Natalie Gelman’s recapping some of her favorite Seth Godin books on her blog, and relating what she’s learned to her experience as a New York City street musician. One of the most important things Godin said in the book for…
Category
Grow Your Audience
Predicting the “Death of Twitter.”
Heather Nolte remarks that Twitter’s latest usage numbers show a decline in active users, from 23 million down to 20 million. Whether the novelty has worn off for some passive users of the service or whether the entire social media…
Social Media Tools that Grow Your Audience
Yes, I’m still working on the draft of “Grow Your Band’s Audience,” version 4.0. (Side note: if you buy the PDF version now, you will get a free upgrade to 4.0 when it launches.) One of the things I find…
Talent Buyers and Booking Agents’ Bottom Line
“The way this place is working, the landlord business may be more profitable than the bar.” That’s the critical quote from an accountant interviewed for a CNN profile on a relatively new bar in Detroit, P.J.’s Lager House. Owner P.J.…
Is Poor Self-Esteem Killing Your Band?
Derek Sivers posted a little experiment. In it, a band that was selling its CD for $15 at gigs asked the audience to come see them at the merch table. “Pay what you want,” they said, “and if you can’t…
Viral Video Attracts Audiences in Unexpected Ways
For the past hundred years, the conventional wisdom about marketing your music has been about building a brand and sticking to it. Think about some of the classic stars of the last century: Frank Sinatra, Etta James, Elvis Presley. It’s…
Hot Topic: Investing in Mid-Tier Bands
I just came back from running an errand at the Plaza at King of Prussia. The whole mall is crawling with girls lined up to catch a glimpse of Robert Pattinson from the movie Twilight. 300 fans lined up in…
Steven Bacon’s Best Gig Ever
See what happens when your biggest new fan has a fan base of their own.
Getting Hyperconnected Audiences to Shows
Is your audience hyperconnected? Are you? One of my lightbulb moments happened a few years ago when I was still booking gigs for bands. A club owner I had a great relationship with wanted to know more about one of…
Why Nobody Is Making a Living Off 1,000 True Fans
I would love to be a fly on the wall when Scott wakes up and sees that Kevin Kelly has linked to him. OMFGLMAOBBQ!!1!!11eleventy. Seriously, though, it does seem that the research Kevin’s doing for his new book is touching…
LazyWeb: Gig To-Do Macros + Gig Matcher
Scott Andrew and Bill Wilson are riffing on some tools that we could use in the independent music community to get more meaningful artist promotion work done. I like Scott’s idea of automating gig swaps — the kinds of things…
NYT Profiles Jonathan Coulton and other Musicians Earning “Reasonable Living”
The New York Times Magazine looks at the various ways that musicians connect with fans in order to make a living. Although the carrot of super-stardom still dangles (the article mentions that Justin and Beyonce are creatures of and for…