Passive Promotion

4 Steps to Film and TV Placement

Helen Austin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:42:20 +0000

I’m often asked how to get music into film and TV. I owe my only success to a music supervisor from Bunim-Murray who found me on thesixtyone and placed four of my songs in MTV shows. For a more helpful answer, I turned to my good friend Helen Austin, whose focus and dedication I’ve admired for years. -Brian

Since getting my music licensed on TV, films and ads, I often get asked for advice on how I did it. The first thing I will say is that there is no “easy button” and no magic publisher. It requires a lot of hard work and single-mindedness.

Still reading?… ok

Step 1: Lay the Groundwork

After being a songwriter for a many years (while being a comedian for a living!) it was only two years ago that I decided that my next “job” was going to be getting my music licensed. I was already a prolific writer and had learned how to record my own songs in my own style at home (and still learning everyday). If it was to be my job, then I was going to work hard and do whatever it took, all day everyday (around kid’s pick-ups, housework, etc).

So I started writing and producing more, listening to critiques and honing my craft (which turned into a song a week for a year). The learning curve was huge, especially on the technical side. I signed up on various music sites and submitted my songs to every opportunity that I thought would fit. These are the sites that I uploaded music to and monitored the listings that came into my inbox on a regular basis:

Sonicbids
Taxi
Broadjam
YouLicense

I also uploaded my music to every other music site I could find: Last.fm, ReverbNation, OurStage, thesixtyone… It’s all very time consuming but you want people to be able to find you easily.

Step 2: Build Your Team

I found a publisher through Sonicbids that I spent time forging a relationship with, and signed many songs with them exclusively. They have found me placements that have really upped my fan base. It also connected me with a music supervisor who wanted my music for an indie movie and also with a producer who flew me to Sacramento to record Beatles songs. It has gotten me two music business conference showcases and many internet radio play spots and features. So Sonicbids has been the best money spent so far.

Through Taxi I found another publisher who I have also signed many songs with, but non-exclusively, which means I can also pitch these songs to other people when the opportunity arises. Taxi costs the most but that publisher has made me the most money, plus Taxi has a free music conference for its members every year.

I got one of my songs on an ad through Broadjam but submitted to MANY listings to get it. But they are good at showing off the artists that they do get placements for.

I had pretty much ignored YouLicense until I got an email from a Korean Record Label through them, who are now working on releasing a CD of my music in Korea.

All these sites cost money either to join, submit or both. Each has it plusses and minuses but I figured it would cost a whole lot more to go back to school. I have been relentless and found success with all and will continue to submit because you never know where the next placement will come from.

Step 3: Produce Targeted Content

Consistently writing and producing a lot is so important because I can’t be too precious about my songs if I want to make money. If I do make a mistake and sign a contract that I regret then I like having a lot more songs where that one came from. Also, instead of just having songs that I think I can submit, I have started writing with placements in mind. Taxi had a listing that was looking for a song with the word “happy” in it, so I wrote a song called Happy, which was picked up and is one of my most successful songs… and it’s only 1:40 mins long!

Step 4: Make Connections

After reading an article by a music supervisor on how they are okay about getting polite emails with links to music, I then sent out hundreds of individual (no block) emails out to any music supervisor I could find an email for. I was very polite and sent links only (they hate attachments!) and follow-ups when I had new music. I got nice replies from about 10 of them but some have lead to placements and at least a direct contact who knows my music.

And then there’s the social networking. Yup, you have to do Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, because you never know who you will meet there. I read an article on “Be Interesting and Interested” and that has served me well in my interactions. But you have to be genuine. If I can spot fake from a mile off then so can everyone else. There are several supervisors who use Twitter to find music and I have had a few placements just by reading my Twitter feed at the right time.

So that is how I have managed to get my music on TV, movies and ads. In case you are wondering, here are my placements. It all started with the “Insight” ad in September 2009.

MTV – Plain Jane (3 placements)
MTV – Real World (3 placements)
MTV – 16 & Pregnant
90210
Ghost Whisperer
Mayor Cupcake (movie) – 3 songs including opening credits
Seeking Happily Ever After (documentary) – closing titles song
Royal Caribbean (ad)
Insight Communications (ad)

I am sure there are many ways to skin a cat (unlucky cat) and this is just my story of how I am getting my music placed. I love what I do, from the writing to the recording and mixing, and even the social networking and emailing. More importantly is that I am grateful for getting to do what I do every day, and this makes the days that I get an email telling me of a placement even better. Those are the happy dance days!

The Individual Edition CD

Brian Hazard — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:00:49 +0000

This month I released my 8th full-length album, slated to be my last physical release. I might have gone the digital-only route this time if I hadn’t won free CD manufacturing from Disc Makers through the John Lennon Songwriting Contest. The fact that it was a physical release allowed me to take pre-orders, which provided the opportunity to test out my latest crazy idea – one that actually panned out for a change! Here is how I described The Individual Edition CD to my fans:

It will probably come as a surprise that I can’t create the exact same mix twice, even though the album was recorded entirely “in the box” on my studio computer. Arpeggiators randomly cycle through the notes of a chord. Panning effects start and end at different points. Some devices purposely insert glitches and other random anomalies. Beyond the occasional surprise, these differences are tough to pick out unless you know what to listen for. The qualitative listening experience is the same, but the fact that each mixdown is an “audio snowflake” gave me an idea:

As a souvenir of your support, I will create a personalized custom CD featuring unique mixdowns of each of the 12 songs I recorded for the album. The outtakes “Touch” and “Release the Hounds” are not on the standard Limited Edition CD and will not appear on any future physical release. The disc will open with a token of my appreciation – a spoken “thank you” mentioning you by name.

The Individual Edition CD is available through July 31. Keeping in mind that it takes me three hours to prepare each one, I’ve priced it at $99, which also includes a copy of the standard Limited Edition version. I don’t have much spare time to devote to this, so I can only take the first 20 orders. They will ship as soon as the CDs arrive, most likely before the August 4 release date.

If you can think of anything I can do to make it more special or meaningful, please let me know!

I ran it by a few friends first, and the consensus was that it was a cool idea, but pricy. I argued that $99 was reasonable considering how much time it takes to put one together. If nobody ordered, it would’ve been pathetic, but I wouldn’t have had to lift a finger. If I got more orders than I could handle, I would’ve had to turn people away.

Fortunately, the price was on target. I got 13 orders, generating more than 50% of the approximately $2,500 I’ve made in sales since I launched the album. The recipients seem to love the CDs, and I genuinely enjoyed putting them together.

I realize that as the artist, mix engineer, and mastering engineer of the album, I’m in a unique position to pull this off. Beyond that, the mixes required a degree of randomness that might not make sense in a non-electronic context. No matter what your role or style of music, there are variations on the theme that would excite and entice your fans:

Deleted scenes. Remember that guitar solo you cut because it seemed too “self-indulgent”? That redundant 3rd verse? That 45 second fade-out? Your fans might enjoy hearing them in an extended arrangement, if only to compare and contrast with the album version.
Live show for one. How about a personalized one-off live recording of the album? Make sure to mention the guest of honor by name and leave in the mistakes! If playing through the whole album is too much work, how about dedicating a single song of their choice from your discography?
Unique vocal. You could use alternate vocal takes, or even change a line of the lyrics to include a fan’s name. How about inserting a clever line about how you’ve “done this 12 times already” and increment the number with each take? Even if you’ve already finished tracking the band, overdubbing a vocal is relatively quick and painless.
Fan sing-a-long. Anyone with an iPhone can record themselves singing along to the chorus of your song. It wouldn’t be too hard to tune it and layer it with the lead vocal. Who wouldn’t want to share the results with everybody on their friends list? Alternately, you could layer takes from any fan who wants to contribute and sell the same “fan sing-a-long” version to everyone. It could even work in a live setting by recording the audience singing along, then handing out download cards telling them where to get the recording.

All of the above options require some mixing work and a mastering engineer to run the songs through the gear again for cheap. The cost might be hard to justify if you’re paying by the hour. If nothing else, you can always insert a vocal greeting or song introduction as an extra track on the disc. If you’ve got a mic and a computer with a CD burner, there’s nothing stopping you from making your release extra special for your most dedicated fans.

The Jango Focus Group

Brian Hazard — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:00:23 +0000

Devo got loads of press by letting fans choose everything from the songs on their new album to the color of their hats. If you’re secure enough to make your own wardrobe decisions, you can get useful feedback on your songs by conducting a focus group on Jango. It only cost me $75 to play 12 of my songs to targeted listeners 3,000 times in a single day. The information I gleaned helped me select which track would open my new album, and persuaded me to cut two others.

Jango added tons of useful features since I first wrote about it back in April of 2009. In a nutshell, you pay to have your music played alongside big name acts on an internet radio site boasting 7 million listeners. While it’s far from perfect, it’s the best passive promotion that I know of. I’ve invested nearly $1,000 of my own money in Jango campaigns over the past year and a half, and reinvested everything earned from my affiliate link (please use it if you’re not already signed up), maybe $500. I doubt I made all that money back in sales, but dozens of Jango listeners bought albums, friended me on Facebook, and followed me on Twitter. 138 of them volunteered their email addresses, which I immediately added to my mailing list. In other words, Jango listeners are real people who may become real fans.

Conducting the focus group isn’t much different from any other Jango campaign:

Set your targets. If you only want to hear from female fans of The National, age 25-34, you can do that. I only used the free “basic geo targeting” to select the countries I routinely receive physical CD orders from. Your most important decision is which artists to target. Rather than opting for the old-school 80′s synthpop bands like Depeche Mode and New Order, I focused on current electronic acts like Owl City and La Roux.
Upload your material. Two of my new album tracks were already playing on Jango, so I emailed airplay@jango.com to give them links to new mp3s for those tracks, plus the other 10. I also asked them to remove all but three of my earlier songs. Erin responded within a few hours, and within two days, all my new songs were live and the old ones disabled.
Allocate plays. If you’ve already allocated credits to some of your focus group songs, you should remove those and wait a day to separate your old results from your focus group numbers. Then allocate plays evenly across the songs in question. I bought 4,000 plays for $100, then allocated 250 per song = 3,000 plays.
Pace your plays. I allocated my plays at midnight EST, selected “fastest possible,” and burned through all 3,000 by mid-afternoon. Would slower pacing produce better results? My guess is that it would, but that’s just a hunch.
Tally the scores. When your allocated plays run out, go to Reports/Play Stats and select your focus group songs one at a time from the drop-down menu on the right. Calculate the percentage of song likes to total plays, rather than just paid plays, since some organic plays will likely be mixed in as well.
Remove the songs. Email airplay@jango.com and ask them to remove all the songs, except perhaps the top scorers. You don’t want your fans previewing the whole album before release! I didn’t mention my focus group to anyone, and it flew completely under the radar.

Your results may surprise you! My absolute favorite track was the least liked, with a 7% like/play ratio (no, it doesn’t have a bridge). A song that I thought was good-not-great was the clear winner at 14.5%. In the name of science, I ran the exact same campaign again. There was some movement, but the general trend was the same.

So did I cut my favorite song from the album? No way! It was one of the two songs that were on Jango before the focus group, and those two got the lowest scores. My guess is that some of the listeners already heard the song, and maybe even clicked the “like” button previously. Scoring those two songs by all-time likes over all-time plays helped bring them in line with the rest.

The vast majority of plays on my Bandcamp page are the first track of my latest album, so any song in that position needs to be a grabber! My focus group unequivocally told me which song to use, and made me feel secure in my decision to cut two of the weaker tracks, which I’ll save for a follow-up EP. As a side benefit, I got three pages of new comments on my profile, and 23 listeners shared their email addresses over the course of the two campaigns.

My all-time stats: 91103 plays (73682 paid), 8067 total likes, 3275 fans, 3352 views

The Death of the Bridge

Brian Hazard — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:00:50 +0000

Many of my all-time favorite songs are “growers” – album tracks that don’t really grab you the first few spins, but eventually dig their hooks in and don’t let go. Few artists these days have the luxury of writing growers, because listeners aren’t willing to invest that kind of time. Unless the artist is proven to deliver, the listener will tune out and move on. While I’m a huge fan of the album format, it’s hard to deny the shifting focus from albums to individual songs. Every one of those songs needs to grab the listener’s attention and hold it until the last note – preferably longer! In order for your songs to be grabbers rather than growers, they must have clear and familiar structures.

The textbook pop song structure is verse – chorus – verse – chorus – bridge (also known as the “middle eight”) – chorus. At its most basic level, structure is repetition. If no element of the song repeats, it has no structure. Every repetition of the verse and chorus is another chance for the listener to fall in love with the song. The one section of the song that doesn’t repeat, the bridge, has been phased out in favor of a short break or instrumental solo. Don’t get me wrong – plenty of popular songs still have bridges, but it’s not the staple it once was. As much as I hate to dumb down my songs, I recognize the wisdom in simplicity. Until you’ve got a substantial following, two sections – a verse and a chorus – is plenty.

Not to say you have to follow the traditional form to the letter! There’s plenty of room for variation. You could:

Start with the chorus
Throw in an extra verse before the first chorus to allow further exposition
Substitute a third verse for the break for the same reason
Cut the first chorus in half, in which case you’ll probably want to…
Add an extra chorus at the end

To extend the structure a bit further, you could insert a prechorus (also known as the “build”) between the verse and chorus. While the prechorus ups the complexity by adding a third section, the crucial difference between the prechorus and bridge is that the former repeats. Should you choose to go this route, I suggest eliminating the break in favor of a third prechorus (V-PC-C-V-PC-C-PC-C).

OK, so you’ve got a catchy verse and an explosive chorus. You’ve got lyrics laced with concrete imagery that tell a universal story in a fresh and imaginative way. Too much repetition can be annoying, but it takes more than most songwriters are willing to dare. How do you arrange the song to include just the right amount, so that it repeats without sounding repetitive? Here are some ideas (I’d love to hear yours in the comments!):

Break up the groove. Start the song with sparse instrumentation and stagger the introduction of rhythmic elements over course of the first verse. Or, drop the drums and bass at the end of the verse to explode into the chorus. Solo the vocals for a few beats. If you’re ending with a double chorus, thin the arrangement for the penultimate chorus to make the ending seem huge. Filter the whole mix and automate the cutoff frequency. Drop to a half time feel, or bump it up to double time. The possibilities are endless.
Add a new element. A new guitar line or synth arpeggio can make a verse feel fresh, even when everything else is the same. Maybe it’s as simple as playing eighth notes on the hi-hat instead of quarter notes, or dropping the bass down an octave. Be careful not to clutter the midrange, or you’ll compete with the lead vocal.
Layer the vocals. Highlight important words or phrases with harmonies, yells, or whispers. Double the chorus lead vocal, and gradually stack harmonies over the course of the song. Ad lib over the final chorus, R&B style, or superimpose lines from the verse.
Vary the lead vocal treatment. Automate the reverb to swell on a long note, add a delay to the last word of each phrase, use a bandpass EQ for “radio voice,” or if you’re not afraid to jump on the bandwagon, do the autotune thing.

While there’s more to a great song than clear structure, a song without obvious repetition is destined to fail. Don’t equate sophistication with quality. Win listeners over with simple strong structures. Write songs that can be easily appreciated, and they might just promote themselves.

Rock Band Network Authoring Best Left to the Pros

Brian Hazard — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:00:11 +0000

After 45 hours of work over six weeks, my song is one of the 118 approved to be in the RBN Store when it launches. My last article laid out what it takes to get your song in the game, namely a deep skill set and lots of time. While I managed to clock in well under my 60-80 hour estimate, I had a considerable head start. I’d already messed around with Reaper, my stems were ready to go, I’d played through most of Rock Band 1 and 2 on all instruments, and my Xbox 360 was already networked to my studio computer. Plus, I’ve been a full-time mastering engineer for twelve years and a computer geek all my life. Even so, without the expert guidance of the folks at creators.rockband.com, my song never would’ve made it through the pipeline. They are a wonderful group of people – true professionals in every sense of the word.

Knowing what I know now, would I do it again? Probably not. Here’s why:

The authoring guidelines are rules, not suggestions. I mistakenly counted on some wiggle room. I figured if the parts made sense and felt right to play, they’d be acceptable. Not so. For example, on medium difficulty, green-blue chords are not allowed. There can be no kicks or snares between right hand time keeping gems, period. There are lots of rules, not all of them intuitive. Personally, I think that’s a good thing. My initial concern that amateurs would flood the store with flawed product was unfounded.
Playtesting others’ songs can take as long as authoring your own. Authoring is a collaborative process. It takes me about an hour to playtest a song completely, on all instruments at all difficulty levels. You might need a dozen playtests to prepare your song for peer review, so you should plan to do at least that many for others. It’s not just a goodwill gesture. If you don’t actively contribute to the community, nobody will touch your songs.
Hiring a professional is affordable. If you’re willing to share the royalties with an authoring company, your upfront cost can be as low as zero. There are plenty of companies eager to chart your song, with a variety of pricing structures.
Professionals do a better job. Authoring is both an art and a science, and experience matters. No two companies will chart the same song the same way. Check out the expert previews on YouTube and you’ll spot considerable variation. It’s not easy to capture the magic of a real live performance.

Currently, Noble Rhythm is charting another one of my songs. They’ll take half the royalties, but no money up front. Obviously they’re a lot more optimistic about my sales potential than I am!

Rock Band Network for Dummies?

Brian Hazard — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:00:13 +0000

A few weeks ago, Kevin English of eleetmusic got me in to the closed beta of Rock Band Network, which provides the necessary tools to get your songs into the game. When it launches, the RBN Store will sell those songs through the game’s interface, with 30% of the purchase price going back to the artist. Now that the beta is public, you may be eager to dive in, but let me warn you -- it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be! Authoring your first song requires a deep skill set and 60-80 hours of focused effort.

You’ll need to have:

Multitrack sessions of your song, including a dry vocal
A computer running Windows
An Xbox 360 with at least a 20 GB hard drive
Rock Band 2

You’ll most likely need to buy:

A premium Creators Club membership ($99/year or $49 for four months)
A Gold subscription to Xbox LIVE ($49.99/year)
Reaper Digital Audio Workstation software ($60 discounted license after a 30 day trial)

You’ll need to be able to:

Prepare stems from your original recordings
Learn a new DAW plus custom scripts
Play the game proficiently on all instruments at all difficulty levels (good luck if you can’t sing!)
Transcribe a vocal performance to MIDI, differentiating between vowels and consonants by viewing the waveform
Play the drums (to program the right hand/left hand animations correctly)
Connect your Xbox 360 to your computer

In addition to all that, you’ll be expected to test and review other members’ songs. It’s a network after all!

Believe it or not, I’m not trying to discourage you. I just want to save you the frustration of hitting a brick wall after investing your time and money. If the process seems overwhelming, you can always hire someone else to do it. The most widely promoted service so far is Tunecore’s, which charges $999. Keep in mind that the quality of the final product can vary considerably. One service might spend hours on lighting and camera work, while another might use the defaults generated by the compiler. Authoring is both an art and a science.

Here are a couple videos of my song as it stands today, just after submitting it for playtest. I’ll post an update once the song makes it through the system. The first video shows the whole band in autoplay mode on expert difficulty, and the second just the vocals, so you can better appreciate the camera and lighting work.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lx-p_3GQAg

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC_yTzHycwo

More info on the authoring process here.

My First ReverbNation Street Team Mission

Brian Hazard — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:54:50 +0000

I love ReverbNation. I could write a dozen articles on the various tools they provide for artists. For now I’ll focus on one I just tried for the first time: Street Team Missions.

Whenever a fan subscribes to your mailing list, they’re given the option to join your street team. You create missions to direct your team’s promotional efforts on your behalf, and they compete against each other for rewards of your choosing. ReverbNation manages the whole thing automatically by measuring plays, widget clicks, banner impressions, and mailing list signups.

Sound too good to be true? I thought so at first, so I joined several other artists’ missions to get a closer look. I wasn’t exactly blown away. Participation was limited to a handful of fans, even on teams with 1000+ members. My enthusiasm waned, and I put the idea on the back burner.

Fast forward to two weeks ago. I was selected to participate in a Windows 7 promotion hosted by ReverbNation, called Playlist 7. Microsoft posts 50 songs for free download each week, and the seven most downloaded artists win $507! Easy enough, right? But there’s a catch: before anyone can download your song, they have to “become a fan of Windows” through Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace. Few consider this a badge of honor.

While I’m actually quite fond of Windows 7, I’m an even bigger fan of $507, so I quickly drafted a campaign to get out the vote. My street team had grown to 215 members (out of 1055 on my mailing list), so it was about time I gave them something to do. I emailed ReverbNation for advice on how to set up the mission, and followed their directions.

First I created this banner (“help a friend win money” seemed a stronger pitch than “download music from bands you’ve never heard of”):

I uploaded the banner to my profile and embedded the RN-provided link to my song. Finally, I created a custom mission to promote the banner, determining the winner by the highest number of clickthroughs. Here are the results (click to enlarge):

Not impressive. Of the 202 clicks generated, I’d guess maybe 50 resulted in downloads, factoring in the “become a fan” disincentive and the assortment of problems people had getting the site to work. Fortunately, that was enough to do the trick. In the end, 19 downloads made the difference between winning and losing (full results are here). We made the top 7, coming in 4th place with 297 downloads, and winning the $507.

If Rob and Ken hadn’t been in such a tight battle for the top spot on the leaderboard, the mission could’ve been a total bust. Their efforts accounted for over three-quarters of the total activity. Only 11 people even signed up for the mission, and two of them apparently didn’t even post the banner.

Still, I’ve got to hand it to ReverbNation. The automatically generated emails they send out to street team members are ugly, but beyond that I can’t think of anything they could do to improve the feature. If I wanted more participation, I could’ve offered a bigger reward, or perhaps counterintuitively, no reward.

Armed with 20/20 hindsight, I present my step-by-step guide to launching your own street team mission:

Recruit. First, email your entire mailing list. Explain what a street team does and ask them to sign up. Provide step-by-step instructions for doing so.
Choose reward(s). To discourage gaming, I suggest you come up with something that your fans will value, but wouldn’t fetch a large sum on eBay. Knowing that many of my street team members are musicians themselves, I offered the choice of a collection of Color Theory rarities OR mastering their next release (full details are here).
Get commitments. After a few days have passed, email your street team. Start by describing the reward(s), then explain exactly what you’ll ask them to do. Insist that anyone willing to participate let you know by replying to the email.
Make the call. Does the response justify the mission? If not, email back your potential participants to tell them you won’t be moving forward at this time. If your fans aren’t eager to recommend you to friends and family, maybe your music isn’t where it needs to be just yet.
Launch the mission. Uncheck the box marked “Notify Street Teamers of New Mission when it becomes Active” to prevent ReverbNation from automatically emailing your street team. Instead, create your own personalized email to the team asking everyone to join the mission. Provide step-by-step instructions for doing so. Email your committed participants individually to thank them in advance for their help.
Recruit again. Email your entire mailing list with a full description of the mission and reward(s). Provide step-by-step instructions for joining the street team and mission. Invite them to email you with any questions.
Monitor and support. Update the mission with suggestions and encouraging comments, every step of the way. Make sure the members at the top of your leaderboard are playing fair and promoting you in appropriate places.
Say thank you. When the mission ends, email your entire mailing list to thank the street team for their help. Congratulate the winners, mention the rewards, and yet again provide step-by-step instructions for signing up for the street team.

Let me know how it goes!

Help Me Win $507!

Brian Hazard — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:29:23 +0000

Full details are here, but to cut to the chase:

Would you please download my track? (it’s free)

http://www.reverbnation.com/playlist7?artist_id=334871

If time permits, I’d like to write about my first ReverbNation street team mission after the voting ends on Monday at 11:00 a.m. EST.

UPDATE 1/11/10: We won! I’m still planning to write about the street team this week.

The Power of No Goals

Brian Hazard — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 21:44:00 +0000

I love running on New Year’s Day, if only for the change of scenery. There are dozens of new runners on the beach path, most of whom I only get to see for a week or two. Their new running shoes, still glaringly white and chemical-scented, will soon vanish into the recesses of their closets. Resolutions tend not to stick, so I don’t make any. Sure, sickness or injury or plain old laziness might keep me indoors for a few days at a stretch, but I’ll be back. I’m a runner.

I’m also a strong advocate for science, but I’m not going to cite all the relevant studies on goal setting here. It’s been pretty well established that those who set goals are more likely to achieve them than those who don’t. On the other hand, those who announce their plans are less motivated to accomplish them. 2009 turned out to be a great year for me. It also happened to be the first year that I didn’t make any resolutions or set any goals – not even secret ones.

Living in California, I’ve learned not to complain about the weather to people outside the state. God forbid I mention the temperature in a status update! If I do slip up, my friends east of the Mississippi remind me that they live in igloos and count themselves lucky if the sun comes out at all. Similarly, I’ve learned not to mention my weight, because I’ve always been skinny, at least by American standards. At the risk of sounding like a Hollywood starlet, I bring it up here to illustrate my point.

While losing weight has never been an obsession for me, I’ve always been health-conscious. After many years of hovering 2-5 pounds above my goal, I decided to let it go. This year, with nothing in particular nudging me, I started tracking calories. I found out the “healthy” garlic tofu with broccoli and brown rice I’d been having for lunch has over 1300 calories (so much for not sounding like a starlet). I made better choices, upped my mileage, and dropped 19 pounds in six months. If I had made a resolution to reach a target weight, I never would’ve aimed that low.

Much to my wife’s chagrin, we don’t maintain a household budget. Our income is too unpredictable. Will she get a bonus this year despite the recession? Will her company’s stock go up or down? Will I be hired to mix a band’s new album, or just master it? Will there be a sequel to the video game I’m doing AV work on? There are too many variables beyond our control, so last year I decided against setting targets of any sort. Though our overall financial picture is still sketchy for the same reasons as everyone else, 2009 was the best year yet for my studio business.

It was also a great year for Color Theory, my musical alter-ego, again due to events beyond my control. I won big in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, won smaller at OurStage, and was nominated for Best Electronic in the 2009 OC Music Awards. I had several song placements on MTV shows after the music director found me on thesixtyone. Like I could’ve planned to be so lucky!

I’ll take motivation and direction over goals any day. Why impose targets and rules for something I supposedly want to do? There is humility and a sense of freedom in accepting that most of what happens to us is beyond our control. Not to get all Zen on you, but I’m letting go of what should be and embracing what is. Mixing and mastering other peoples’ music may keep me busy for weeks at a stretch, but I’ll find time to make my own. I’m a musician.

The Case for Online-Only Promotion

Brian Hazard — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:00:39 +0000

I promote to establish and nurture a genuine relationship with my fans. I measure my success by the number of subscribers to my mailing list. Notice I said mailing list, not Twitter followers or MySpace “friends.” I’m talking about the people who grant me permission through a double opt-in process to email them directly on a regular and consistent basis. Right now there are just over a thousand, but there are plenty more out there who might love my music if they heard it. So how do we reach those potential fans?

In the pre-Web 2.0 days, you’d court a label, or if you were really adventurous, you’d hire a PR firm yourself. The PR firm would leverage their relationships with press and radio, which in turn maintain relationships with their audiences. That left you three degrees removed from your potential fans, the vast majority of whom you’d never hear from. Today, social networking allows us to cut out the middlemen and establish those relationships directly. Let’s dispel a couple of myths:

It’s all about exposure. My bullshit detector goes off whenever I hear the word “exposure.” It’s nebulous and generally worthless. I’ve spent a lot of time and money courting press and radio, resulting in bucketloads of “exposure” but few sales or follow-up contacts. While “you never know” who might be listening or reading, chances are good that nothing will come of it. The best promotions are targeted to as specific an audience as possible.
You need to impress the gatekeepers. No, you really don’t. You’re better off letting them come to you. Bloggers, DJs, music supervisors, labels, and the rest of the industry want to discover you for themselves. Grow your fanbase and the rest will follow. I know that may seem counterintuitive, but one small leap of faith could save you years of rejection and frustration. It is my sincere belief that lasting success comes from the bottom up.

While your goals may be different from mine, they probably involve more fans and more money. You already communicate with your fans and sell your music online, perhaps exclusively. It’s difficult and in some cases impossible to convert an offline fan into an online one, so why waste your energy? Promote where the action is: online.

Let me be clear – I’m not suggesting Dave Matthews stop touring and start blogging instead (he should do both). While you may consider your live show or your latest album to be the best promotion of all, performing and making records is what musicians do. For the purposes of this discussion, the term “promotion” refers to the many non-musical efforts you make to raise awareness of your music.

You might feel like you need to promote both offline and online to “cover your bases,” but there are an infinite number of bases to cover! You’ll never run out of things to do online: your web site, blog, podcast, remix competition, iPhone app, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, iMixes, thesixtyone, Jango, Stereofame, Last.fm, OurStage, Pandora, Amazon, iLike, Podsafe Network, ccMixter, Blip.fm, Music Xray, Bandcamp, and a hundred others.

Of course, you don’t want to spread yourself too thin. There’s no point in setting up profiles you aren’t going to maintain. A web presence is not enough – you have to actively promote. You’ll need to come up with your own promo combo platter and make it part of your regular diet. I’m busy recording a new album, so my bare bones routine consists of regular updates to my mailing list, blog, Facebook, and Twitter, plus a daily check-in at thesixtyone.