Bob Baker has an excellent post about getting more music publicity. Indeed, every time a band would pitch one of my radio stations with the line, “we’re like nothing you’ve ever heard before,” someone would chortle, “and like nothing we’re…
Big Moves!
If you’ve been wondering why I’ve been absent from the blog and the members area for the last week, it’s because Lori and I were moving to a new home in Charlotte, North Carolina! We absolutely loved Athens, and always…
More good inbox etiquette
If you use email newsletters to announce gigs and communicate with your fans, you should read Jakob Nielsen’s new article entitled Email Newsletters: Surviving Inbox Congestion. Some interesting revelations from Nielsen’s survey: most people spend less than one minute reading…
Online Music Promotion TeleClass tomorrow!
Here’s one final reminder about tomorrow’s conference call! Online Music Promotion It’s more than just MySpace. In fact, if you’re only relying on MySpace to get the word out about your gigs and your record releases, you’re missing some huge…
How RIAA Litigation Works
Ray Beckerman has posted the most definitive guide to the RIAA’s practice of scaring the wits out of consumers with copyright infringement lawsuits. At the crux of the strategy is the realization that many of the “John Does” in each…
Stay safe on the Web!
Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself that, for a lot of musicians, the Web is a brand-new place. And with more and more indie musicians trying out services like eBay and Paypal to sell CDs and merch, a…
RIAA to YouTube: You’re Next.
I was working in radio, and part of a team that was running what was, at the time, one of the ten most-listened-to live streams in the world, when the RIAA and the PROs steamrolled streaming radio with some pretty…
Using zone strategy with your mailing list
If you’re a practitioner of Joe’s zone strategy for booking gigs, here’s a tip that’s served me well: incorporate your zones into your mailing list for more accurate mailings. It occurred to me that it doesn’t always make sense to…
What if lack of net neutrality dictated your playlist?
I honestly hadn’t thought about this until now… If the record industry, which has used payola and co-op dollars for decades to squeeze small artists out of radio playlists and off of record store shelves, could actually pay cable and…
Lefsetz on Downloads: WTF?
Lefsetz has some choice language for record execs that don’t understand why there are still ten illegal downloads of a hit song for each paid download. And he wonders why nobody in the mainstream media’s writing/thinking about why this whole…
Music Business Radio – Street Teams
I’m one of the guests on David Hooper’s Music Business Radio this week, and we talked a lot about street teams and growing your own audience. (We talked a lot about Music Hates You, in fact — the guys have…
Music Business Contracts TeleClass tomorrow!
Here’s one final reminder about tomorrow’s conference call! Music Business Contracts Everyone thinks it’s smart (if not essential) to consult an attorney before signing any music business contracts. If you’re still struggling to pay your bills, spending money on billable…