Ah that question again. I faced the same question a couple of years ago when I was starting out with my first band. I know that a lot of you wonder about the same thing. So let’s have a look.

Every band/artist has a different magic number. Most of the time though this question is asked way too late, mainly after recording a bunch of songs. Rather try answering the question before you start recording. Why, Patrick? Because asking yourself this question before, you will limit your attention to a select group of songs. Now these songs will receive your full attention and you’ll be able to make them sound much better. It’s better to have a few high quality songs than many of a medium quality.

So what is the magic number? There is none. It all depends on your goal with the demo and who you’re giving it to:

• Do you want to sign a record deal?
• Are you sending your demo to a producer or the A&R of a record label?
• Are you trying to convince a music publishing house of the quality of your songs?
• Do you want to work as a songwriter for a music publishing company?

For each one, consider something different, something special for them.

There might not be a magic number, but there are some guidelines you can consider. In my opinion, 3 songs are enough for you to make an impression. Don’t offer them more than 5, it’s overkill.

Many people have documented this already, and I will do so again. These guys don’t have the time to listen to all of your songs. Depending on their job, they are probably facing countless requests. So be smart about your music and business.

They will usually listen to 2-3 songs max, so choose your songs wisely. Truth is that if they listen to your 3 songs and like them, they will be willing to listen to more songs and ask you to deliver. Obviously, you will gladly do so.

Finally, make sure you contact the person before you sending them any material. You don’t want to seem spammy by sending them unsolicited mail, as it can be quite bad for your image/brand/reputation and even close some doors prematurely.

I suggest contacting them before. Introduce yourself and ask if they’d be interested if you sent them your demo. If they agree then awesome, you will have created a personal bond with that person, which makes you stand out from the rest. Instead of deliberately sending out your demos, you’re expanding your network here. Just like a real music businessman!

So what’s your experience with sending out your material, how many songs do you recommend putting on a demo?

Cheers,
Patrick

Come on guys, I know you’re tired of only playing with for yourselves and want to spread some excess love around the world. How are your live performances coming along, huh? Any gigs booked lately? Well, if you’re lurking in the darkest corners of your garage, and through the miracle of wireless technologies, have access to the world wide web, then there still might be some hope for you.

I stumbled across this interesting concept: SplitGigs. It’s a social network that supposedly allows you to exchange gigs with other musicians. Meaning, I let your band play at my gig and in exchange you let my band play at your gig, get the idea?

Something that caught my attention with SplitGigs is that you can actually book a tour with it. What’s nice is that you can split gigs with bands from anywhere in the world, but, of course, you would still have to pay for your own plane ticket!

What is the philosophy behind SplitGigs?

Everything we do is underpinned by the concept of sharing. We believe that the organisation of gigs should not be the exclusive preserve of managers, labels or agencies. We want musicians to decide for themselves when, where and with whom they want to play, without middlemen or any other obstacles coming between them and the chance to take their music to the stage. – SplitGigs

Now how interesting is that, I covered the subject how to designate a single booker for your band, and the characteristics every booker should have, in earlier posts.

Watch the 1min video below: Introduction to SplitGigs.

What do I think of it?

I personally think the idea is brilliant. Why? Because, besides increasing the amount of gigs you play, you also get to go places you wouldn’t have considered before. Additionally, you’ll get to connect and interact with other bands, which also doesn’t happen very often. I like the idea of planning a tour online, sharing gigs with other bands/musicians, as I also get to play for their fans and get my music heard by people that I wouldn’t have reached otherwise.

I do still need to split at least one gig until I can further judge this concept, but Switzerland seems to be underrepresented right now on SplitGigs, and I can’t afford to travel to another country right now to test this out. So, if you’ve had any luck with SplitGigs, please leave a comment and tell us about it!

If you read my last post, then you’re probably aware that I suggest designating only a single booker to take care of your live bookings. Today, I want to list a few characteristics I believe every booker should have, in order to positively impact the band’s business.

What Is A Booker Made Of?

Below you will find my list of 6 characteristics that I believe every booker should have. Enjoy!

1. People’s person

Just like most businesses out there, booking is a relationship business. The designated booker has to be someone that can easily work around people. He’s got to be a people’s person. He should be able to communicate effectively and know how to create bonds with different venues.

2. Handle rejections

If the designated booker knows how to handle rejections, even better. In the music business, getting rejected is part of the deal, so make sure you don’t designate someone who is too emotional about rejection (Hint: No daddy issues here).

3. Persistent

Another quality you should look for is persistence.  He should know how to chase his leads. Working the venue until they cave in, this needs special skills if you don’t want to come over as an obnoxious business. On the other hand, knowing when to quit should also be part of the reputation management arsenal of your booker. After all, this is a business and you want to take care of your brand and reputation.

4. Consistent

How regular do you play gigs? Once every 2-3 months? Once a month? Or do you play every week? Or even, do you play 3 weeks in a row, then 2 months later you have another gig, and finish it off a year later with another? A booker has to be consistent in his job. Depending on your band’s strategy (more on this later), you will have to work out how often you want to play live. Then you have to make sure your booker is consistent with booking them at those specified intervals.

5. Available

Do I need to say that your booker has to be available at all times? Not only venues, but also the band has to be able to contact the booker at all times. Just imagine losing an amazing gig opportunity because the booker was unreachable. This is a dynamic world, things happen all the time. Make sure he is aware of this.

6. Strategic

Does your booker have a plan? He shouldn’t just be booking whatever comes along. He should stick to a strategy. Better yet, work out your band’s live performance strategy together with the booker. You’ll probably have to think about why you’ll be performing live. Is it to gain new fans, or to maintain the existing ones? Are you going to focus on small or big venues? What kind of price strategy will you be pursuing? How will you cover your costs? etc.

Tell me, what is your booker made of?

Do you book your own gigs or do you rely on a booking agency? Let me know in the comments.

Photo: Men in Black by g-mikee

Let me ask you a question, how do you or your band get booked for a concert? Does playing live even enter your music business plan? Do you just wait and let the venues come to you, or do you take the matter into your own hands?

Performing Live As A Strategy

If you’re doing nothing to find gigs, then you’re heading towards, oh well, you’re heading nowhere at all. Performing live is one of the main strategies for musicians to:

• Create an income
• Acquire new fans
• Maintain existing fans
• Perfect their skills

So are you missing out on this opportunity to earn a living, get your music heard by more people, entertain the fans you already have, and perfect your live skills?

I know that I am. Let me tell you why.

My Band, My Story

If I look at how things have been going with my band Her Sweet Suicide, then I get this weird sensation in my stomach. I have it totally wrong. We’ve been on a long hiatus, I can’t remember the last time we rehearsed. Good news or not, but we are considering to continue the project. I did, however, start to record a song with the drummer but it’s still unfinished. The next step is to finish that song, so we have something to show the venues.

A Single Responsible Person

Here’s a thought, how should I proceed to get some gigs so we can perform live again? You can either (a) get your own bookings, or (b) outsource it to a booking agency.

Either way, you should designate a single person to take care of the bookings. This is important, because you don’t want to book more than one gig on the same day, at the same time. Also, from my own experience, if everybody is responsible for booking concerts, then no one is going to do it. It’s the truth. If a single person does it, you can also hold them accountable for their success or failure as a booker. This is valid if you’re going to do it yourself as a musician/band or if you’re outsourcing this task to a booking agency.

Next week will be looking at 6 Characteristics Every Booker Should Have.

So how do you get your bookings? Leave a comment and let me know! If you liked this post, then please share below and subscribe to the feed.

Here we are at the end of Module 1 of The Challenge. I would like to thank you guys for all the lovely emails, I hope I could answer all of your questions! I would also like to thank Ed Dale and his gang for making this year’s Challenge such a breeze. I now feel more capable and more confident to use what I’ve learned to accelerate my success as a musician.

The Challenge

I would like to recapitulate the idea behind The Challenge so that any interested musician can have an idea of what he can accomplish.

Since 2005, The Challenge has helped over 147,000 people learn about Internet Marketing and get them started building a profitable online business. This year, Ed Dale (the mastermind) and his gang, have remastered The Challenge, in order to boost participation and help people keep the pace. You can find more information on The Music Challenge Introduction page.

What’s In It For Musicians?

Why do I present this to you musicians?

Well, because the internet should be our main focus to get our music out. We don’t live in the past anymore (although a lot of us still do). People are adhering to the Internet, are making a successful living online, and are experimenting new business models.

Just look at the way people interact nowadays. Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. Don’t waste this opportunity, don’t stay in the dark.

Create an online hub for your music – a central place people can visit to get to know you, buy your music, buy your other products, read news about you, see what you have to say, and interact with other like-minded people. Don’t be scattered all over the place. Instead, have a central website that links to all of your online presences.

So having this goal in mind, I started doing The Challenge. So that I could learn how to create this hub for my music, and so I could teach you too.

The Ideal Musician

Ideally a musician would create an integrated web experience. He would have his own website as a main starting point and then link to all the other sites he signed up for. However, most musicians are satisfied by only signing up for a Myspace account and… well that’s thing… it’s inconclusive. What they fail to realize is that Myspace is just a part of the whole picture. There’s only so much you can do on there.

If you develop your own website, you can, for example, populate it with lots of articles related to subjects that would not only interest your fans, but also other people, who have never listened to your music.

You could also build your online store right there, have the people engage on the spot.

If you want to learn how to do these things, then you have to learn how internet marketing works. The Challenge is a great start and I will try my best to help you on your journey too.

The Sum Of All Things

Head on over to The Music Challenge 2010 Hub to check out all the posts of The Challenge Series. Remember, it’s the sum of all the things you’ve learned that will make you outperform.

I hope you guys are having a blast developing your own music websites and are seeing the potential behind finding new ways to communicate with your fans and interested people.

Cheers,

Patrick

Today is the final day of Module 1, and it’s all about Commercial Indicators. In today’s video, Robert Sommerville a.k.a. GuruBob, will show you how to assess the commerciality of your micro niche. This means that you will find out if people are actually buying and selling, in other words, if there is profit to be made in the niche you’ve chosen. It’s time to watch the video!

If you’re having trouble watching the video, you can click here to read the Transcript (or right click + save).

Actions For The Day

Take your candidate micro-niches through the process of researching for the evidence of commercial activity using the commercial indicators outlined in the lesson. Practice the process taught in Module One so that you become more familiar with the steps involved and more skilled at interpreting the resulting data.

On Day 6 of The Challenge we analyzed the Seo Matrix. We saw that one of my niches (related to saxophones) was too competitive to pursue. Now we only have 2 left, a niche related to horns and another related to flutes.

When I search for my micro niche related to horns in Google, I get shown 4 ads related to the micro niche in the sidebar. That’s not necessarily a lot, but it shows there is some money to be made in this segment.

I couldn’t find anything on Amazon for my micro niche, but I sure found a lot on Ebay.

When I type my keywords related to flutes into Google, I can see that there are quite a few ads showing up on the right sidebar. They seem to be all relevant to my micro niche, which means that people are actually making money and this is an awesome sign.

I also get a lot of results on Amazon and Ebay related to my micro niche, which is another sign that I am on the right track.

Well, I haven’t decided which micro niche to pursue. I’ll have to give it some more thought before I jump on the wagon. But I got all the tools now to make an informed decision.

This concludes Module 1 of The Challenge. I hope you liked it, it has surely been fun taking part. The Challenge has helped me so much in many ways. I am confident that I have found a way of pursuing my passion for music, while not having to carry the burden of a 9-5 job. But I still have a while to walk before I can say that I can comfortably live off my income generated online.

How do things look on your end? How has The Challenge been treating you?

If you liked the post, feel free to share it below and make sure to subscribe to the feed.

The Music Challenge Series

Visit other posts in the series by clicking here.

In today’s lesson, Dr. Anthony will be using Market Samurai to investigate the strength of the competition in each of the niches that we’re currently investigating.

You will learn what the column headings in the SEO Matrix mean and how to assess the strength of competition for each of your theme keywords. Furthermore, you will learn how to use this information to check if your niches meet The Challenge criteria.

So don’t waste time and check out the video below. If you’re having trouble seeing the video click here to read the Transcript (or right click + save).

Actions For The Day

So, today’s action step is to review each of your niches and use the SEO Competition module in Market Samurai to explore the strength of competition associated with each of your Theme keywords. If you can find at least one weak competitor, then your niche passes the competition criteria. And the more weak competitors that you can find in the top ten, the better.

Let’s start off with my first micro niche related to horns. This is how my SEO Competition Matrix looks like:

As you can see, there are 2 weak competitors in this micro niche. Furthermore, the other competitors don’t seem to be that strong either, showing a lot of green fields.

For my second micro niche related to flutes, the SEO Competition Matrix looks like this:

This one’s even better, it has 3 complete rows of green and the overall competition doesn’t seem that strong either.

My last example, a micro niche related to saxophones, looks like this:

Now this doesn’t look that good. There’s a lot of red and not even one complete green row. I should really consider choosing a different micro niche in this case.

How about you?

Have you started your free trial of Market Samurai? I highly recommend you join me in The Challenge and increase your music’s reach. If you started your free trial, then you can probably tell me how things look on your end. So how about it? Do you too have weak competitors? Let me know!

If you liked the post, feel free to share it below and make sure to subscribe to the feed.

The Music Challenge Series

Visit other posts in the series by clicking here.

Day 5 of The Challenge is about SEO Competition. The idea behind this lesson is to teach you how to evaluate the size and strength of your competition.

If we musicians want to get our website on the first page of Google for either our band name, or a specific keyword we’re targeting, then the lessons you will learn today will be very valuable to you.

Check out the video below to see Dr. Anthony explaining the competition side of how to rank on the first page of Google. If you can’t see the video, click here to read the Transcript (or right click + save).

Actions For The Day

1. Get familiar with the SEO Competition Module in Market Samurai and practice turning columns on and off in the SEO Matrix to look at the 5 key SEO factors.

2. Create a simple table that contains the 3 niches you’re exploring and a list of the keyword phrases that have met the criteria so far.

I don’t think I need to show you how to do the first action of the day, but I am going to show you how I would do the second one if I were targeting some specific music-related keywords.

Here is how I would create the table. Just a note: Obviously I won’t give away the real keywords, so I’m just going to give a rough example of what you can expect to find with Market Samurai.

I hope you are enjoying The Challenge so far, I sure am! If you liked the post, feel free to share it below and make sure to subscribe to the feed.

The Music Challenge Series

Visit other posts in the series by clicking here.

Today Dr. Anthony will share a big secret on how to develop a site that ranks well in Google. He will help us build a site structure that is based on a collection of related keywords. We will be using a powerful piece of software called Market Samurai to find different theme and category keywords for this purpose.

Below is the video of today’s Challenge lesson. If you’re unable to see the video click here to open a PDF Transcript (or right click + save).

Actions For The Day

Today’s action step involves us exploring the niches we’ve been looking at and finding three niches that meet The Challenge criteria.

As a reminder, the criteria we’re looking at are:

• SEOT of at least 80
• PBR of at least 15
• SEOC of max. 30000

I went ahead and looked at some niches related to music. I’m not going to name them here as not to spoil the potential competitiveness of the micro niche levels. I am going to give you a hint though.

So I went ahead and fired up Market Samurai (I strongly recommend you try the free trial by clicking here). Here are my numbers for my first niche related to horns:

My second niche related to saxophones:

My third niche related to flutes:

Now It’s Your Turn

So there you have it, it wasn’t that hard to figure these numbers out with the help of Market Samurai. I suggest you try the free trial and see the amazing power behind this software. How about you, how do your numbers look?

If you liked the post, feel free to share it below and make sure to subscribe to the feed.

The Music Challenge Series

Visit other posts in the series by clicking here.

What’s the one thing you can do online that could potentially save your band’s business?

I see this done wrong over and over again. It burns my eyes and brings my brain to an overdrive.

Remember, the biggest clichés normally have a grain of truth to them. So if common knowledge dictates that you have around 3 seconds to make a great first impression (there are zillions of other takes on the number of seconds by the way), then first impressions must be really important.

If a fan or someone interested in your music visits your artist website and finds himself in an ocean of moving pictures, lots of call to actions, different coloured text, music playing in the background, and he can’t friggin’ see through the maze you’ve created, then, my friend, you have just blown your chance of a lifetime.

I mean, who knows what this visitor wanted in the first place (maybe check out your songs, book a gig, interview you for a magazine), but you definitely won’t hear from him anytime soon.

So I repeat my question:

What’s the one thing you can and should do online that could not only potentially save your band’s business, but also increase returning visitors?

(drum roll)

…Keep it simple.

“What? Oh come on, Patrick, I thought you were going to give me some great formula for success.”

Well that’s your formula:

For this you have to consider how a person would navigate your website. Be clear on what they should see and what they should do. Then limit yourself to having only one call to action and only one subject per page, i.e., don’t display your photo gallery on the same page as your bio, this is only a distraction and keeps the eyes off the bio. And don’t ask them to click to listen to your music, while signing up for your newsletter and mailing list. That’s just overwhelming, but yet I see it all the time.

I’m sure you can come up with other ways to improve on your site’s layout to keep it simple and straightforward. Don’t ask a visitor to multitask, that’s what computers are for. If I actually have to think for a few seconds before I understand the core message of the page I’m visiting, then you lost me. Adios. Ciao.

To sum things up, the one thing that could save your band’s future business and increase returning visits is to (a) keep your site simple (b) keep your navigation simple (c) keep your message simple (d) keep your call to action simple. Just keep it simple, stupid!

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