Releasing a new album is one of the most exciting things in the career of an artist, especially an independent one, where you're doing everything on your own. 

After all the time, money, and energy you've put into learning how to play, you've taken things to the next level by writing quality songs, getting a perfect performance of them on tape, and replicating several hundred (or thousand) copies for people to buy.

Then there is the business aspect of everything... People can't buy your stuff if it's not available where they shop for music, right?

And that's just the beginning, since the biggest issue an independent artist has is not getting things into stores, but getting them out of stores.  And unfortunately, this has little to do with how good the music is.  "Good music" is subjective.  The number one album ever, Thriller by Michael Jackson, has sold hundreds of millions of copies and there are plenty of people who think it sucks. 

So now that?  Gotta get to marketing and letting people know what you've got is available, it's good, and you want them to buy it...

There are a million ways to do this.  Today, I'm going to talk about two, then dissect each, so you have a good understanding of what works about them and what doesn't.

First of all, let's take a look at the "bus ad."  If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look to the left.  It could be a simple sign hanging off a bus, which used to be fairly common, but the example here, and what you're more likely to see these days, is more of a "wrap" that covers the entire bus (or possibly one side of it).

The good thing about a bus ad is that it can reach a lot of people and it does so by actually going to them.  Have fans who never leave the house?  Not a problem.  Just put something on a bus and have the bus do a drive by.

This is great if you're somebody whom a lot of people care about, like Mariah Carey.  People will say, "Ohhhh!!!  Mariah Carey has a new album out!!" and if they're fans, likely buy it.

You'd think that Mariah Carey fans would already know if she had a new album, but the horrifying reality is that 84% of music fans have no idea when their favorite artists release something new.

Let me break that down for you.  In other words, this means one of two things...

1. Music isn't that important to people.

2. The music industry is doing a crappy job of letting people know about new releases.

Something like a bus sign is a great example of #2.

Look, Mariah Carey is a big artist.  In fact, she's one of the top artists of all time.  She's sold tens of millions of records and a lot of people know who she is.

A bus sign might work for her, since so many people know who she is, but it's not going to be that effective.  It's likely part of a bigger promotion which includes music videos, radio promotion, performances and interviews on television shows such as David Letterman, print media coverage, and more.

And keep in mind that if people know who she is already, it's likely because she's done something on the list of above promotions before...not from putting her face on a bus and driving around town.

Here's the good news about a promotion like this...

You have a bus with your face on it!!  Hell yes!!

Seriously, this may very well impress some people and allow you to do something that will actually translate into album sales.  It's evidence that you're putting some money into your own promotion, no matter how ineffective, and that counts for something.  At the very least, it's probably a foot in the door at some local club.

Do I recommend it?  No way.  It's not all bad though.

A better option for those who need the ego stroke is wrapping your car.  It's called this because the companies which do it literally wrap your car, like a holiday present.  And in a bit of hilarious irony, it's also a promotion done by a lot of rappers.

The photo to the right is an example of a car wrap.  And this is actually a great car (or whatever it is) for it, since it has a lot of space on the side.

Everything I said above applies.  The big difference is you don't see Mariah Carey driving around in a car that lets you know about her new album.  Why?  Even though she's been dropped by her label, gets bad film reviews, has gained a ton of weight, and isn't selling like she used to, Mariah Carey still has some dignity.

In all seriousness, if you can stand everybody knowing who you are and what you do at all times, this can be a good ice breaker to talk more about your career.  When you park your car somewhere, homeless guys asking for beer money will ask, "Are you a musician?"

Unfortunately, beyond that, it's really not that compelling.  It certainly won't get people to order your album by itself. 

Let's look at why this one doesn't work...

1. Most people have no idea who this guy is.

2. What kind of music does he play?  Hell if I know.  The only thing I know about him is that he plays an acoustic guitar.  That narrows it down a little, but not much.  Lots of styles of music use an acoustic guitar.

3. He's asking for the sale right away.  If I don't know who you are or anything about you, that's the equivalent of you walking up to me into a bar and asking, "Hi. My name is Tim.  Will you marry me?"

Tim!!  You don't even know me!  How about letting me know a little about yourself first!  I don't even know if I like you in that way yet!

Like the SOS Band sings, "Take your time, do it right!"  A buying relationship doesn't just happen and pushing it too fast will kill it.  If somebody doesn't know a thing about you, you can't expect them to spend money with you.

Let's look at what he did right on this one...

What I do like about this particular car wrap is that he's asking for what he wants.  That's an improvement on the bus wrap, where I guess the guy just expects you to find his album and buy it...assuming that is what he wants.  We have no way of knowing since he doesn't say.

That's a big lesson for you... Don't expect people to read your mind and know what you want.  You've got to tell them.

Again though, asking for a sale when nobody has heard your music is like walking into a bar and asking random people to get married.  Not going to happen...

How would you approach getting married?

1. Say hello and introduce yourself.

2. Ask questions.  Listen.

3. Get a name.  Get a phone number.

4. Go for coffee...maybe lunch if it's going well.

5. Go to dinner.

6. Introduce this person to your friends.

7. Introduce this person to your parents.

Ok...you get the idea.  My point is that there are a few steps you have to go through to get to the point of marriage.  And "marriage" with a music fan is the same way.

You could pretty much go through this process with the car wrap example above.

1. Say hello... "Artist Name - (adjective) (style) from (city)" as a headline.  Not just your name at the top.

2. Ask questions... "(Would you like to) Download the New Single FREE at www.artistname.com!"

3. Get a name and phone number... Set up a "squeeze page" where users give you a name/email (basically signing up for your mailing list) in exchange for the free download.

4. Proceed from there...  Once you've established rapport, then ask for the sale.  This could be getting them to come to your show, buying the full album, or whatever.

Bottom like with any music promotion is that you think of it from a fan perspective.  People don't care about your music as much as you do...and in the beginning, they more than likely don't care about your music at all.

Like dating, the music business is all about developing a relationship.  That starts by opening yourself up to people, perhaps by giving away free downloads.  Let them get to know who you are.  Once they see and hear that, they'll be more likely to buy.

Thoughts?  Please add them below.  Also, if you've got examples for good (or bad) music promotions, feel free to send them my way via Twitter.

And speaking of Twitter, if you enjoyed this post, please hit the "Tweet This" icon below.  Thanks! :)

The landscape of the music industry is changing daily. A lot of the "holy grail" services needed to release and promote a record are as easy as they've ever been.  Artists can now make records on their home computers, put their music up on the internet, and make low budget videos and put them on YouTube.

While all of this is great, it can also be overwhelming.  Where do you begin?  Which lead do you follow?

To help upcoming artists, WXPN has started a new radio series, Start Making Cents, which showcases ways musicians, labels, and producers are dealing with revolutionary changes in the music business.

Here's an episode with former major label artist, Jill Sobule, who talks about her latest, fan-funded release and how it happened.

Get additional episodes here.

Want more info on WXPN?  Check out my interview with its music director and operations manager, Dan Reed, on Music Business Radio.

A band called Handsome Furs partnered with Sub Pop and CNN to do a Web series about its tour of Asia. Band members filmed it themselves using Flip cameras.

Any touring band should be doing this!

Post thoughts below...

Yes, I said guaranteed.  You'll reach up to 7,000,000 listeners.

I'm talking about this offer from Jango.  $10 gets you 250 spins.  $30 gets you 1000.  If you've got $100, you can get 4000 spins.

According to the site, 1000 plays will typically get you between 40 and 80 new fans, whom you'll then be able to contact.

Let's do the math... You get 1000 plays for $30, which is $.03/play.  Let's average the "between 40 and 80 new fans," which the site says is "typical" for this amount of play, and make it 60.

60 new fans for every $30 you spend means you're "buying" a new fan for only $.50.  Not bad.  At that rate, "1000 True Fans" would only run you $500 and you could scale things to get as big as you want...at least until you hit the total number of users who use Jango's service.

Obviously, this is wishful thinking... It's unlikely that you'd have a "true fan" from a single exposure to your music.

Still, this may be a great investment for you.  If nothing else, it's a great way to test your songs and get valuable feedback on how to improve them.  Most musicians never do this and very few have more than 1000 people listen to a song before they spend money, time, effort, and resources releasing it.  If you've got a song that sucks, better to find out now than later...

So, what happens if people hate your music?

One of the things I like about Jango is that you're connected with a "top act" which they're already playing.  For example, if you think you sound similar to U2 and that U2 fans would love what you're doing, you have them play your music for fans of U2. 

But what if fans of the act you associate yourself with think you suck?  In this example, maybe they think you sound a little too much like U2?

All is not lost...yet.  It could be that you've got the wrong people listening to it.  Not everybody likes everything, right?

So I suggest you try again, just to be sure the results you're getting are worthwhile.  And this time, associate your music with another act that sounds "similar but different."  The U2-style sound works, right?  But maybe not for fans of U2...  Those guys don't want the U2-style, they want U2.

That's good feedback to have!

Will Jango get you singed?  Doubt it...but it's possible.

Will Jango make you famous?  Doubt that too.

It will certainly get you some good feedback though and that is worth a lot more than you'll spend here.  If you listen to what people tell you, you'll be helped with both of the things mentioned above and more.

If you've used this service, please post comments below with more information about your experience and the results you had...

So here we are...at the end of another year and, in this case, another decade.

This would be a great opportunity for me to do something like a "year in review."  Nothing like a good "Best of" or "Worst of" to finish out the last few days of a decade, right?

There are plenty of those stories around, so instead, I've decided to give you the best advice for music business success that I've got.

Do it now.

Sounds simple, and perhaps you're wondering, "Do what now?  I don't know what to do!!"

The answer to that question was best answered by Ray Bradbury, when he said, "Jump off the cliff and you build your wings on the way down."

The Best Way to Be Successful at Anything

Being successful within the music business is a lot like learning a new language... 

What's the best way to learn a foreign language?  Go to a country where they speak it all the time and you'll learn more in a month than you would in years of "school."  Total immersion is the best classroom.

Same for your music business career.  You can say you want to be a fulltime musician, but as long as you have a job or something else to keep you in your comfort zone, it's unlikely anything will change the current situation you're in to make that happen.

Are You Pavlov's Dog?

If you're working a day job, you've got a tremendous amount of inertia to overcome.  Most people have years of heavy social programming, which makes them think they "need" a dayjob.  Beyond that though, a "weekly paycheck" trains us in its own way.

We're more like animals than we think.  Do a trick, get rewarded.

Just worked 40 hours?  Here's a paycheck.  Good boy!

That's hard to walk away from!!  I get it.  But understanding this will help you do just that.

How to Change Your Music Business Career in a Single Day

In my years of working with musicians, the two biggest problems most have are:

1. Comfort
2. Treating music like a job

Total immersion solves both of these very quickly.  It immediately takes you out of your comfort zone of a regular paycheck (and what comes with it-- food, clothing, shelter, etc) and puts you in a place where you have to make things happen in order to survive.

Have a problem asking for what you're worth?  Giving away CDs?  Playing for free?  Do music fulltime, get a little hungry, and watch what happens...

Have friends who think what you're doing is a "hobby" and want to attend your shows for free?  Do music fulltime and the problem is solved.

And the list goes on and on...

So let me repeat my advice one more time...

Do it Now

Seriously, do it now.  If you really want this as much as you say you do, do it now.  Otherwise, the upcoming year end up just like this one did.

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE!!

Not just any Rage Against the Machine, but 1992's "Killing in the Name."

How did it happen?  Well, social media had a lot to do with it...

Thoughts?

Here's more advice from my new book, Never Leave Money on the Table - How to Grow Any Business and Get Really Rich with 10 Simple Marketing Strategies. This isn't a book about music, it's a book about business.  More specifically, it's a book about how you can grow your business and make more money with it.  Same business, more money.

The book focuses on 10 principles and how you can use them to get more customers, generate more money, and do more of what you love.  If you're already doing these things, this book will show you to to do them better and more efficiently.

The principle I want to focus on now is planning for success...

Ask any 9-to-5er what you should plan for when going full-time in the music business and they'll tell you, "Have a back-up plan in case you fail." True entrepreneurs, however, will warn you to plan for success. Because, surprisingly, it's success that can really kill a new business if you aren't prepared for it.

When two renegade cows took over a billboard above a busy highway outside Atlanta in 1995, no one knew the message they conveyed would be heard all around America. The three-dimensional billboard shows one black and white cow atop the back of another cow, who was painting the words, "Eat Mor Chikin®."

In his book by the same name Eat Mor Chikin, Inspire More People, Chick-fil-A® founder S. Truett Cathy explains that the company had no idea that the advertising campaign with the now-famous cows would prove to be so popular. The company had not planned a major, nationwide billboard campaign, but when Cathy saw the positive response from that first billboard, he saw the unexpected opportunity and took advantage of it—and the rest is history. For more than a decade, Chick-fil-A's renegade cows have been amusing the public and driving customers in herds to the popular fast-food restaurant.

According to Chick-fil-A, within a year, the Richards Group, the advertising agency that developed the original billboard, turned the renegade cows into an integrated advertising campaign that included point-of-purchase items in the stores and radio ads.

Since the cow campaign debuted in 1995, Chick-fil-A's business has increased five-fold from $500,000 in 1995 to more than $2.64 billion in 2007. Not bad work for a couple of renegade cattle and a paintbrush!

Prior to that campaign, the company hoped for success in the general sense, but no one could have foreseen the impact that one little billboard would have. So, don't just prepare for failure; prepare for success.

Numerous business books are filled with horror stories of businesses cannibalized out of business by their own success. It doesn't matter how good you are if you can't meet an increased demand for your product or service. Be ready to succeed. Plan for it and have a contingency plan.

In 1995, when teenage rebel Shawn Nelson decided to build a bigger, better beanbag, not too many folks laughed. He sold the oversized, overstuffed bean bags to family and friends until one day he got an order for 12,000 of them from a company rep who saw and liked the bags. He officially founded LoveSac® with some friends in 1998.

Their $500,000.00 order might have seemed like a windfall, but with a company of one, Shawn had to scramble to produce that first big order. He did, using all the profits to complete the huge order, but the Cinderella story had begun. In 2005 he walked away with $1 million as the winner of Richard Branson's (Virgin Atlantic® owner and billionaire) reality TV show "The Rebel Billionaire."

Then in 2006, with only $500,000.00 in estimated assets, Nelson filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. His top 30 unsecured claims totaled more than $3.2 million. That hasn't stopped him. In 2008, Nelson's unique seating became the only seating in a refurbished Texas movie theater. He hasn't let his roller coaster ride of success and failure deter him from his business.

Entrepreneurs, especially in the music business, never travel smooth, flat highways. While most businesses won't ever experience the extreme ups and downs of Shawn Nelson's LoveSac® venture, complete with winning a reality show and a million dollars, you never know what can happen. So, plan for success. Failure will take care of itself. If you focus on failing, that's where your mind will be. Refocus and plan to succeed. Big corporations do.

Car manufacturers are working on new models years before the public ever sees them. Microsoft knows what will happen this year, next year, and the next. Even as one new product is hitting the shelves, research and development has already started working on the next product and the next improvements.

For the new full-time musician just starting off, that pressure can seem immense. You haven't even gotten your first year under your belt and already you need to project the next year and the next and the next!

Relax. You don't have to do it all at once. There is a process to get to the top of the stairs. Take it one step at a time . . .

Recognize that most musicians are entrepreneurs by default. Default entrepreneurs simply have a hobby, passion or need to make more money selling something they're particularly involved in. They are sold on their product and assume others will be too. They fail to look ahead, let alone plan ahead. If this is you, be aware that there's a lot more to owning, running and succeeding in a business than just having a good product or service.

So what are your plans for the upcoming year?  Post your thoughts below...

Don't you just love it when you're watching something on the news and some idiot is behind the on-scene reporter making funny faces?  Annoying, yes, but also hilarious...at least to a guy like me.

What would happen if you did something like that, but instead of making funny faces, you held up a sign telling people to go to your website? Annoying, yes, but also good exposure for you...maybe.

But take that idea and do it dozens of times, using a service like Google Maps, which photographs, or seems to have photographed, just about every street in North America, and you've got something that goes beyond just getting your face in front of a bunch of people...you've got a story the mass media will pick up on.  And that gets your face and the name of your band in front of even more people...

That's what Saskatoon musician Nate Heagy did.

"When Google announced that Street View was coming to Saskatoon, a light bulb went on," he said. "I just thought Street View would allow anyone on any corner to be seen by any number of people anywhere."

So when he saw the fine folks from Google driving around, taking pictures, getting on a corner is exactly what he did.

But Nate is a guy who thinks big, so he didn't just stop with one corner...

Following in the footsteps of a fellow Canadian, hockey star Wayne Gretzky, who once said his success was his ability to "anticipate where the puck was going to be," Nate used the same skill on Google's car.  He figured out its pattern, drove ahead, and waited...and then he did it again...and again.

Did Nate sell any records because of this?  From what I can tell, no.  Still though, it's something he can leverage to make something like that happen. 

At the least, it's a foot in the door and a way to develop rapport when he calls a booking and asks, "Remember that guy all over the news for promoting his music via Google Maps?" 

And at worst, I think it's a great story of getting music publicity in a way that wouldn't have been possible even just a few years ago.

Why cheat?

Tons of reasons...the main one being that you're not happy with what you've got.

Why?

Happiness is an inside thing.  If you're not happy on the inside, it doesn't matter what you have on the outside.  The problem is that most of us don't know this until we actually get what we think will make us happy.

There is somebody reading this now, maybe you, who is actually going to get what he's striving for when it comes to music business success.  When you actually go for it with a plan in place, it happens...a lot.

But what happens when you get it?

Then you've got to start looking at the other things in your life, which you've neglected, because you were so focused on getting a record deal, selling albums, packing shows, or whatever else.  And when this happens, you may just be thrown off...big time.

Can't tell you how many people "successful" musicians and songwriters I've met who are completely miserable on the inside.  These folks are like the walking dead, just going through the motions of life and not enjoying any of it.

These folks love to chase whatever the next thing is... And when they get there, it's more of the same.  The grass is never greener.

Fortunately, it doesn't have to be this way.  If you have a clean vision for what "success" is and why you're really doing the things you're doing, you'll be fine.  In my opinion, it helps to have a reason that is bigger than you are.

Charity is one of these things, which is why you see so many celebrities getting involved with things like social and humanitarian issues.  It's why Derek Sivers gave CD Baby to charity.

I'm not saying you have to donate money to charity or even volunteer your time; I'm saying you'll benefit by having a "purpose" to what you're doing and you may find something involving charity helpful.

So what's your purpose for doing what you do?  Post it below...

Something like this could get a lot of attention for your band... Is it the kind of attention you want? Maybe. Just pointing out that it could get you a lot of attention.

Opportunities like this are happening daily... ]]>Yesterday, I talked about leveraging current events with something outrageous to get publicity. Here is an example... Something like this could get a lot of attention for your band... Is it the kind of attention you want? Maybe. Just pointing...noYesterday, I talked about leveraging current events with something outrageous to get publicity. Here is an example... Something like this could get a lot of attention for your band... Is it the kind of attention you want? Maybe. Just pointing...David HooperYesterday, I talked about leveraging current events with something outrageous to get publicity. Here is an example... Something like this could get a lot of attention for your band... Is it the kind of attention you want? Maybe. Just pointing...Current Affairs, Viral Marketinghttp://www.musicmarketing.com/2009/12/tiger-woods-part-2-1.htmlKathode Ray Enterprises, LLC - www.indiemusician.comDavid Hoopernonadult