How to Get Gigs on Sonicbids

A while ago, I wrote this article about How to Get Better Results From Your Sonicbids Submissions. Since then, there have been a few changes to the site (both for promoters as well as performers). All of the advice from the first article still applies so if you haven’t read it, take a look at it first.

Here’s some practical advice for those of you who would like to use Sonicbids to get gigs and what my thoughts are on it (both as an artist as well as a promoter):

1. Make Your EPK Stand Out: There’s nothing worse than submitting an incomplete EPK. This includes tour dates. Contrary to what you might think, the EPK is the first thing that the promoter sees, not the submission questions that you’re sometimes required to complete. If you plan on using Sonicbids often (let’s face it, it’s one of the few ways to submit to SXSW, CMJ, or some other opportunities), then splurge a little and pay for the premium account, at least for the months that you’re using it often. Get your elevator pitch down. Grab their attention immediately. Listing the band members in your bio (unless you have a celebrity in the lineup) is a waste of time, same with spending an entire paragraph talking about what you sound like. Instead, focus on what sets you apart from every other artist, how you will make them money, and a deep understanding of your target audience.  Use bullet points when possible: if it easier to read and you make every sentence count, promoters are more likely to read it thoroughly. If you are not as active, simply downgrade your account later.
2. When Submitting to Gigs, Use the Sort Function: If you want more time and attention spent on your EPK, then get in line first. When you log into your profile, click on “Find Gigs” and then sort the listings by “Date Added.” Check this often. Artists that get in the door first show initiative and have a better chance of getting in (as opposed to those who submit last, after most of the decisions have already been made). Make it a weekly habit to check your status/messages from promoters and follow up. If you want to try being the last one in, you can always sort for submissions based on their deadline.
3. Link Your Account to All Other Social Media Sites: As soon as a promoter opens your EPK in a submission window, your social media stats are featured. In fact, they are shown more prominently than your bio or anything else. Right of the bat, a promoter will see how many fans you have on Myspace, what your Jango score is, and how many fans you have. Leave no stone unturned: even as irreverent  Myspace is, a higher number of fans on your profile still looks more impressive than an empty space. To add sites, click on “Edit My EPK” and enter the field in “Other Sites.” Drag the most prominent and active sites to the top. While you’re there. customized your URL. It looks much better to be sonicbids.com/BANDNAME than a collection of numbers/letters.
4. See What Others Are Doing: Check out the EPK’s of artists getting the most gigs each week (Track Buzz) so you can see what they’re doing right. Getting gigs helps you get more gigs (believe it or not, the little icons you get for “Booking your first 25, 50, or 100 gigs does stand out and is highlighted to the promoter).
5. Keep Up With Your Stats: If you have a premium account, you get access to your profile stats (Manage EPK>My Stats) so you can see how many views/plays you’re receiving, what parts of your profile are being looked at, etc. However, one of the greatest features is the oft-ignored “Plugins” section on the right hand side. The social media stats/buzz that you see here are the ones that are shared with promoters. If the Twitter Buzz results are pulling up results that are not relevant, make adjustments to the search query so that your music is being talked about (and not something else with a similar name).
6. Keep the Gig Calendar Full: I know, it’s a pain. Shows to enter on your own site, Reverb Nation, Myspace, Facebook Events, etc. It can get overwhelming with the amount of data entry. However, Murphy’s Law suggests that wherever you forget to include your tour dates, that will probably be the area that the promoter looks at. Promoters don’t have the time to following up with each of your sites to see how busy your band is. You might have an extensive tour booked all over the world on your website, but if someone looks at your EPK’s empty gig list, you’re going to look pretty pathetic. If it’s easier, delegate calendar updates in the band to different members – just make sure that the same basic information (show time, entry fee, etc.) is the same across the board.

Whether you like it or not, Sonicbids is a tool that is being used by many, many promoters, especially larger music festivals. If you are going to use the site, then do it properly so that you can maximize the results. If not, then focus on your own sites that you do well (most of the basic principles remain the same).

 

How to Book a Tour: Unconventional Advice

There’s plenty of advice out there for booking a tour. In fact, I’ve written on it a few times (including this step-by-step guide). People generally talk about the same kind of stuff: how to approach a venue, where to book, promoting, etc. However, I want to cover some of the territory that people don’t talk about, the pitfalls that you’ll come across along the way.

When the Promoter Wants You to Fill the Bill
Some promoters/venues prefer that you pitch them an entire show (with locals) before confirming the show. It makes their life easier (they don’t have to find bands for the show) and local acts make booking a touring/unknown act a safer bet. So if you don’t have any contacts in an town far away, who do you find band?

Three easy solutions:

1. See who is already playing the venue on a weekend
2. Look up bands in the city’s alt-weekly paper
3. Post an ad on Craigslist.

When you can’t fill in a date or run out of venues to ask
Sometimes it seems that everyone in town is booked or no one is interested. You don’t have many options because you’re on a tight tour route or have dates/before and after that are already confirmed. These things happen. When they do, this is what I usually do:

1. Use Google, Google Maps, Yelp, City Search, or Four Square to look up “live music” and the city name. Sometimes, there are places that host bands that don’t pop up in the usual venue databases. You might also try contacting a store or organizations that would suit your ideal, target audience. Examples include: skateboard shops, youth groups, non-profit fundraiser, goth clothing store, music store, independent record store, etc.
2. Contact: breweries, wineries, colleges, and fans in the area.
3. Use Craigslist and search in the “Gigs” section. Often times, new bars/venues will post there looking for live music, as well as people throwing house parties, fundraisers, or events looking for a band.
4. See what shows are booked and ask the bands on those bills if they’d be willing to add you to the bill. Be sure to pitch how you will get them new fans, make more money, or bring people to the show.
5. Consider doing an acoustic version and do some busking. I know some acts who busk in Santa Monica, CA and make $200-$400 per day in donations and CD sales. You can also contact the local Occupy Movement encampment about working with their cause by performing (if there’s one there).

When You Don’t Know Anything about the Venue that You’re Booking

It’s always a good idea to know what kind of situation you’re booking into: Will they have an adequate stage? Will they have a sound system and engineer? What kind of audience is there? If you’re booking a venue that you haven’t worked with before, do a quick search online about them. Check out their website, see what kind of acts perform there normally. Look up reviews on Yelp. Ask bands that are on their calendar.

 

These are just some of the areas that few people talk about when giving advice about booking a tour. What have you run into that you’d like advice about? What areas can you speak to for other bands?

5 Non-traditional Ways to Promote Your Music

Artists tend to be creative people. We write music, create dazzling visions of art, and express sentiments in the most unique ways. However, when it comes to promoting our art, something else happens. For one reason or the other, most artists fail to express any creativity in their business endeavors.

Here are five easy (non-internet) ways that you could promote your band. I hope that more than anything else, they get your brain going and inspire you to create ideas that work with specifically for your art.

1. Teaming Up with Local Food: Do you frequent a local restaurant or know someone in the restaurant business? Offer to come up with a new recipe. On the menu, it write “created by ______” (or however you want it phrased). In return, you’ll help promote the restaurant by encouraging fans to order the dish: through social media, on the back of your business cards, maybe a flyer or coupon. What restaurant wouldn’t want a local band promoting their food for free all over town?  You could do the same thing with a bar as well (designing a signature drink).
2. Coast with the Local Watering Hole: Speaking of bars, you many of them also need coasters (they’re often supplied for free by beer or spirits distributors). Why not design some coasters and drop them off at your favorite place? You could design a cool logo, offer a free download, and link with a QR code to your music right there. Coasters are only a few cents to custom imprint, why not? Maybe your fans would want some too.
3. At the Car Wash: I drive by an intersection that has car washes nearly every weekend. I’ve seen sports teams, church groups, and rehab centers, but I’ve never seen a band out there raising money for an album or tour van. Why not? Car washes are actually a great way to make money fairly easily. You could get friends and fans to help out, have a performance or sell CD’s, etc. In fact, you could even offer a free CD with a $10 donation or more for the car wash. You’d probably make more money in one afternoon than your typical dive bar gig.
4. Consignment: Consider selling your music or merchandise via consignment at places outside the normal record store. For instance, my band (The Slants) has a strong connection with the anime/comic book world so I set up displays and sell music at comic book stores around the country. We often offer to come in and do a performance, help promote the store, and only ask for a percentage of each sale in exchange for having the store feature our music. Music can be bought/sold anywhere, just look at Starbucks creating their own record label. What kinds of stores do you have a connection to?
5. Charity Fundraisers: There are many fundraisers that are looking for live entertainment. You might have even played some yourself. But have you also participated as a fundraising team for a cause that is important to you? Most of fundraisers use a website system called Convio where participants can set up a personalized fundraising page and the top fundraisers are featured.  If you also participate as an active fundraiser, you’ll have much greater support (and recognition) from the organization, its staff, and volunteers. You can also give away free music in exchange for donations (makes a great tax write off) as well.

These are just some initial thoughts. I hope that they inspire you to think outside the box with all areas of your music career and how you can inject your own creativity into the process. What’re some interesting things that you have done?

 

How to Use Internet Trends to Market Your Band

If you use the internet frequently, chances are that you’ve been noticing a few things on the rise: meme images or animated .gif’s, certain types of videos, infographics, etc.

Why not use these viral trends and put your own spin on it to create fun, engaging, easy-to-share content with your fans?

• Memes: Meme images have exploded online, especially in geek culture. These images have spread to billions, each with their own take of the images, from “Y U NO” guy to the ever so lovable Nyan cat. You can create your own memes for free using generator sites like weknowmemes.com and memegenerator.net. You can make it more personal fans by talking about specific points in your band’s history, favorite songs or themes, and also inviting them to create some of their own. Most meme websites also provide multiple examples of each image in case you don’t understand the logic behind that type of meme. Read a few, then create your own. Here are some that I made for my band, The Slants, that generated some great buzz from our fans:
     Two of these are played off of some reoccurring themes in the band: our guitarist Johnny always being asleep (then being victim to pranks) and our van breaking down frequently when on tour (we’re always on tour).
• Animated .gif’s: When the world wide web first came to rise about fifteen years ago, animated .gif images were all the rage (probably because XHTML, Flash, and Javascript weren’t around yet). They quickly died out but in recent years, they made a huge resurgence on the social media site, Tumblr. Many of them play off of internet meme’s but you could also create an animated .gif of your band playing, a video blog with the text typed below, or something memorable.
• Trending videos: Sometimes certain types of videos gather huge momentum and dozens of spin offs are then created. For a few short months, it seemed liked “Shit ____ Says” were the only videos being made online. Most of them played off of general stereotypes (it started with with a group of Canadians that amassed a huge following after the release of their first few videos). Only a handful of bands jumped on this but the first few each got several hundred thousand views on their videos.  For example, the band High Society only a few thousand views on their music videos but had almost 240,000 views on their “Shit Band Guys Say” video. Other examples include Nyan Cat, dub step or dub step remixes, or parody videos of popular songs.
  
• Infographics: Infographics spread quickly because they can take complex data, statistics, or trends and disseminate the information in a quick, easy to read manner. Why not make infographics with interesting data about your band to share with fans? You can also use sites like visual.ly to generate infographics that take information straight from your social media sites. For example, you can compare your Twitter account with anyone else’s account: a rival band, the president, your hero, your friends, etc. Why not go the extra step and create an infographic to use as an EPK? Instead of a text heavy one-sheet, have one that highlights important data (such as number of fans, social media reach, online traffic, number of albums sold, etc.).

Have some fun with your fans by being a part of the new internet culture but also be aware of things that are special to your target audience. For instance, my band released a music video a few months ago that was targeting a very niche audience: the anime convention world. Because we often play at conventions and many of our fans enjoy Cosplay, we wanted to have some fun with it so we invited them to dress up and be a part of the video. Since its release, the video has been shared by other anime fans, magazines, tv shows, and websites. The quick rise in popularity led to the video being picked up by an international tv show who will be debuting this month in over 80 countries around the world.

Pay attention to the world around you and see how you can put your own spin on it for your music. If the content gets shared, you might be able to reach a new audience. If anything, you’ll be able to enjoy some additional lighthearted engagement with the people that support you most.

How to Choose the Best Songs for Your Album

If you’re heading into the studio to record an album, you should go in with plenty of songs to spare. Sometimes, things don’t work as well in recorded format, sometimes your tastes/ideas change. At any rate, going in with more ideas allows you to choose the very best songs for your album. Besides, it’s always better to have too many songs to choose from than not enough. But how do you decide which songs should stay and which should go?

This is what I recommend that you do: Treat it like a songwriting contest.

Create a score card for every song with all of the most important features to you. For example, areas could include: composition, arrangement, vocal melody, lyrics, catchy, dance-able, harmonic progression, execution/performance, artist merit/uniqueness, commercial viability, and so on. Pick the top five or six areas of importance to you and create a numerical ranking system. From there, sit down with your band mates, manager, producer, etc. and score every single song. At the end, the songs with the best scores stay. The ones that don’t can be used for giveaways, b-sides, fan incentives, etc.  This is an objective process to an otherwise subjective art.

You could also make this an opportunity to engage with fans as well by creating a “focus group” of your most enthusiastic listeners and allowing them to get a “sneak peak” of your new album. You could have several rounds of listening as well, since some songs to “grow” on you over time. Either way, this would help reduce the any disagreements/dissapointments among band members since it allows everyone to have an equal say over the project. Of course, if you have a producer or manager calling the shots, then this could end up very differently.

Some New Ways to Think About Facebook Timeline for Bands

The Facebook timeline requirement for pages has been looming for a while and now that it is a requirement, many artists have been wondering how to take advantage of the new features. While I won’t go into the detailed steps about it (there are plenty of other blogs that do that), I did want to offer some unconventional advice. Creating a niche marketing approach through a unique experience for your fans is the best way to grow your audience organically.

Here are some of my tips about adding milestones.

To add a milestone event, hover your cursor over the “timeline” itself until it becomes a plus sign. after that click and a small menu will pop up of things you can add .  Select “milestone.” Of course, you should add the obvious major accomplishments such as the band forming, opening for a huge act, or a new album release, but you should mark some other occasions as well. Here are a few suggestions:

• Major tours: You know how many national acts add tour dates to the back of their shirts? It’s because fans like to  remember that experience and saw “I was there when…” It’s no different with timeline, you are not restricted to posting milestones that fall on one specific day.
• Controversial Stuff: They say any press is good press. These are events that get people going. Ever been arrested? Kicked out of a club? Stand up with the Occupy Movement? Think of events that get people emotionally charged.
• Your Biggest Fans: If you can remember the exact show (or general time) when you met some of your biggest fans, surprise them and show your appreciation by posting that as a major milestone on your timeline. They’ll definitely get a kick out of it!
• Major Press: Your fans love to celebrate your success with you. Did you get a major review or award? Post it with a link and photo so that they can remember that moment with you.
  

  An example of a timeline milestone from The Slants.

• Big Disaster: Remember, you want to have a strong emotional connection. So it’s OK to remember the bad times as well. Think about the rougher patches and when your biggest supporters were rooting you on. Did your tour van break down to the point it had to be put down? A major lineup change?
• Significant Community Event: Many artists support local charities and organizations by performing at fundraising events or donating gifts. Did you help raise a substantial amount of money for an important cause? Celebrate the success here!

These are just a few ideas to get the juices flowing. You have your own special connection with your fans that you know best. What would they be interested in? What events would make them smile, laugh, get angry, or love what you do more?  If you have some ideas or have experienced some success, post in the comment section below!

Just one final reminder: When you make a post on timeline, it appears in the news feed. So make these posts when the majority of people are online. If you do this during off-times, there’s a good chance that few will see your major milestone because it will get obscured by other updates.

Put a Bird on it

The comedy series Portlandia kicked off their tv show with a brilliant music video entitled “Dream of the 90′s.” There’s one punchline that has become a running joke in the city: “In Portland, you can put a bird on something and call it art!” Of course, this kind of shortcut logic doesn’t work in most areas, let alone indie-hipster art created in the City of Roses.

In the world of musicians, it’s easy to think that we can just sign up for social media or put a QR code on something and call it online marketing. There are countless bands as well as promoters who think that mailing posters to venues counts as tour promotion. I get at least a dozen emails every week from artists whose idea of a getting sponsors is emailing as many companies as possible.

There’s no quick and easy all-purpose method that creates the ultimate marketing or online engagement plan. How does a person create art? It is an artistic expression that captures creative skill, imagination, and intellect. Marketing your music should be no different…in fact, it’s more of an art and less of a science. It should be something that is bold, imaginative, creative, and done with passion.

If Your Music Career Was Like a Food Cart

I often like to compare business practices of other industries and to take the lessons learned to apply it towards a music career. The other day, I was thinking about the food industry and it was so much like our world in music. I grew up in a very entrepreneurial family and started helping my parents’ restaurant business when I was still in elementary school so many of these lessons came quite early in life.

Here in Portland, OR, most people are starting their food business in the form of a food cart. It’s less expensive, there’s less risk, and you’re often grouped together in a “pod” of other food carts so often times you’ll just get crowds of hungry people who would like some food but are unsure of what they’d like yet (or you can be exposed to the customers of other carts). Picture yourself as a chef who wants to make a living doing what they love for a living: cooking. Not much unlike the music industry isn’t it?

Musicians who want to take some of the initial steps of their career should go through many of the same steps: they have to think about funding, locations (venues, tour locations), how to get exposure, etc. However, there are some basic business principles that we can see about other industries that we’re sometimes completely blind to in our own.

For instance, much like musicians who want to get great reviews from critics, restauranteurs want/need positive reviews from customers (Yelp, Foursquare, etc.) as well as the local media. However “good” restaurants who aren’t doing anything new or different don’t stand out. The food carts in Portland that get the most attention are those that are cutting edge and offering something that no one else is. Koi Fusion is a quickly expanding street-food empire who has been standing out because of their unique Korean approach to local Oregon foods (so much so that the founder, Bo Kwon, has been name of of the “50 Most Influential People in Portland”).

On that same note, bands/musicians who are not offering anything up new or different (even if they’re pretty good) will often get sorted into a large pile of other good bands in that genre. The talented but common rock band, singer-songwriter, or hiphop artist that isn’t offering anything different gets to be passed like the average, tasty taco truck.The ones that take more risks, who are different or cutting edge tend to be the ones that get covered in Pitchfork. Those are the movers and shakers.

Just like the up-and-coming, hip restaurants get the most attention (the line outside tends to attract more customers), people pay more attention to the band that has been generating a buzz. Even the food stalls in a shopping mall that offer up free samples get more people checking them out than those that don’t (like the incentive of free music). The comparisons could go on and on but I challenge you to take some time and think about what you’d do to make a splash on the culinary world…and how would you take those lessons to apply them to your music career?

How to Copyright Your Music

This post was inspired by a personal experience. Recently, it was discovered that a song I had co-written was taken and republished under someone else’s name without my permission. They took the major components of the work, re-framed it, and sold it in a substantial licensing deal. If I had not taken the steps to secure a copyright, there would be almost nothing that I could do.

In the United States, you technically own the copyright for your work as soon as it is created. However, if you want to protect yourself from infringement, I’d recommend spending the money to get a proper copyright registration from the U.S Copyright Office. Please not, this is not the same department if you’d like to get a Trademark (for your name or logo, etc.). That’s a much more lengthy and expensive process.

Here’s how to copyright your music:

1. Go to U.S. Copyright Office website: http://www.copyright.gov/
2. In the top right corner, click on “eCO Login,” which will take you to this page.
3. If you are a new user, you’ll need to register.
4. In the left hand column, under “Copyright Registration” click on Register a New Claim.
5. From here, three things will be required: you’ll have to complete the application, make a payment, and then pay for the application (only $35 if you use this system).
6. Click on “Start Registration” to begin.
7. On each page, you can click the underlined options for more information. A new window will open up each time so you won’t lose your place. Once you make your selections, click “continue” to proceed.
8. If you have more than one author (such as a band all working on the song), you’ll have to list every person involved to give them credit.
9. At the end, you can either print a packing slip to mail them the work or upload one file (you can combine all of your songs into a zip file). Digital registration is much quicker.
10. After you pay and click” submit work, you’ll be entered into the system for review. Whenever you login to eCO, you can check the status of your work and see if anything is missing.

It should only take you about 30 minutes or so to go through the process (perhaps more time if you are unfamiliar with the terms) but I can assure you it’s quite worth the time. After that, do yourself a favor and get your work set up with ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC. For the record, I use ASCAP.

You can also hire an entertainment attorney to help you with the copyright registration but that would cost you a few hundred dollars. No matter what, just make sure you take care of this vital step before you release music out to the public. The sooner, the better.

What Does The Dying Music Industry Mean For You?

In a word, nothing.

Just because a certain construct of the music business appears to be fading, it doesn’t mean that more people are listening to music than ever. Major players in industries come and go but it doesn’t mean that the respective arts or businesses will die.  Just today, photography pioneer and film company, Koday, declared bankruptcy, but more people are taking photos than ever and photoraphy businesses are still doing well despite the rise in “semi-pro” photographers.

People are giving Adele credit for “saving the music industry” through the first rise in album sales since 2004 (though it wasn’t a massive bump) but they’re ignoring the fact that there are plenty of independent musicians who are making a living through other means such as playing live, merchandise sales, licensing, etc. Just because the “industry” isn’t selling as many records doesn’t mean that you won’t.