What I Am Thankful For

Thousands of readers who visit this site every week to learn how to play a bigger game in our field. Hundreds of musicians who carry dog-eared copies of Grow Your Band’s Audience. Dozens of clients who are prepared to build muscle in our new Music Business Coaching Gym. The very special folks with whom I [...]

Go with the best. Discard the rest.

Jason Kottke’s weblog usually focuses on media design and production, but there’s a post in there this week that I think applies just as well to bands. If the “average” band has a life span of a few years and doesn’t make it off the ground financially, you must become significantly better than average for [...]

Burn And Share

The folks in the band Granian have put together a really compelling promotion which takes advantage of the Creative Commons license and actually REQUESTS that folks “burn” their free MP3′s onto CDs and “share” the discs with others. It’s this kind of ingenuity (and faith that your audience will support you in other ways than [...]

And the winner is…

Bronfman, by a few BILLION noses.

Mighty Morphin’ Power Warners…

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any weirder… could Warner cut loose?

Hear Our MP3… Win an X-Box?

Here’s an interesting idea. A band is running a sweepstakes, an X-Box is the grand prize, and the winner will be chosen from everyone who registers to listen to an MP3 of their song. Though a stunt like this might not gain you many new core audience members, you certainly can increase the number of [...]

Gym Memberships Now Available

It’s good to be back… After finishing the nearly SEVEN HOUR Monster Music Business Survival Call with David Hooper (and hundreds of YOU — thank you for spending a Saturday night with us!), I went to sleep, woke up the next morning, went to see “Elf,” and then got really sick for about a week [...]

From The MailBag: Licensing for Film and TV:

I’m making good on my promise to answer some leftover questions from the Monster Call. Here’s one: I have a student at an university who wants to use a couple of our songs for her film. She will be giving us the credits on the film but no monetary exchange. What time of contract do [...]

The Art of Abundance In Action

Jive-O-Matic‘s curious press release caught my eye this morning. By donating half of their digital sales to charities that work with music in the schools, this band (and their “management company” — which may or may not be the same people, I’m not sure) is taking a really bold risk in order to separate themselves [...]