Using the web 2.0 social media tool Twitter, I got to meet a young and talented pianist Grace Nikae whose performances are electrifying audiences and whose music is being welcomed all over the world. There are a lot of musicians like that, but what impressed me most is how she is using the internet and social media to grow her following and build relationships. Here, in an exclusive interview, she tells us how she uses the web tools and how you as an independent musician can and should do the same.

1. Welcome Grace Nikae to Inner Rhythm. I came across your work and particularly how you use social media quite effectively from chrisbrogan.com and wanted to ask you a few questions so my readers, primarily independent artists, can use it quite well. Would you mind starting off sharing a brief background to yourself?

Sure – I’m a concert pianist and I’m very fortunate to do what I love in a career that takes me around the world performing piano recitals, or as a soloist with orchestras, or in chamber music performances with friends and colleagues. Your readers can find out more about my life on my website.

2. How do you define “social media” to an artist who is looking for new ways to connect with their followers?

Basically, social media helps me to engage with fans by connecting me with both people who might not get to hear me play live, and also with music audiences who want to extend the emotional excitement and connection they originally felt from being at a concert. I have also talked extensively about my thoughts on the connection between social media and music on my blog here.

3. Which social media sites do you use in particular and why?

I use different sites for a variety of reasons. I’m on MySpace simply because a lot of my younger fans and classical music students and supporters are on it, and it’s a nice way to engage with them. I use Flickr to share behind the scenes photos from my life and my time on the road. My YouTube channel allows me to share and host videos from concerts and live performances as well as from rehearsals and other behind the scenes footage. My Delicious links allow me to share some interesting stories I find around the web on my blog. And of course, Twitter has become a part of my life…

4. You and I both struck up this interview through twitter messages… probably just 4 or 5 limited to 140 characters each. Not bad. What do you think of Twitter and how do use it as a musician?

Twitter has become a great way for me to effectively share small things that are going on in my life in real time, and has also been a way to connect with fans who want to ask me questions about my life or about classical music. It has been wonderful to interact with them and answer some of their questions through Twitter.

I started out spending a lot of time on Twitter, and getting caught up in the responses from other Twitterers. Nowadays, I use it every couple of days to share news, what’s going on in my life, and interesting links. I also catch up on any replies and answer questions.

5. Can you give a few quick examples of successful experiences you’ve had with social media?

One of the most surprising discoveries that came about from my foray into social media has been meeting so many people who enjoy and like classical music, but are in many ways intimidated and frightened of it. This feeling has led many of them to not attend their local symphony orchestra concert, or to support the classical arts in their community. By connecting with them through social media, answering some of their questions, sharing aspects of my life and my creative process, I hope to bring classical music closer to them. I have also had artists in other creative fields connect with me and say that they realized something about their own work by reading something I wrote. This is really wonderful because it means that social media can also be used as a means of education, and as a means of contributing something to the arts in a way that extends far beyond me. There is a great satisfaction and fulfillment in that.

8. With social media, musicians today evidently need to create a two-way communication rather than just a one-way conversation. What are your thoughts on this and how do you feel social media has helped you achieve this, if in any way?

Social media can be overwhelming, and once the conversation starts becoming two way, it can become easy to get lost in all of it. I think it’s important to always maintain a balance – the most important thing will always be your music and artistic quality. Social media provides us with tools to reach out to different people, but you shouldn’t be spending all your time on it.

This leads me to the most important idea I would like to stress about social media – it’s not about marketing. I have seen so many people talk about it like it’s some kind of marketing strategy, and it simply is not. Social media is a set of tools that genuinely allows you to connect and share with others about your music and your art.

9. How did your managers, team, and others in your industry help in your implementation of social media?

I was very intent on trying out social media because I enjoy technology and being at my computer, and I wanted to find new ways of staying connected with my audiences who were spread out all over the world. No one in my field had yet tried out what it was that I wanted to do, to the extent that I wanted to do it. It was a bit risky because the classical music field is quite conservative and tradition oriented, and I wasn’t sure how my colleagues and those in the industry would react. After speaking with the people involved with my career, we decided that social media would allow me to be accessible, stay engaged with fans, and really share who I am - this could only be a good thing.

10. You write a blog called Stretching Intervals and I’ve followed it for a very short while. From what I see it’s very personal, about you as an individual and who you are rather than just the music. What are your thoughts on blogging for musicians and could you share some of your thinking behind it?

An interesting question - I feel that my blog is a reflection of my artistic approach and who I am as a performer. I discuss many aspects of my everyday life as a musician and some aspects of my personal life because I believe that who we are as individuals and how we choose to stretch and grow - emotionally, spiritually, mentally – is what colors and deepens our music and our work as artists. My blog has also become a space in which I can challenge myself through the writing medium, and work through some of my thoughts about music, interpretation, an artistic life, etc . It is a lot of work and I often cannot update it as often as I’d like, but I feel that there is something special about communicating through your own written words.

11. That’s all for now - thanks for the time you’ve taken to answer my questions. I’m sure many of the musicians who read this interview now and over the years will find it thoroughly enjoyable and informative.

Thanks Kavit – it was my pleasure.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Please leave your questions, comments and thoughts for both Grace and Kavit. 

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Recently, I had the pleasure of putting 10 questions to co-founder and CEO of Nimbit, Patrick Faucher. For those that don’t know about Nimbit, it is what I believe is one of the best technologies in helping independent musicians manage their careers and use an all-in-one technology service to grow their fans list and make more sales at their site. This interview has some real gems, so get your favorite drink, sit back and read through the entire interview.

1. Patrick, thanks for agreeing to do this interview. So you’re a co-founder of Nimbit. Give us a brief intro into yourself, your music background, Nimbit and what motivated you to start it.

I’ve been a musician my entire life, as a horn player, arranger, vocalist and sometimes guitarist. I have education in both music and technology and was into computer programming in the early days of the PC, way before the MAC and Windows were around. I graduated from Berklee College of Music in the early 90’s and gigged around professionally, then decided to figure out how to apply technology to the music business and make it easier to make a living at it. I ended up being part of some of the very first e-commerce applications on the Web for people like Aerosmith, Phish and a few others that were pioneering the world of online sales back in the late 90’s.

The concept of Nimbit [New Ideas for Music Business & Internet Technology] came from discussions I had with collegues at the time. We wanted to find a way to make it possible for any emerging artist to manage their content and market themselves more effectively online. So, my friend and Web guru Matt Silbert and I started working on Nimbit in 2002, building out a website and content management system that was easy to use and cheap.

Two years later we met Phil Antoniades who was running another company [Artist Development Associates] that was somewhat similar to CDBaby at the time, but also offered a number of other great services to indie artists. We quickly decided to put the two companies together to form what you see today as Nimbit, a complete marketing, sales and distribution system for artists and labels at every level.

2. Can you talk a little about some of the features Nimbit offers and perhaps share a few tips on how musicians can best make use of the Nimbit?

My favorite topic, not only because I am proud of what we’ve built but because one of our biggest challenges is to get artists to use everything they have available to them on Nimbit. Here are my top 5.

Tip #1 - be sure to put your entire catalog of products up for sale. Nimbit supports the direct sale of cds, t-shirts, downloads, tickets, books, just about anything through our storefronts, so that your fans can get whatever they want.

Tip #2 - put your Nimbit storefront everywhere you are. Our storefronts work on Facebook, Myspace, blogs, fan sites and of course, your official site.

Tip #3 - TELL PEOPLE TO GO AND BUY FROM YOU AT YOUR SITE! I can’t emphasize this enough. If a fan simply finds you on iTunes and buys a track, you will never know who that person is. With a Nimbit storefront, you get ALL the customer contact info, so you can re-market to them the next time you have something to release. Do I even need to mention that you keep more $$ when they buy direct also?

Tip #4 - continually give fans a reason to come back to you online. With today’s technology, there is no reason you have to let fans wait 2 years for new material. It’s a great idea to put up live tracks from the road, unreleased songs or songs in the making, anything that keeps the fans engaged between major releases.

Tip #5 - use your gigs and your fans as the biggest marketing tool you have. Get out there and mobilize your fans, give them incentives and praise. They want to connect to you, so let them. Use our new nimbitCard program to give away promotional tracks in exchange for email and cell phone numbers. Use our store tracking tools to run a contest to see which fan can can sell more of your new album from their own fan blog, using nimbitOMT’s share. Get creative and find other ways to use your fans to help promote and sell.

3. What major changes in the music industry do you see in the next two years?

Certainly more of what is already happening with regard to ongoing fragmentation and volitility at the upper levels of the market and significant expansion of what I call the middle class of artists in the market. While it is arguably just as hard to rise above the noise as an indie musician today as it ever was, making a solid living as an artist is more acheivable than ever today because of exposure to fans through various venues online and offline coupled with access to distribution and sales platforms such as Nimbit.

4. What are you top three success traits in independent musicians?

Perseverance, dedication to your craft, and ability to understand and manage the business aspects of your career.

5. What do you believe is the number 1 reason why many musicians fail?

They are unrealistic in their expectations and the amount of effort it takes to win.

Patrick, I asked my readers to share some questions that they would ask you and I didn’t want to throw them at you so I picked my top five and here they are.

6. Question from Steve Pasek: Is it still worthwhile for an independent artist to try to get retail distribution, and if so, what is the best way to go about it, and the best practices for billing to make sure you get paid?

It’s really not worth it for an independent artist to try to get retail distribution. There is simply less shelf space and more competition for that space so an artist must “pay” to get a position and must move significant numbers in order to break even on the initial distribution expense. In the end, that money would be better put to use promoting the release. If you are going to sell direct to small stores, sell outright for a low wholesale price instead of putting product up for consignment. You are better off getting $4 a disc in hand than having to track down payment in the future. Other than significant airplay, as in charting for a while, there is no reason to go after a bricks and mortar distribution channel.

7. Question from Clebo: I am comparing Nimbit and Catapult distribution. With Catapult 91-95% of all proceeds go to the artist, and they distribute your music to over 60 music stores. They charge a simple $25 fee for a album set up and no monthly fee. Tell me why the nimbit retail packages would be better for the independent musician who merely wants some way to sell and distribute their music.

91-95% of what? My guess is that is of the amount of money that the distributor will pay you. So a with $.99 download at iTunes, iTunes pays the distributor $.69, you get 95%, so you get $.65. With nimbit you get $.80 for your $.99 download but more importantly you get the customer information. My next question would be how many sales actually come from the 59 other stores that aren’t iTunes? We don’t see a huge value in putting undiscovered artists into 60 stores where they will remain undiscovered. Moreover, will you know who buys your music? Our focus really is on getting the artist out selling direct to their current fans and expanding from there. We aren’t against broad distribution but be sure to sell direct as much as possible so you know who bought what from you! We see iTunes and a couple others as necessary places to be for fans that opt to purchase at those outlets, but our real value lies in all the direct-to-fan sales and marketing tools we offer, which is not what Catapult does.

8. Question from Brenda: Apart from retail placement with other digital retailers (eg. iTunes), how are current nimbit artists making the most money using the nimbit OMT? In other words, where/how are successful sellers placing the nimbit OMT, and what kind of marketing are they doing with it, to get the most sales?

We see most of the nimbitOMT sales coming from people who have done a good job marketing from their Myspace page and using the OMT. We’ve helped over a hundred artists makeover their Myspace with an OMT and seen great results. For an example you can check out a band called The Mile After at www.myspace.com/themileafter Other sucessful artists are using their official site to sell, using nimbitSkin and those sites tend to have higher sales than those artists just selling from Myspace.

9. Question from Jon: Searching for music to buy online (retailers, myspace, etc.) can be time consuming and inefficient. A person could spend hours sifting through music at any given site, then decide to just “buy what’s popular” in the way of major label artists. How can an independent artist proactively increase their potential to be found with such large databases of music?

Your best bet is to think small and viral. 40+% of music recommendations are coming from blogs. You need to find your niche market. You need to nurture your fanbase to spread the word. Submit your music to be reviewed at any site that will have you. The more pages that show up with your reviews, the faster you fly up the search engine rankings.

10. Question from Pat: CDBaby is by far the oldest and I believe the best in the market for online distribution of independent music. As someone who uses CDBaby, I’d like to know your opinion on CDBaby, and what Nimbit offers me that CDBaby cannot?

First of all, I have a tremendous amount of admiration and respect for Derek and what CDbaby has done to push the evolution of this industry. I like to consider Nimbit as the next step in that evolution. One key differentiation is that with Nimbit, the artist can sell virtually ANY type of product from any website, all with the same storefront solution that gets managed within the Nimbit dashboard. For example, you can sell an MP3 with a T-shirt or an eTicket with an album, etc. This opens up a number of marketing and bundling opportunities for the artists catalog. Also, we are rolling out integrated marketing programs such as nimbitCards, that fans can redeem for music directly in the artists storefront on their website, driving more traffic and sales directly to the artist. It’s all about driving the fans to the artist and engaging them with compelling offers and a great buying experience. With Nimbit you can do that very seamlessly, quickly, for very little money which is something you won’t find anywhere else.

11. Any final thoughts or messages, Patrick?

If you have talent, know-how and determination, there is no reason you can’t be sucessful in this day and age. All the opportunities are there. Go. Create. Prosper.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Please leave your questions, comments and thoughts for both Patrick and Kavit.

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I spent most of my time last week writing up my new report. It’s going to be titled along the lines of this: “How To Design A Winning And Profitable Music Business” and its one of the best pieces of work I’ve ever produced. (I’m releasing it in the first week of September and it’s only for e-mail subscribers). It’s going to blow you away and fill up any of the gaps that my first report left behind. Best of all to you, it’s going to be free.

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A profitable music business is a winning music business. A successful music business needs to be well planned - it needs to have a good operations, marketing and finance plan. Let’s look at each in brief:-

A good operations plan will show what your music business will do to generate revenue - daily, weekly, monthly small gigs, conference and festival gigs, recording and distribution, workshops, teaching, etc. It will also detail your ideal way of operating your music business - will you have an office or will you outsource? It will also answer who you want to have on your music business team - your PR, your booking agent, your online community manager, etc

A good marketing plan is required to show how you get exposure for your music, your gigs and your launch. You should strategize for your online marketing efforts as well as what you will do offline.

A finance plan is all about creating a budget of what you spend and what you’ll make. Without a budget, any decisions made are risky. A good budget lets you see your business on paper so you can take calculated risks and no when to expand or employ staff or interns. My accountant often tells me that the success of my business is equal to how well I can understand the numbers on my cash flow sheet. He is right and I pass this advice on to you.

Although these are three main areas you must plan and execute to have a good music business, the foundation to all of this is having good music. Without good music and hooks, you probably won’t be anywhere near to a profitable music business.

A profitable music business also needs to have a good leader - someone who has a vision, direction and the passion and motivation to move forward and drive a team. A good leader in an independent music career is usually the musician him or herself - the musopreneur. 

A musopreneur is simply a music business owner - someone who is in charge of their business and leads the decisions and strategy planning. A music business owner thinks and acts like an entrepreneur. He or she sizes up opportunities when they arise and makes a decision as to whether or not they will be taken on based on how they align with the overall music business strategy.

A profitable music business also needs to know how it is different from the rest. What are the strengths of your music business and what are your weaknesses? What is your niche? What makes you stand out amongst the crowd and what will make people remember you? You’ll need to know and promote what makes you unique from others who do similar work.

Having a winning and profitable music business is testimony to how well you can get ordinary people who love music to love your music. Read that sentence again. There are millions of artists and billions of tracks out there - how does yours hook and retain the attention of your listener and what will you do to aid this process? Once you have raving fans, then word spreads because people like to share things they love with others.

This article is far from complete because as we all continue to learn and grow, we’ll continue to understand the elements that make a business profitable. I want to know your thoughts.

Please share what you feel makes a music business profitable. 

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As you’re reading this, I’m celebrating my partner Rupa’s birthday with her on a short trip to Barcelona. Follow us on Twitter. I’ll respond to all comments on this blog when I get back in 4 days.

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Radiohead’s pay-what-you-like release of their album, In Rainbows, was a turning point in the way record labels and artists work and it will be remembered forever as a crucial move in the changes taking place in the music industry.

Radiohead’s goal was to get the music into as many hands as possible - and by giving it away at any price - they achieved that without the help of a major record label. Although they had an incredibly large following because of their work in the years prior to this recent launch, the lesson here is important: it is no longer about how much people should pay for your music; it is about getting your music into the hands of as many people as possible.

Today’s music industry is about the artist taking control. When you work with a label, your team works hard to get you, the artist, out there rather than the label. So, in the end, all that the fans remember is the artist and not the label. As a result, the fans buy into the artist - not the label. The major acts are going independent because they can do it themselves and they don’t need the control taken away from them by the labels.

That brings in Live Nation - the company which mainly works as a concert promoter but primarily “signs up” artists and offer them a good deal for their concert works. It also doesn’t take away control as U2 and Madonna get to keep their copyrights. The performance business is thriving, and Live Nation have taken a great lead on how it works.

In an article presented in CNN Money Michael Rampino, CEO of Live Nation says, “We already operate your tours. Why not let us make your albums, sell your merchandise, run your website, and produce your videos and a range of other products you haven’t yet thought of? This is the age of the empowering Internet, after all. Artists are in charge. Who needs a record label?”

So now that music is probably free and the goal is simply to get as many people to hear it as possible, one needs to come up with innovative ways of bringing in revenue. Music is just a way to draw in people - how will you capitalize on making it a profitable venture?

What will you sell in a package along with your music, download or tracks to entice people to spend money on the music? A t-shirt? A code to guarantee future downloads free? Free gig tickets? Or simply just free music giveaways and sell-out tours like Radiohead have done? 

Words of advice: Don’t throw your time and money away promoting your music if you haven’t yet come up with innovative revenue streams for your work. We are entering a new era in the music industry and must ensure we transition with it. Sit down by yourself or with your team and brainstorm models you can use to sell your music profitably. Mark these words: sell the sizzle, not the steak.

Your thoughts? 

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I’m going to be doing an interview with the Nimbit co-founders Patrick Faucher or Phil Antoniades and instead of coming up with all the questions myself, I wanted you to have a chance to ask your thoughts. Nimbit is popular with many musicians I’ve spoken to and I know, for sure, that you will have some questions.

Nimbit’s mission reads, “Our mission is to put musical artists in complete control of their own music business and brand, enabling them to reach their full potential as quickly as possible.”

To spice this up even more, I’m going to select five of the most quality questions out of all those given and the five winners will get free access to the Musicians Mastermind program (five months of quality music promotion training) for which other members pay $245 USD. Not bad, right?

All you need to do is ask your question. There is a limit of just one question per person. The deadline: Tuesday 29th July 2008 

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I’m very active with a charity called Young Jains UK (I’m the current Vice President/Chairman of the Board) and recently I got an e-mail from an external body to speak about a topic along the lines of “Cause Marketing: how to get corporations to give you sponsorship”. It got me thinking, not really about corporations, but how to use cause marketing to good effect as a musician. 

What is Cause Marketing? 

Cause Marketing, as I understand it, is linking your business, whether it be music or anything else, to a particular cause that your brand, beliefs and philosophy supports. It’s about aligning yourself with an idea of giving back that is executed by the charity, rather than by yourself alone. Aligning yourself, the musician, with a cause strengthens the credibility of the cause just as the cause helps strengthen the credibility that the musician him/herself holds.

Put another way, cause marketing refers to intertwining the relationship between a “for-profit” group (your music business) with a “not-for-profit” organization. Cause Marketing also refers to the idea that lyrics in your music praise or share thoughts, feelings and ideas around changing society. For example, a track called “She Wants Too” by The Couch Sessions, an indie hip-hop group, has a line that reads, “If a woman doesn’t want you, let her go.” This is a simple message for men that can work against much of the domestic violence that goes on.

The benefits of linking your music to a cause are clear: you get to do your bit and give back to the community and at the same time, gain a lot of recognition both through the press and through members of that body who see your information and pledge of support through its activities. Although it means you may have to give time and/or financial support to the body, you are able to rise and use their promotion to drive people to your work.

I’m not sure if there is a down-side, but the point I can envisage many coming out with is whether it’s right or not to link to a charity that you support with a view of getting something out of it for your music business? Would that be against the idea of selfless giving?

How to use Cause Marketing as a Promotional Tool

When you align yourself with a cause, the biggest promotion you could receive if you gave your money, was branding of your music and identity on flyers, blogs and websites. People would be able to click and access your website and check out what you offer. Some call this advertising.

When you give your time and become associated with a cause, people get to know who you are and you start building relationships with others through mutual interests. You get to make friends and they become people who help you spread your music.

You could even run gigs for your particular cause or charity and give a percentage of your profit to their cause. The same thing goes for your CD or download sales - you could pledge a percentage of profits to the cause you’re supporting and increase credibility in this way. 

Are you FOR or AGAINST aligning cause marketing with your music?

I’m not particularly sure if I’m for or against this idea of cause marketing. I thought I’d throw it out there for discussion. What do you think? Leave me your thoughts in the comment box.

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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 still have the edge. The internet just opened the door for everyone.  It’s what you do now that you’re in the now overcrowded room that matters.

He’s right at face value - the internet hasn’t leveled the field between independent artists and signed artists - there’s no doubt about that from the point of financial budget and marketing capacity. Signed musicians have companies with many many people who can be paid to sit at the computer and work the internet to their advantage. They have the budget to do so. Independent artists don’t.

However, I sincerely believe the internet has leveled the playing field when it comes to being able to make a music career with the tools, ideas and strategies now available that wouldn’t be available before. There are now countless options to making a good music career that puts money into your pocket and gives you the feeling of fulfillment that we humans crave. 

The goal is how you use the internet and what you do in the overcrowded space as Bruce points out. It’s what I’ve been writing and speaking about for the last two years - and things are starting to change, people are starting to try new and unusual things that help them pick up more fans and more sales. But not everyone is still getting the message loud and clear - just this morning somebody showed me their music website and it was a complete brochure-style site with no mode of interaction with the fans. Poor.

Ask yourself, “how specifically can I use the internet to interact with my fans?”. What one or two networks do I want to tap into and how can I get myself to grow a big following there? Then do it. 

“My sales suck, but so do everyone else’s.” - Sure the numbers have changed, but if you can’t get people to pay something for your music then you’ve got a problem…with your music.  

This is the second of the five lies that Bruce points out that I like. Not everybody’s sales suck - if they did then we wouldn’t have high music sales. A good percentage of my clients end up with sales they never envisaged in their goals but others don’t. If your sales aren’t good and you’ve tried at least 5 to 10 different tactics to sell, then it’s your music. 

What are your thoughts and what lies do you think musicians tell themselves? 

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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 crowdfunding is about and how you could use it in your music.  

Crowdfunding is simply the financing of projects and people by crowds. Although many musicians like Jill Sobule choose to approach crowdfunding on their own, there are others who choose to go through an established party like SellABand.com whose model has been gaining real traction since Spring 2007. 

The SellABand model is a great way for artists to get their music heard and make some money. The process is simple: you can sign up and upload your music. If people listen to it and like your music, they can pay a minimum of $10 and once you reach $50,000 USD, SellABand will provide people, guiding and studio to help you record and release your album. 

As for the people who pay money… they get their money back if you don’t reach $50k, and if you do, they’ll get a copy of your new album when it’s released. It’s a real win-win situation and so far, they’ve had a number of albums produced. 

SellABand isn’t the only of its kind - the more newer Strayform seem to be going well too.

But you don’t have to go through a ‘facilitation’ site like the above. You could choose to do it yourself. And if you do, you then have the freedom to create your own incentives for donation (apart from just a free CD) and you get to organize your own team to create your music and promotion. Whether that’s a good thing or bad, it’s debatable.

For going it on your own, let’s use Jill Sobule as an example. Jill’s crowdfunding took place a while ago and is complete. This was Jill’s incentive plan to raise funds and shows what she’d give back in return:

$10 - Unpolished Rock (but with potential) Level: A free digital download of the album, when it’s released.

$25 - Polished Rock Level: An advance copy of the CD. Weeks before the masses.

$50 - Pewter Level: An advance copy and a “Thank You” on the CD.

$100 - Copper Level: All the above, plus a T-shirt saying you’re a junior executive producer on the album.

$200 - Bronze Level: Free admission to my shows for 2008.

$250 - Silver Level: All the above, plus a membership to the “Secret Society Producer’s Club,” which means you’ll get a secret password to a website where I’ll post some rough tracks, or… something worthwhile.

$500 - Gold Level: This is where it gets good! At the end of my CD, I’ll do a fun instrumental track where I’ll mention your name and maybe rhyme with it. And if you don’t want your name used, you can give me a loved one’s instead. What a great gift!

$750 - Gold Doubloons Level: Exactly like the gold level, but you give me more money.

$1,000 - Platinum Level: How would you like to have a theme song written for you? I’ll have a song you can put on your answering machine and show off. Again, this could be a gift.

$2,500 - Emerald Level: Mentioned as an executive producer of the album — whoop-di-doo!

$5,000 — Diamond Level: I will come and do a house concert for you. Invite your friends, serve some drinks, bring me out and I sing. Actually, this level is a smart choice economically. I’ve played many house concerts where the host has charged his guests and made his money back. I’d go for this if I were you.

$10,000 - Weapons-Grade Plutonium Level: You get to come and sing on my CD. Don’t worry if you can’t sing - we can fix that on our end. Also, you can always play the cowbell.

 

In total, she collected $83, 529. Pretty impressive.

Before you start crowdfunding, it’s important you know what you’re going to do with the money you get in as much specificity and with as much clarity as possible.

You need to know the people who’ll help you create your music, produce it in the studio, mix and master. You should know the cost of CDs, print work, wrapping and any other packaging stuff. 

You should also know exactly how you plan to promote your music. This should be strategic rather than opportunistic. It’s a good idea to get this all planned so that your promoting flows and you know what you should be doing and when you should be doing it. Being clear and showing that to potential people who may fund you is a great way to build trust.

If you’re going to go with crowdfunding for your next music project, consider keeping a blog to journal your progress and learnings. Doing this will prove fruitful for you later as well as of help to other musicians.

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It is said that the best sales person is one who doesn’t actually do the selling. His job is to cultivate an enthusiastic team who will do the promotion for him. Ten hands are better than two hands. And so the same goes for your music.

The question you should always ask internally (or sometimes externally if the situation is appropriate) when speaking to someone is “how I can be of service to you?”. By doing this, you’ll allow yourself to do the things you enjoy and share the work of music promotion with your fans - the people who like your music.

One great tactic I love is what I call Artist Partnership Programs (APP for short). Setting them up doesn’t take long - it requires a bit of out-of-the-box creative thinking and effective planning. APPs are a simple and exciting way to get people who like your music together and create a community atmosphere around you, the artist, whilst you grow your music career and get it promoted.

In terms of music promotion, it simply means those individuals who get onto your exclusive artist partnership program (or come up with a fancier name!) will get a certain percentage of any of your music and merchandise that they sell. If they’re no good at marketing, you can give them free guides or some tips to help them.

Here are a few things to look out for:-

* Perhaps set up the program with three levels. Bronze, Silver and Gold levels for the amount of sales each partner makes. The more sales, the more they move up. The more extra rewards and benefits they make. Make it more than an affiliate program. Add the extra bonuses such as “dinner with the artist”, “two hours with the artist”, “shopping with the artist”, “free guitar lessons with you”, etc.

* Also consider holding monthly or bimonthly APP group meetings where all of your partners can get together, build a community, run bring-a-friend offers so you continue to grow your networks. Once you start to build an atmosphere, it becomes very attractive.

* Link up with local shops, retail and superstores and get them to become partners. Get your music in as many places as possible and offer your rewards and incentives.

Think about it. Ten hands are better than two. 50 hands are better than two. So you can definitely offer rewards and not quibble about it. Go set up your APP and start to build a community. Have faith in it working and it will.

I was at a Marianne Williamson talk in July last year and she said, “there is no such thing as a faithless person. You either have faith in miracles, or you have faith in disasters.”

The same thing goes for this.

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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 so get yourself a drink and sit down to read it.

Kavit: Hi Dan, thanks for the interview here. Please share a little about you so my readers are aware of your background, and then about what got you to where you are today.

I’ve been playing music professionally since I left high school in 1977. My first pro gigs were with brothers Wayne and Bobby Lee Keeling. We played a lot of 50s and 60’s and a whole bunch of Country & Western. We played VFW Halls and Bingo parlors. I was in college in southern Illinois just north of Kentucky.

This was the land of Bee Hive Hairdos and checkered table clothes. Wayne would dress in black and play lefty guitar upside down. And Bobby Lee wouldn’t play unless he was drinking and wouldn’t drink unless he was playing.

We were really into jazz fusion at the time and fancy chord changes and all that. So playing I, IV, V changes was good training for me. I’d go set up my Wurlitzer EP and crank it through my Fender Twin Reverb and just let her rip.

We got paid $50 a night. My rent was $25 a month. I was in heaven! I couldn’t believe I could actually get paid to do this. Plus, getting paid to make music allowed me to quit work, play music and work on the stuff I wanted to during the week.

I haven’t looked back since.

I wound up living in New Orleans for awhile there. Or as we like to say I stayed there 3 years one night. Played with some great cats down there. Did a lot of touring from there. Lots of BBQ joints and gin mills.

Then I wound up moving back to Chicago, my hometown, when my Dad got sick. My brother had a real good band back then. We played the Tri-State area here. The drinking age limit was still about 18 then so we fit right in. Started our first recordings with that band. Started selling a lot of self produced tapes. Even had an EP for awhile there.

We really learned a lot about the business side in that band. We had this big house in the middle of nowhere. All of our friends would come over and hang out. One night the cops came and we got pinched for disturbing the peace or some crap. Well we took up a collection to post our bond. We raised like $1000 in an hour.

Afterwards we were like, “We should start charging at the door.” You know have a little discretionary fund available in case of emergencies like this.

So we bought a Coke machine, filled it with Budweiser, charged $4 at the door and started raking it in. Then we started renting our own halls, promoting our own shows. Other bands found out about us and wanted to be included. So we’ let them in and take a cut of that.

We started printing T-shirts and hats and stickers. I mean this was all back in the 80s. So we were really tapped into something here. That was just the beginning.

Since then I had a gig at The Second City 1986-1996 as the piano player, then eventually started writing bits for them. Learned a ton about writing with some really talented writers.

I was always doing commercials and jingles sessions back then. Universal had a big studio here in Chicago. They cranked Muzak tracks all day long. My teacher and mentor, Gene Esposito, got me into those sessions. First as a copyist, then as a synthesist and then eventually I got some piano sessions. Having a mentor like Gene was essential to my success.

But Second City really opened some doors for me. Even though it was a “theater gig”, I still got good training playing 6 nights a week, improvising and writing music, lyrics, comedy, advertising, whatever. I got into writing industrial films, corporate shows, training seminars. I got to work with some directors on films; I did about 20 short films. Most of these guys were just students in film school back then. Now they are all over Hollywood.

I did get to go to Hollywood for a couple of years. I landed a gig doing bumpers in and out of commercials breaks for a sit com on FOX-TV called “My Talk Show”. It ran for 54 episodes. I did a good size portion of those.

Then the jingle market started changing back in the mid-90s’ so I wound up taking a teaching job which was fantastic. I started writing songs and shows for children. I found out I was a really good teacher and it kept me off the road while we raised our family. From there I started a teaching studio, built that up and sold it. Left teaching because it was too much like work.

Went back into performing. Corporate gigs and private parties. Sometimes fronting a band but mostly singing and playing piano.

The convention market is alive and well. We travel all over the country doing corporate shows. Right now the big thing is Dueling Pianos Shows. Lots of interaction and comedy and it pays really well.

Kavit: Your website boldly states that you can show musicians how to make $28,742.76 part time this year? First impressions it looks like just by playing gigs you can get that money. Could you share the basic framework as to how one can get to that point? What are the key points your advising?

Knowing your target market. Once you know that, you deliver the message that tells them what they will get by hiring your band or act. Tell them what benefits they will receive, you’ll always be working.

I made over a $100K (US) last year. The year before I made around $96K. That number is almost inconceivable to most musicians. But the basic laws of supply and demand kick in here. Once you’re working a lot at $300 a night, then you can start charging $500 a night when someone really wants you. Right now I get $1700 - $3500 per night working as a solo act. Used to be I was happy getting $200.

Kavit: You’ve written a bit on music marketing. Could you share what you feel are three really important ways for musicians to get some traction in today’s internet world?

Tell ‘em, tell ‘em and tell ‘em again. Seriously, that’s all there is to marketing our bands and ourselves as artists and musicians. And of course, when you’r done telling ‘em, you know what you do next right? Tell ‘em again.

We are very creative people. This is easier for us then it is for most other business minded people. We can think of all kinds of fun ways to cover telling ‘em again and again. we go into all of the different ways in our complete marketing system. It is a Step by Step Guide on Marketing for Musicians.

When it all boils down to are these three things:

1. Knowing your target market

2. Knowing what you have to offer; what are your Features and Benefits?

3. How you are different from your competition

After that, you just keep fine tuning your message based on your responses. Which marketing piece brings in the most amount of money?

Becoming a music professional is not like any other profession. When you want to become an attorney, you go to law school, you pass your bar exams, you’re an attorney. Same thing physicians. Go to medical college, do your internships pass your exams – shingudda boom! You’re a Doctor.

Musicians only have to get paid. Hell, we don’t even have to learn how to play our own instruments.

Has anyone bothered to take the time to show you how book music gigs? Or did you just learn from someone else who really wasn’t doing all that great in the first place? You owe it to yourself to check this out.

It bears repeating tho, the most important of the three is the first one: Who is Your Target Market?

Kavit: What do you think of the current state of the industry for independent musicians?

There’s really no better time right now. It appears the economy is down. Fuel prices are high, the credit markets are in disarray and unemployment is on the rise. So I say what better time than right now? Our competition is probably cutting back on their advertising. Now is the perfect time to ramp up our marketing.

Besides, the internet has leveled the playing field for all musicians. It doesn’t matter if you are just starting out or if you are a seasoned pro. No matter what style of music you are into, you can be viewed as a polished act by putting up a polished web site.

If you are looking to sell CDs and other merch this is also a fantastic period in history. The facts are that CD sales are off for the major labels. Combine that with the fact that people are really tired of all the crap that major labels have had to offer them. That translates into golden opportunities right now. People are really starved for good, passionate music that is not computerized and pre-canned for the masses.

You can hear it in some of the bands that are coming out right now. The people really want to hear someone who can entertain, but they love someone who can actually play their instruments live with out the use of massive technological assistance. You don’t even have to play your instrument well. Just play with passion and feeling. The Average Joe can relate to mediocre performances. There are many amateur musicians out there who love to hear us as we are. Not all fancied up behind technology.

Kavit: What do you believe is the number 1 reason why many musicians fail?

Not keeping an open mind. Not challenging themselves to do something outside of their comfort zone. I think one of the two major reasons why I have succeeded are open mindedness and versatility.

I am at the point now where I can pick and choose my gigs. But when I first started out I got lots of experience playing all kinds of music. I loved rock and blues. But when I got a call to play Reggae, jazz, Latin, theater, Recording sessions; I would take it. Everything was fair game in my book. As long as it paid more than $50 bucks, I would take it.

I never thought I liked country music. But then I played with some real cow punchers. If I hadn’t kept an open mind, I would have missed that opportunity. The versatility I gained as a musician and a performer has served me well.

It requires a great deal of open mindedness and creativity to solve problems. Like going into a recording session and finding out there isn’t enough room to bring in all 6 keyboards, yet still getting the job done enough to satisfy the client. Or getting on a gig where the agent says no polkas. But then some old guy tosses a C-Note in your jar to play one.

So grab those chances to stay open minded and get creative. Treating music like a business can be very creative too. A lot of musicians don’t look at it like that. I say it is a very small leap to take. I find marketing my business is almost as much fun as writing a good lyric or recording a solid groove.

When a client calls, I listen closely to what they want and then deliver. That’s pretty important to be able to recognize that. When you remain open minded you can go where the money is. Get in front of the hungry crowd and feed them what they want.

Once you do that and they’re buying what you have to sell, you can then give the audience anything you want. Once you deliver what they want, you can play whatever gigs you want and you’ll always work.

Kavit: You’re offering an awesome 3-month free deal on your Musicians Gold Newsletter. Can you share a bit about that and how my readers can take advantage?

We are offering the most incredible free gift ever! 3 months of the Musicians Gold Newsletter sent to your doorstep every month.

All of your readers will get the opportunity to look over my shoulder as I go through my system of getting music gigs. I talk about the successes and the failures. Yes I do have failures. I love my failures because I learn from them and I will show how you can benefit from them too.

I will show Lead Generation Techniques that consistently bring in as much or as little work as you want. Learn from other professionals in the industry. I sit down once a month and conduct exclusive interviews; not just with successful musicians but music business authors, promoters, producers, club owners and talent agents. Just one of these interviews could hold the key piece of knowledge you will need to get your music career into overdrive. Use these CDs and MP3s to turn commuting hours into your own personal power learning hours.

Kavit: Anything else you want to share with my readers?

Have fun. We are in the business of fun. Nobody ever asks us to come over and ‘work’ music. They only want to us to ‘play’ music. And when we look at marketing and getting gigs as fun, it easily translates to our clients and fans.

Let’s face it. We’re the luckiest people on the planet. Everyone else has to work for living. We get to paid to play.

So go have some fun.

Kavit: Indeed, go have some fun! Thanks for the interview, Dan.

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