In a band? There are somethings you need to know. [updated 03/29/11]

So you're in a band and want to make it big huh?

Congratulations, you are now in a pool with millions of people. If you want to make it big, there are a few things you need to know. I'll try to help you out as much as I can by giving you some very important information about the Record Industry.

First and foremost you NEED to get your material copyrighted. There is a great nonprofit organization called ASCAP (The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) their goal is to get you the artist, your money. Once you become a member of their site, and pay the federal copyright charge you're good to go.

• Welcome to ASCAP. The worldwide leader in performance royalties, service and advocacy for songwriters, composers and music publishers.

And their sister site:

• BMI.com | Welcome

Yet another:

• U.S. Copyright Office

Great your material is copyrighted, now what?

Now you need to get your music out there as much as possible. You need to talk to booking agents, news papers, and radio stations just to name a few. A great way to get your band to stand out is using a professional press kit. Why use a press kit? Think about it, these guys are getting 50-100 different bands asking them to listen to their stuff. Half of the time they get thrown out instantly, but if you stand out you have a chance of being booked.

A Press Kit Includes:
- One Sheet
- Picture (8” x 10” Only!)
- Bio
- Press
- "Hype"
- Demo = 3 songs (Best song first)

• A few things about a press kit that you should know. The most important part of a press kit is the One Sheet. Why? Because that’s the first thing someone will look at. That split second glance could mean booking a gig, or being dumped in the trash. The One sheet needs to look as professional as possible. Booking agents don’t want to deal with some half ass attempt. A One Sheet should include the following: Band Name/Logo, Picture, Hype/Press, and Contact Info. Here is a good example.
  
  
  http://i.imgur.com/gYWsw2L.jpg
  
  Your big picture also needs to look professional. It HAS to be black and white, 8” x 10”, and most importantly glossy. Why? Because this picture needs to be able to be printed everywhere; magazines, news papers, or to be used on the internet. A black and white glossy 8” x 10” fits those needs, and fits them well. As far as press goes, remember, “Any press is good press.” Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan didn’t get famous for being cute and cuddly. (update on this, when I originally made this post the above comment was accurate. Now venues typically just go to your website and download your promo packs. I updated the example press kit to reflect that.)

• Speaking of a website you need one. You can't afford to not have one. A good starter website to use is Wix.com You can use it for free, or go primemum, that option is up to you.

• Here is a little trick to get press. Call your local or school newspaper. Ask to speak to the media journalist, let him know when and where you'll be playing, and invite him to come free of admission. Why do that? Simple, it's his job to write about media. What is apart of media? Music. So if he shows up and writes about your show, you can take his insert in whatever paper/mag. it was and put it in your press kit.
  
  It's as simple as that.

• A great way to get noticed is to use independent A&R companies. A&R stands for Artists and Repertoire. One of the main jobs of a record label is to find new material to produce. The person who finds that material is an A&R person. A great independent A&R company is Taxi. They're job is to get your material noticed, and they're one of the best companies at getting it done.

• Almost everyone has a computer/cell phone. Social Media is mandatory. People talk about social networking, but you don't want a network, you want Social Media EMPIRE.
  Reddit user u/liam117lewis created a fantastic google doc explaining how many social media platforms work. The best part? He is giving this away for free! Social Media Cheat-Sheet

Time to step up your game.

Alright so you've done a few things, have a press kit maybe a manager, now what? Now would be the perfect time to signup with CDBaby.com. What is CDBaby? CDBaby is the largest online distributor of independent music on the planet. You sign up for FREE and they push your material as much as possible to such sites as itunes, yahoo, hulu, or any other music site out there.

Also, try to do everything yourself. Only outsource when you absolute need to. It's a lot of hard grueling work, but the saving the money, and putting it to better use is well worth the reward. Here is a short video by Dre Allen. Here he shows you exactly what he does to get his albums out to the streets. By doing so he also gets email address. Latter on in this article I will explain why every artist NEEDS to take email addresses. Watch the video here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiitifPJkow

Now that you're finally getting played on a global scale how are you going to make money? Well that's were a little company called Sound Exchange comes in. It's their job to watch the web and pay you every single time your song gets played. Here's an example: With itunes alone. As of right now the average album on itunes is selling 10 copies a month. So doing the math if your one album sells at $10 a copy, selling 10 albums a month totaling in $100. Well times that by 12 for each month of the year and you end up with $1200. As that sits that's not that much money, but expand that for 40 years, and you've just made close to $50,000! Not bad for one album you made 40 years ago...

It is SoundExchange's job to pay you! The only thing is, nobody knows about them at all. As of right now Sound Exchange is sitting on more then 800 Million dollars in unpaid royalties because artists are not signing up and claiming their money!

There's more to the internet then Porn!

This is a great article from MusicThinkTank.com Hillary Brown lays out 10 essential things your bands website needs to help you succeed. Ranging from News Letter sign ups, to Sharing content. Please check out the full article on MusicThinkTank.com

Your stuff is out there, now get people to find it!

Now that your stuff is out there, it's time for people to find out about it. You can do this a number of ways. One good way is to find radio stations that play your style of music and send them a copy! Never ask them to play it. Just tell them you like what they play, and you hope they enjoy your songs. If they like it, they'll play it.

Another good way is by blogs. People completely underestimate the power of the internet and how powerful blogs can be. A good place to go is The Hype Machine. The Hype Machine is just a collection of blogs for music lovers alike. All these guys do is review music! So sign up upload your best single, and send away. Sure you might get turned down by a few of them, but it only takes one blog to get the attention of a few people, to pass the word about how good you really are. Once the train starts moving, it wont stop.

Just keep in mind, that some of these "bloggers" will upload your single and have people download it for free. You never know who the blogger is. They could be a 12 year old that doesn't know it's illegal to upload it. So just be careful, and watch your material.

You’re playing gigs, everyone knows and loves you, and the time has finally come where you’ve been noticed by a record label.

Your first record deal! Awesome right!? Maybe, here is an article written by the legendary producer Steve Albini called, “The Problem with Music.” In this article Steve used exact figures with a real band he produced. The figures are a little upsetting to say the least. It is a long read, but worth every second of your time.

• The Problem with Music - Steve Albini

Websites you should be familiar with:

• TAXI: record deals, publishing deal, film TV placement, recording your music, songwriting
• Welcome to ASCAP. The worldwide leader in performance royalties, service and advocacy for songwriters, composers and music publishers.
• BMI.com | Welcome
• Music Business | Music Industry | Record Sales | Billboard Charts | Billboard Hot 100
• Pump Audio | Welcome
• Lefsetz Letter
• Welcome to Sweetwater.com | Call Us @ 800 222 4700
• hypebot

People you should be familiar with:

• Clive Davis
• Tommy Tallarico
• Rick Rubin
• Frank Zappa
• Brian Epstein
• Andrew Loog Oldham
• Steve Albini

The most important piece of information to remember is that the best place to start is right now. By reading this you’ve already started your journey, now it’s time to see how far you can take it.

”Amateurs wait for inspiration, the rest of us go to work.”
- Pablo Picasso

Note: This post was not stolen from anyone. It and was created by myself for Ragezone.

Make sure to check back often.

I'll be editing this and adding more information frequently.

Very valuable information.

The info is very important indeed.When I finish my military service, I'll be able to complete all of these.

hmm this is pretty useful stuff for people to get their bands out there for people to listen to :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tuunade

Thanks but I never heard of these sites before.

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Which is exactly why I posted this thread.

There is so much information that people do not know about... If you want any chance at getting heard you need to know this stuff!

oh wow
these are really useful shiz
ill be forwarding this page to numerous people at my college!
nice shiz cheat

Great! This would really help new bands like us.

Wow! yes im in a band! but were looking for a advicer! but now! were not anymore! when we saw this^__^

thanks sir DaCheat! it help us alot^__^

That's quite useful but how can a band from, example Croatia, be popular? I mean we're soppose to get a record deal from UK or something? And we're get invited to tour there and stuff? I don't really get it.

Cheers,

I'll be contacting you on abit of information with this topic, dealing with solo artist if you don't mind.

From the article the problem with music it seems like we're gonna be living off top ramen for a few years OH WELL

Thanks for this. It will help my band out a lot!

Cheers!

Alright I added two new sections:

Quote:

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Time to step up your game.

and

Your stuff is out there, now get people to find it!

---

TUNS of new important information in this update!

Keep loving what you do, and make music. We're all a family, so share everything that you know. The more people that know about the ins and outs of this industry the better off it will be.

You should add in a little section about getting to know other bands to book gigs with. One of the best things you can do is get some bands that'll want you to play shows with them.

---------- Post added at 04:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:06 PM ----------

Especially when you're better than them because it'll make people notice your talent over other bands easier.

wow,
some pretty good tips there
ive been playing guitar lately,
imma try starting a band soonz

If I could request a website be added to the first post.

http://www.tunecore.com

Great site, really helped my band get out there on iTunes and other places like AmazonMP3 and Napster, etc. And MUCH better than CDBaby, imo. CDBaby's uploader has been down for months, and I don't think people like the old fashioned way of mailing in their CDs and art.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mintee

If I could request a website be added to the first post.

http://www.tunecore.com

Great site, really helped my band get out there on iTunes and other places like AmazonMP3 and Napster, etc. And MUCH better than CDBaby, imo. CDBaby's uploader has been down for months, and I don't think people like the old fashioned way of mailing in their CDs and art.

---

CDbaby puts you on all of those sites too, PLUS they give you the option of sending out CDs one at a time to whoever buys one automatically.

The difference between Tunecore and CDbaby is Tunecore costs money to put you on sites. CDbaby takes 8% of all sales. 8% seems high, but is very low when you consider itunes takes 30%

Updated: Added some info and a video under, "Time to step up your game."

Thanks so much, I was looking for something like this

It says the video has been removed. =/

Updated the video, and also added the 10 Pieces of Essential Content For Your Band's Website!

this is like typing CHANNEL SURFING in age of mitology

very nice tips, ive been playing guitar for some time and always wanted to make a band with some friends of mine, this tips might work for us since our principal discussion issue for doing it was that ppl get to know us

I know this is an old thread but since it's a sticky and it's a Guide I don't see why I can't reply. Anyways;

Another good way to get "out there" is to burn say 50 Copies of your CD, and find a store nearby and ask whoever is in charge if you can have your CD's on display at the counter. Include a little flier too, could be containing information about you, your band/group, next gig, w.e Just give them maybe 10 or so CD's to put on the front counter for people to take. (Free of course, you gotta spend money to make money)

Another good way to get your music heard and recognized is to just give your CD's out to people you know or don't know. I've handed out quite a bit of my Demo CD copies to random people walking down the street. Now, obviously there's a certain risk with this lol but I don't give a shit and I'm willing to do w.e it takes, so far every person has taken the CD with no problem.

And of course there's always the internet. We all know how fast information can and does spread over the internet. If all else fails, Hell, you could even make a bunch of YouTube accounts and view your videos or just pay someone else to lol



Hmm, CDBaby, is it a 120% legit site that can be trusted to do what they're supposed to? If so then I'm so glad I decided to read this thread.

Thanks for the info, I will share the link with my band

Thanks, this is quite usefull to me and my friends.

Noticed a few links stopped working, also a few things were outdated.

Updated what I could, and added a few things.

Updated 7/8/2020

Added some social media info.

Note: Sadly, I'm no longer in the audio industry so I probably wont update this too much further. ALL of the information as of this post is still accurate, and worth knowing.