The Ultimate Self-Marketing Checklist for Musicians

The Top 13 Steps to Take Now to Book More Gigs

Being a working artist is pretty similar to owning your own business – except as an artist, you’re the CEO, the salesman, and the assistant…not to mention the actual product being sold.

But one of your most important roles is that of marketer. You could have the most earth-shatteringly beautiful voice or play the harp like an actual angel, but if no one knows about you, you won’t go far in profiting from your amazing talents.

If you’re like most creative people, you’d much rather just focus on your work than trying to brand yourself or hustle your demo. But if you want to eventually be playing venues that are slightly larger than your cousin’s bar mitzvah, you need to devote some time and effort to smart self-marketing tactics.

Use these suggestions as a checklist to make sure that you’re doing everything you need to be doing to get exposure. CONTINUE READING

Shockingly, The NFL has asked musicians to pay for the Superbowl.

The NFL reportedly asked Katy Perry, Rihanna and Coldplay, their top choices to play the 2015 Super Bowl Halftime Show, if they would be willing to pay the league in order to secure one of the biggest gigs in the world, according to The Wall Street Journal.

When reaching out to artists, league representatives asked some acts if they would exchange a headlining slot for a portion of their post-Super Bowl tour earnings, or make another type of financial contribution to the NFL. Sources told the Journal that Music reps gave a negative response.

While the NFL doesn’t typically pay artists who perform during the Super Bowl Halftime Show, they do tend to cover travel and production expenses, which can be upwards of a million dollars. Considering the Halftime Show has only grown more popular in recent years — this year’s performance with Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers drew 115.3 million viewers, compared to the 112.2 million who watched the game — it makes sense they’d want a piece of the pie.

The global music industry could agree on a single weekly release date for albums. Instead of the UK releasing albums on Monday, the United States on Tuesday, Australia and Germany on Friday, and so on, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry is reportedly moving toward a unified worldwide street date of Friday.

According to Billboard, executives in the major territories and at the major labels want to be able to stage simultaneous international releases. They hope to reboot the system in July 2015, after which record shops from Birmingham to Boston and Bangkok will all put out their new albums each Friday.

Piracy is the main reason for this change. Often, new releases go on sale first in Australia on Friday, four days before the same music becomes available in the US. If tracks are leaked onto file-sharing networks, that’s four days that American fans are asked to await the domestic streetdate.

Beyoncé’s surprise album release, last December, is also being cited as a main reason for this change. By becoming available for purchase everywhere at once, the singer’s fifth long-player benefited from a huge, worldwide response, breaking an iTunes sales record.

Despite the enthusiasm from some quarters, changing the streetdate in markets like the UK and US will require lots of planning, as well as cooperation across disparate parts of the music and retail industries, including warehousing, transport and record shops. Some smaller labels are said to be resisting the move, claiming that they sell more records by releasing albums earlier in the week.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry has yet to release a formal statement on its reported plans.