Independent Music Advice – Page 7 – Who Needs A Record Label?

How to Create CDs to Sell to Your Fans, A Quick Overview

This is a guest post by Larry Mitchell. If you want to write for Independent Music Advice, you can find out how here (Link opens in new window).

You’re an up-and-coming band playing in your local area. You’ve been working hard, and you now have a growing base of fans coming out to your shows. Then the inevitable question comes: “When are you going to make a CD?”

It’s a very good sign when fans start wanting to take your music home with them, but it can also be scary to take the next step and actually produce a CD. It will take some work, but it doesn’t have to be intimidating, or excessively expensive. If you have a good repertoire of songs from which to choose already, part of the job is already done for you. To help you through the process, here are the basic steps you’ll need to take…

Win “How To Make Money From Free Music”, Three Copies To Give Away…

by Shaun Letang

how to make money from free music free copy win

Ok, so as you probably know by now, we recently launched our first ebook “How To Make Money From Free Music”. I genuinely feel this is some of the most valuable information we’ve ever produced, and could change the way people approach the distribution and monetization of their music forever (But that’s not for me to decide, let me know your thoughts when you get the book. 😉 ).

While there’s no prizes for guessing what the book is about (The clue is in the title), there is a prize for three lucky readers of Independent Music Advice! Three of you will get a copy of “How To Make Money From Free Music” sent directly to their inbox. The retail price for this book is currently $29.99 (Price guaranteed for the first week only, after that it may go up) but you can get your hands on it by taking a few simple steps:

How To Prevent MP3 Downloads – Or Better Yet Make Money From Them

by Shaun Letang

If you’ve been in the music industry for any amount of time, you’ll know that music downloading is a big issue. For years people have tried to prevent MP3 downloads from happening, mostly without success. Is there no answer to this issue? Well actually, now there is! In this article we’ll show you a way to use people’s downloading habits to actually benefit and make you money, and I don’t mean by giving out free music and hoping some kind soul will buy your paid version. No, I’m talking about how you can get money going straight into your account each time someone downloads one of your songs for free!! Sound good? Then read on…

Top Music Advice Blogs

by Shaun Letang

Today I thought I’d do something a little different. A lot of the guides we’ve written here over the last few months have turned out to be full resources allowing you to progress in certain areas of the music industry. What’s more, all of these guides have been free. While we aim to continue helping anyone doing independent music, we do realise there are other people out there that also help up and coming musicians. Some of these people have covered subjects we haven’t yet covered in full, so it’s definitely worth reading a few different sites to get as much advice as possible.

In order to offer you a fuller resource and help you further your music career, today we’ve listed four different music websites that we feel will help grow you as an all round musician / business person. If you know of any other good music advice websites, feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

Does Working Hard Mean You’ll Succeed In Music?

by Shaun Letang

Does working harder in your independent music career equals success?

You should by now know that it’s not easy to make it in music. There’s no doubt that you’ve got to put the work in to succeed as an independent musician, and anyone not willing to do that may as well give up now. Some people spend years working hard before they start to see some sort of decent profit, some people put in that time but never get to that stage at all.

So does working hard mean you’ll end up succeeding in music? The simple answer is no, as you can see it doesn’t. What’s important however is you understand why working hard alone doesn’t mean your music career will be a success, and what you can do to increase your chances of succeeding.

How To Earn More From You Music Career Using Mailing Lists

by Shaun Letang

Many of the world’s biggest musicians such as Britney Spears and Jay Z have mailing lists (Check the top right hand of their site to see their sign up forms). Why is this? Simple, because having a mailing list can make a lot of money!

A couple of months ago in the post How To Get Your First Profitable Mailing List Up And Running, we showed you why it is so important to have a mailing list. What we didn’t give you however, were advanced strategies to make sure you could maximise the revenue you make from your mailing list. For those that don’t want to read the above mentioned post in its full detail, below I’ll break down some of the key points as to why owning a mailing list is so important. If you have a mailing list already and want to learn how to squeeze as much money and subscribers out of it as possible however, check out Advanced Strategies To Monetize Your Mailing List now! But for those of you that are new to mailing lists, here’s why you need to start yours up asap:

How To Get Gigs For Your Band Or Yourself

by Shaun Letang

As a independent musician, you’ve probably at one point wondered how to get gigs for your band. Doing live shows is an important part of anyone’s music career, it’s a great way of meeting your fans face to face and allowing them a different kind of contact with you. It’s also a great place to make CD sales and build up life long fans, as if you impress with a performance you’ve got a lot of power at that moment.

A problem many musicians face however is being able to get gigs to perform at. If you’ve never performed at a show before, what proof have you got to show venues you’re worth hiring? Thankfully there are ways around that, which is what I’m going to share with you in this article. May I say though, if you’ve never done a show before and are nervous about the whole thing, check out our post on dealing with pre gig nerves. There’s some good tips in there about getting shows to practice your live performances too, so have a look. But anyway, here are how to get your band booked (Also works for solo musicians).

How To Build Your Own Website – A Step By Step Guide To Making A Profitable Website

by Shaun Letang

Want to know how to build your own website?

Please Note: While this is a music website, this guide can be used by anyone wanting to make a profitable website fast. Please skip the below intro if you want to get straight into building your own website.

Today we’re going to be looking at how you can set up your very own successful music website. Whether you’re a solo musician or part of a ten man band, you NEED a website. We’ve talked about this previously in the topic ‘Why All Musicians Need A “.com” Website‘, but for those of you that missed that we’ll explain again.

Having your own website centralises your fan base. While other websites like Facebook and Twitter are useful to have and gain interest from, they aren’t a place where you can communicate with your fans on all levels. Instead, they should be used as tools to get your fans back to your website and sign up to your mailing list (We’ll talk about why this should be your main aim later on).

With your website, you can communicate with your fans in any way you see fit. You have more freedom, as you don’t have any restrictions with regard to what you can or can’t do (Providing it’s within the law of course). You also don’t have to worry about a site going out of fashion and leaving you to start all over again on a new platform (Was you one of the people to get stranded when MySpace stopped becoming an effective tool for musicians)?