Derek Sivers

You know those loyal few people who are in the front row every time you perform?

You know those people that sat down to write you an email to say how much they love your music?

You know that guy that said, “Hey if you ever need anything - just ask!”

Put them to work!

Often, people who reach out like that are looking for a connection in this world. Looking for a higher cause. They want to feel they have some other purpose than their stupid accounting job.

You may be the best thing in their life.

You can break someone out of their drab life as an assistant sales rep for a manufacturing company. You might be the coolest thing that ever happened to a teenager going through an unpopular phase. You can give them a mission!

If they’re a fan of your music, invite them over for pizza to spend a night doing a mailing to colleges. Go hit the town together, putting concert flyers on telephone poles. Have them drive a van full of friends to your gig an hour away. Have the guts to ask that “email fan” if she’d be into going through the Indie Contact Bible and sending your presskit to 20 magazines a week.

Soon you can send them out on their own, to spread the gospel message of your amazing music, one promo project at a time. Eventually, as you grow, these people can be the head of “street teams” of 20 people in a city that go promote you like mad each time you have a concert or a new CD.

Those of us busy busy people may think, “How could ANYone do this boring work?” But there are plenty of people out there with time on their hands that want to spend it on something besides TV.

Don’t forget that to most people, the music business is pure magic. It’s glitter and fame and fantastically romantic. Working with you might be the closest they get to that magical world of music. Give someone the chance to be on the inside circle. Put ‘em to work.

Work backwards.

Define your goal (your final destination) - then contact someone who’s there, and ask how to get there.

If you want to be in Rolling Stone magazine, pick up the phone, call their main office in New York City, and when the receptionist answers, say “Editorial, please.” Ask someone in the editorial department which publicists they recommend. Then call each publicist, and try to get their attention. (Hint: Don’t waste Rolling Stone’s time asking for the publicist’s phone number. You can find it elsewhere. Get off the phone as soon as possible.)

If you want to play at the biggest club in town, bring a nice box of fancy German cookies to the club booker, and ask for just 5 minutes of their advice. Ask them what criteria must be met in order for them to take a chance on an act. Ask what booking agents they recommend, or if they recommend using one at all. Again, keep your meeting as short as possible. Get the crucial info, then leave them alone. (Until you’re back, headlining their club one day!)

I know an artist manager of a small unsigned act, who over the course of a year, met with the managers of U2, REM, and other top acts. She asked them for their advice, coming from the top, and got great suggestions that she’s used with big results.

In other words:
Call the destination, and ask for directions.

You’ll get there much faster than just blindly walking out your front door, hoping you arrive someday.

Your website can be your best tool, if you make it communicate with your fans and potential fans, TWO-WAY.

Your website should get people involved, make them want to introduce themselves, ask questions, shout out.

YOUR WEBSITE SHOULD:

1. Get their email address! Interact! Make an easy fill-out form. (hint: try a fun question like “who are you?” or “do you know your own name?”)
2. Encourage them to buy your CD, constantly. It’s a great way to start a relationship.
3. Show what’s unique about you. Image, quirks, colors, moods.
4. Make the sound clips easy to get to, not buried under layers
5. Answer the obvious questions: who are you, what do you look like, let me hear the music
6. Acknowledge them! Have their pictures on your site. Answer their questions on your site. Show them they ARE a part of your life.

And make sure you have your own domain name.

The self-promoting musician of the past needed to always have a presskit (with CD and photo) nearby and ready to send.

The modern self-promoting musician needs to keep a “PROMO BOX” folder on the desktop of your computer.

It will take you just one hour to put together, and you’ll be able to use it again and again and again:

Make a folder on your desktop called “promo box” and put these things inside for quick easy access:

1. At least one full-length MP3 file of a track from your CD. Encoded at the standard 128k bitrate. Give it a nice long name, without spaces, so that if anyone runs across it on the web they know who it is. (Example: RACHAEL_SAGE-sistersong.mp3 ) Preferably have 3-5 songs from your CD encoded here, ready to go.

2. An entertaining bio written four times, in four different lengths.
- Long long version (over 3 paragraphs. 1-2 pages. exhaustive and rarely used.)
- Medium long version (2 - 4 entertaining and important paragraphs. the top end of what people will sit and read on the web.)
- Short version ( 1 killer paragraph)
- One-liner ( 1 killer sentence )

3. Quotes from reviews:
- one big text file with every review you’ve ever gotten, all typed out and credited
- one text file with just the best short quotes from these reviews

4. Graphics, with a few different sizes of each:
- artist photos (studio shot, live shot, up close, far away)
- album cover graphic (big version, small version)
- your logo, if you have one

IF YOU DO THIS, JUST ONCE, then the job of uploading your information to another website will be painless. You’ll just say, “da-da-da! all done!” and let your MP3s upload while you go make dinner.

Like proper manners, or knowing how to drive, here are some things in the online world you just need to know:

1. EMAIL
- Have a good signature file that tells who you are, how to find you, and entices people to click through to your web address. All in 4 lines or less.
- How to make good subject headers. So when your email is one of 500 in an “IN” box, it will say exactly what is contained inside, from the other person’s point of view.
- How to quote someone’s email message back to them. Or not.
- How to subscribe to, post messages to, and unsubscribe from to a mailing list.
- Manners. Spelling. Punctuation. How to turn off your caps lock key, and not use 25 exclamation points in a row.
- How to communicate personality through these typewriter keys.
- Separate sentences into paragraphs. Reading a computer screen is different from reading a book. There’s no paper to waste - leave plenty of space.

2. DATABASE SKILLS
- Know how to work your “address book” program. How to find people, sort, print, add, remove, change, and do bigger find commands (how to find all guitarists in the 818 area code)
- Keep it nice and clean and updated. Keep street address separated from the city, state, zip, country. Don’t be sloppy in these early stages.
- Assume you ARE going to get more popular and soon your little address book will need to sort thousands of people.
- If you get really fancy, track each contact you have with someone: each call, email, visit. It comes in handy when someone from a year ago calls you up saying, “It’s George! Remember?”

3 . WEB SKILLS
- Know how to make an MP3, and how to upload it to a website.
- Sort your bookmarks/favorites into categories/folders so you can find things later.

Words got you down? Nothing new to say?

Spend some money on a great photographer.

Calvin Klein showed you don’t have to talk and talk and talk.

But if you don’t, it’s ALL up to the image.

Unless you’re in heavy rotation on every radio station, it’s not very easy for people to hear your music without trying. They have to go seek you out, and make an effort to go hear you.

Music is like perfume. You have to convince and persuade people, with your words and images, to take that initiative, to make an effort, to hear your music.

If you try to just “let the music speak for itself” most people will never hear you.

Never use corporate marketing-speak.

Be weird.

Be a real person.

Sound like one person speaking to one person.

This is a big reason why it’s COOL to be indie instead of corporate.

Real people respond better to the weird fun stuff.

When describing your music, PLEASE don’t be a musician.

Don’t say, “Wonderful harmonies and intricate arrangements. A tight rhythm section and introspective lyrics!”

Real people don’t even understand what that means. That’s musician speak.

Think what an office-worker would say to a friend about your music: “It’s cute! They have this song that has a little ”hoop-hoop!“ at the beginning, with that baby voice. It’s kinda funky! And he’s got this sexy bedroom voice. Cool video.”

Think what one teenager down at the mall would say to another, when describing what they love about your CD: “Dude - it’s like if Korn hadn’t wimped out. It’s like Busta Rhymes went metal, but they’re from Mars or somethin. It’s slammin. And you gotta see that picture on the inside cover!”

Real people often compare an artist to other famous artists. Real people talk about the overall “vibe” or sound of something.

Real people DON’T talk about “insightful lyrics” and “wonderful harmonies” and “tight musicianship”. That’s musician-speak.

Play your music for some non-musicians, and ask them what they’d say to a friend about it.

Avoid musician-terms, and learn to describe your music in ways that reach normal people’s emotion and imagination, and your music itself will be that much more likely to reach and touch people.

Your descriptions of your music should be almost as exciting (or touching, or sad, or shocking) as the music itself.

At CD Baby we ask musicians to give a one-sentence description of their style. You’d be surprised how many artists say, “A sound like no other. A hot new artist for the new millennium. A band you’re sure to enjoy!”

Imagine if a business-owner told you about his company, “We’re a top-notch 9-person company. We believe in service, quality, and dependability. This is a business you’re sure to enjoy!”

Would you remember that 1 minute later or give a damn what that business did?

Nope. They lost you.

Think how many people you’re losing when you describe your music in a boring, or generic way.

When writing their description, musicians often say “The members grew up in Boston and met in high school. After the bassist left to pursue another career, they found a replacement who has solidified the lineup as it stands today. They regularly play the local club scene.”

Imagine a computer store saying, “Our VP of finance graduated from Penn State. We found our office manager through an employment agency. After our initial marketing director left, we solidified our lineup as it stands today.”

WHY SHOULD I CARE?!?

Get out of your own skin, and describe things in a way that’s interesting to other people, not just yourself.

When asked, most musicians say, “We don’t sound like anyone.” Or when asked what kind of music they play, say, “You can’t describe it. Just check it out.”

That’s a lazy, inconsiderate, stupid mistake.

Think of it from the other person’s point of view: Imagine you saw someone with a business card that said, “President - Some Company, Inc.” You say, “What kind of business do you do?” - and they say, “Oh, I don’t know. It’s not like anything. I can’t describe it. You’ll just have to check it out! We’re about 20 minutes down that road, and we’re only open next Thursday from 11 to 12 at night.”

Would you really get in your car and spend a Thursday night to check it out, if they couldn’t even tell you WHY you should? No!

You have to convince people! Grab their curiosity. Describe what you actually do, in an interesting way.

Make the wheels in their head turn. Make them taste it, hear it, see it, want it.

Anyone who asks what kind of music you do is giving you a chance to impress them. Take the opportunity.