Advice for Newbies - Pt II - Self Promotion
If anyone hasn't noticed yet, I've become fairly adept at self promotion, after all, here you sit reading my blog on my website. I get my name out there as much as i can, and hey, why not, if people don't know i exist, it will be very hard for me to mix their records. I've mixed a few records for people who didn't know i existed. Its no fun.
Here comes even more gratuitous self promotion........ ready????? ....... i own an extremely cool website called indieTunes.com, yes thats indieTunes.com. Go there now. I'll wait. go on. OK, i'll assume you've gone and checked out the site and now your back. good, now i can talk about it and you'll understand what i mean. indieTunes can most quickly and easily be described as an itunes style music store strictly for independent artists. Now then, let me ask you a really stupid question. here comes. If your album is available on the itunes store, (along with the tens of thousands of other albums available) do you expect Apple to promote you? Should they let people know your album is there and that people should buy it? NO!!!! Of course not. Its not Apple's job to promote you. its YOUR JOB. Same with indieTunes. I only mention this because it seems far too often in the music industry, and right now we'll focus on the music industry on an indie level, artists often seem to feel that the world should just automatically discover them. Sorry, thats not how it works. I bring this up because i often read support emails from the indieTunes site to the effect of "Why aren't you guys promoting my music, I have barely sold any downloads this month". We get alot of emails like that.
Let me give a for example. If a major label releases a new debut artist, how do you hear about them? Osmosis? Psychic Friends Network? Nope. well, maybe. You hear about it because the record company simultaneously launches (hopefully) a big promotional campaign to let people know their new artist exists. Radio promotion, posters in stores, touring, videos, high visibility store placement, etc... Now if a label goes to all that trouble to promote their artist, don't you think you, as an indie artist, need to get out there and let people know you exist? It is possible as an indie artist to sell alot of records, but only if you are promoting yourself. So, go on, why are you still reading? Go get your promo on. let people know you exist, that you have great music, and that they should listen, fall in love with your songs and BUY them!!!! OK, my "Ears break" is over. Now i'm off to finish another indie mix for a great client that i hope sells a ton of records.
-Ken
Here comes even more gratuitous self promotion........ ready????? ....... i own an extremely cool website called indieTunes.com, yes thats indieTunes.com. Go there now. I'll wait. go on. OK, i'll assume you've gone and checked out the site and now your back. good, now i can talk about it and you'll understand what i mean. indieTunes can most quickly and easily be described as an itunes style music store strictly for independent artists. Now then, let me ask you a really stupid question. here comes. If your album is available on the itunes store, (along with the tens of thousands of other albums available) do you expect Apple to promote you? Should they let people know your album is there and that people should buy it? NO!!!! Of course not. Its not Apple's job to promote you. its YOUR JOB. Same with indieTunes. I only mention this because it seems far too often in the music industry, and right now we'll focus on the music industry on an indie level, artists often seem to feel that the world should just automatically discover them. Sorry, thats not how it works. I bring this up because i often read support emails from the indieTunes site to the effect of "Why aren't you guys promoting my music, I have barely sold any downloads this month". We get alot of emails like that.
Let me give a for example. If a major label releases a new debut artist, how do you hear about them? Osmosis? Psychic Friends Network? Nope. well, maybe. You hear about it because the record company simultaneously launches (hopefully) a big promotional campaign to let people know their new artist exists. Radio promotion, posters in stores, touring, videos, high visibility store placement, etc... Now if a label goes to all that trouble to promote their artist, don't you think you, as an indie artist, need to get out there and let people know you exist? It is possible as an indie artist to sell alot of records, but only if you are promoting yourself. So, go on, why are you still reading? Go get your promo on. let people know you exist, that you have great music, and that they should listen, fall in love with your songs and BUY them!!!! OK, my "Ears break" is over. Now i'm off to finish another indie mix for a great client that i hope sells a ton of records.
-Ken
posted by Protools Mixing at 3:21 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home