Bruce Houghton over at hypebot.com wrote a post a few days ago on “5 Lies Indie Musicians Tell Themselves” and it was a short and excellent post. I agree with all five at face value, with my favorite two being:
“The internet leveled the playing field for indie music.” - Big checkbooks and the marketing campaigns they buy […]

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Over the last few years, crowdfunding has really taken off in the independent music scene. As I continue to interact with musicians on a regular basis, I find a lot of them are taking the crowdfunding route of finding investment for their music production and promotion. I want to use this blog article to explore what […]

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Dan Gillogy is a musician who’s made up to $100k a year playing gigs. If the first thing you’re thinking is how many gigs did he have to play to get to that amount, it’s not hundreds. Here’s an interview I did with him a while ago. It’s a little long but very very informative […]

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Have you ever been to a gig where the audience are all taking in the energy from the stage and adding to it in a way that enhances the profile of the musician through good reception?
I believe that could happen in two ways regardless of whether you have good or bad music. It’s either down […]

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I hear this (or something along the lines of this) quite a lot: “I launched my CD about two months ago and sales have only trickled in, it’s been nothing spectacular. What went wrong, and what can I do to promote it and get more sales?” I respond with this: “What did you do in the […]

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Succeeding as an independent musician can be done through a number of routes - there is no one correct model. One that appeals to some of the musicians I speak to is the idea of starting to “dominate” your local region with your music before gaining traction and broadening your appeal through a progressive and […]

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Being an independent musician means you’re steering your own ship. The direction you go, how far you go, the people who join you on the trip and the amount of fun you have is all down to you.
Independent musicians do much more than just make and perform music. They promote it, they deal with the […]

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In my last post, I discussed being clear on what your music means and then overdelivering to your customers so they’ll come back and buy more music, attend more gigs and recommend more people. The key to that is building trust with your fans through developing the community around you, the artist.
As the internet changes in […]

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If you’ve been following my work for any amount of time, you’ll know that I believe today’s independent music scene must focus more on building a community of interaction and deeper relationships with fans than building an iconic figure that is distant and “out of touch”.
Define what your music is about. What do you want […]

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What would it feel like to make yourself naked in front of your fans? It’s not what you’re thinking - trust me. Just imagine for a second that your favorite musician did that to you - they opened up themselves to show you who they really are and as a result, your relationship with him […]

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