Independent Music Advice – Page 8 – Who Needs A Record Label?

Five Tips To A More Efficient Music Career

Getting your music career to take off can be a timely process. You have to work your way up through the ranks, proving yourself to possess the skills and talent required to be a success along the way. Most people don’t get signed by a major record label as soon as they post their first video on YouTube, and it can often be a good while till you start getting the recognition and sales you deserve. Because of this, it’s essential you don’t make that process any slower then it has to be. Working efficiently will mean you achieve your goals a lot quicker, and often save money on the way. Here are five tips that will allow you to be more efficient in your independent music career.

How To Make A Mixtape, The Ultimate Guide Part 3

by Shaun Letang

Welcome to the third and final part of the ‘How To Make A Mixtape‘ series. This series was started because we kept receiving mixtape related questions, from how to make a mixtape, to more complex and specific ones on pricing and releaseing your mixtape. After replying to a few of those questions individually, we decided to create a series of posts where people could get all the answers they need instantly. These posts becase the “How To Make A Mixtape” series, one of which you’re reading now. So far in this series we’ve answered beginner questions like “What is a mixtape”, to more popular questions such as “Can you use other people’s beats on your mixtape” and “How do you make your mixtape stand out from the crowd”. In this final part, we’ll be look at some questions you’ll need to ask yourself when pricing your mixtape, releasing your mixtape, and promoting your mixtape.

Is This The Number One Reason Musicians Fail?

by Shaun Letang

It seems like less and less people are succeeding with their music career. And I know the meaning of the word success can mean different things to different people, but lots of talented musicians simply aren’t reaching their full potential. Have you ever seen an act so talented you couldn’t work out why they hadn’t done more? Or seen a band that outshone their mainstream alternatives yet haven’t been swooped up by a label?

While there are many reasons a musician may not reach their full potential, there is one reason that continues to hold back many a talented musician: The lack of the right mentality!

How To Get Your First Profitable Mailing List Up And Running

by Shaun Letang

Mailing lists (Aka newsletters) are one of the most under used tools by independent musicians. Using email marketing software such as Aweber, you can effectively build relationships with your fans and market to them when appropriate. Though they’re one of the most powerful ways to making money and keep in contact with fans, very few independent musicians use them and are therefore losing out on a lot of money. Major labels have been using newsletter and mailing lists for years to effectively communicate with fans and make sales, but no one’s really told the ‘little guy’ why ‘the money’s in the list’. In this article we’ll be looking at what mailing lists are, why they’re so effective at keeping you connected with fans and making you money, the different types of email marketing services there are (And which is best for you), and finally how to build your own money making list.

Dealing With Gig Nerves And Performance Nerves, The Ultimate Guide

by Shaun Letang

Suffer from gig nerves? Then this is the article for you…

Public speaking is seen to be a fate worse then death for some. The process of standing in front of a room full of people delivering a speech can make even the most bubbly person shake from head to toe. If you want to take your music career to the next level however, most likely you will have to speak in public at some point. And not only will you have to speak, but you’ll also have to perform your music and get on an elevated stage so everyone can see you CLEARLY. Sound fun? Well actually, it can be once you get used to it! Some people truly believe performing live to fans and connecting with them in person is one of the best parts of being a musician. If you’re one of the people who suffer from pre gig nerves or performance nerves however, we’ve created a guide to minimizing pre-performance nerves, and getting you comfortable with performing shows once and for all…

Can You Make A Full Time Living As An Independent Musician?

by Shaun Letang

Like many musicians, I’m sure at some point you’ve dreamed about making it big. To have unlimited adoring fans, enough money to live the life you’ve always wanted, and to carry on doing what you enjoy; making the music you love! This is a natural dream for all starting out musicians, though it’s not always as easy as that…

In all honesty, only a very small percentage of people make a worthwhile wage from their music. The majority of musicians unfortunately don’t break even, spending money pressing up CDs that don’t end up selling. I’m not saying that their CDs aren’t worth buying (Although some of them probably aren’t), a lot of people just don’t know what to do once they have their music on the shelves. Humans aren’t naturally sales people after all…

Knowledgeable About The Music Industry? Then Write For Us!

by Shaun Letang

*If you’re eager to start writing for us now without reading this post, check out the Write 4 Us page of this website.

In the few short months that we’ve been in existence, Independent Music Advice has gone from strength to strength. Knowing that we had something useful to share, we decided to set up a place where people could get together and learn the business side of the music industry. Since setting up, we’ve constantly added more features to benefit you, such as this blog you’re reading now, our free Independent Musician Success ebook, our new interactive Facebook and Twitter pages (Links can be found on the right hand side of this page), and our top quality Music Business Resources page.

Today, we’re happy to announce yet another new feature to enhance the user experience, the opportunity to write for the Independent Music Advice website! The aim of this website is to empower our readers by giving them the knowledge they need to have a financially successful music career. And while we have more then enough knowledge to share with you (Make sure you’re subscribed to our mailinglist to be informed about all the latest news, we’ve some HUGE posts coming for you in the near future, you get a free ebook when you subscribe), we realise that there are other people who also have useful information which they’d wish share.

What Is A Sale Or Return Deal (SOR) And How To Get One

by Shaun Letang

If you’re a new musician or haven’t yet released your first independent CD or vinyl, you may not have come across the term ‘sale or return’ (Or SOR for short). In this article we will be looking at what a sale or return deal is, an example of a sale or return deal, and how to get one.
There are two types of deals you can get when trying to get your music into record shops, a ‘money upfront’ deal, and a sale or return deal. With a money upfront deal, a record shop will buy your CDs from you and give you the money upfront. They then re-sell these CDs for an increased price, keeping all the money they make from them. As the CDs now belong to the record shop, they can sell them for any price they want or even give them away for free if they so choose. While many musicians like upfront deals as they make instant bulk sales, this type of deal is becoming more rare for independent musicians. The only way independent musicians are really seeing upfront deals is if they have a proven record of selling large amounts of CDs, or if they go through a distributor (We’ll look a bit at distributor deals in this post too).