that you have control over the way you sound. There’s often nothing worse then relying on someone else’s equipment, which often is of poor quality and won’t make you sound great. At least with your own audio equipment you know exactly how your vocals will come out.

Want To Become A Successful Wedding Singer? Then You Need To Market Yourself

Ok, so here’s the real secret of how to be a wedding singer: If you want to be a successful wedding singer, you need to do more then just have a great voice… You also need to learn how to market yourself! But what does marketing yourself entail?

Well, first of all you should record a demo in a professional recording studio. Having a good demo will allow potential customers to see how well you can sing. The better your demo, the more likely people will hire you for their big day.

As a wedding singer, you should also have your own website. It’s easy to make your own music website quickly, so if you haven’t got one already, then set one up right away. The expectation is that you will have a website with a professional recording on it. This will allow couples to hear you perform before they book, and hopefully buy into your ‘story’. Often, having a video of any previous performances on your website is also a good idea. Couples will want to see how you perform, so giving them a full picture of the service you’re offering them will do nothing but good for you. Because of this, it’s also important to practice your on stage presence. If you have a poor on-stage presence, you will lose potential jobs.

Additionally, you may want to advertise in brochures and wedding magazines, or attend wedding fairs to promote yourself. If self promotion is not you forte however, then perhaps you could consider signing up with an entertainment agent. They will of course take a percentage of your fee, but often they can get you much more work than you would be able to by yourself.

How To Be A Wedding Singer Conclusion

Becoming a wedding singer allows you to earn money from doing something you already enjoy. As a wedding singer, most of your engagements will be at the weekend. Because of this, singing at weddings is something you could fit around another job if you so desired. However, even if you do decide to only do wedding singing as a second job, that doesn’t mean you should become complacent with your duties. You will still need to provide the highest quality performance, as that’s what will get you a lot of your customers: Word of mouth recommendations! I bet you’re glad you read to the bottom of the article to read that tip.

Participating in a couples special day and providing quality entertainment is a really satisfying career. There is certainly a lot to consider when becoming a wedding singer, but if you are serious about making it in this profession, you really could have a fulfilling career ahead of you.

If you want to hire a great wedding singer or wedding band for your big day, you can visit Music Live UK.

Shaun: If you have music business knowledge and want to share it with our readers, you can check out our requirements for guest posters. Thanks again to Sam for this great guide on how to be a wedding singer.