Derek Sivers

The more senses you touch in someone, the more they’ll remember you.

BEST: a live show, with you sweating right on top of someone, the PA system pounding their chest, the smell of the smoky club, the flashing lights and live-in-person performance.

WORST: an email. a single web page. a review in a magazine with no photo.

(Let’s say that “emotions” are one of the senses.)

Whenever possible, try to reach as many senses as possible. Have an amazing photo of yourself or your band, and convince every reviewer to put that photo next to the review of your album.

Send videos with your presskit. Play live shows often. Understand the power of radio to make people hear your music instead of just hearing about it.

Get onto any TV shows you can. Scent your album with patchouli oil. Make your songs and productions truly emotional instead of merely catchy.

(Touching their emotions is like touching their body. If you do it, you’ll be remembered.)

Don’t try to sound pro or use industry catch phrases.

Would you do that to a friend?

Your fans are your friends. Speak to them like real people.

Write every letter or email as if it were to a good friend. From you to your best friend Beth.

Even if it’s going out to 10,000 people.

What’s more appealing?

Someone holding a carrot in front of your face, then pull it back towards them slowly?

Or someone shoving 50 carrots in your mouth?

Brian Eno (my favorite theorist) says the best thing you can do is to bring people to the point where they start searching.

Not so plain or obvious that there’s nothing left to the imagination. No so cryptic that they give up.

Give people just enough to pull them in, but make them want more. Make them go searching for clues, or details, or explanations, or “more of what you just gave me.”

Imagine you’re in the audience of a play. Big theater. Opera house.

Imagine there are one thousand actors on stage.

Which ones would stand out? Which ones would you remember?

It’s not always going to be the loudest or most hyperactive.

Maybe you’d be drawn into the misty-blue woman with the long black hair in the deep blue cape with half her face hidden, standing silently at the edge of the stage.

Now you, as a musician, are one of the actors on that overcrowded stage.

Would you stand out? Would people remember you? Are you being strong enough version of YOU, so that people who DO want who YOU are can find you in the crowd?

(P.S. The most memorable actor on stage might be the one that gets off the stage, walks up to your seat, and gives you a kiss.)

Define yourself.
Show your weirdness.
Bring out all your quirks.

Your public persona, the image you show to the world, should be an extreme version of yourself.

Think of the legendary performers in that conservative style. (The ones even your grandmother could like.)

Frank Sinatra. Charlie Chaplin. Liberace. Liza Minelli. Barbara Streisand.

Even the most conservative “legendary” performers were rather extreme characters.

Don’t be afraid to be as extreme as you can imagine. Being in the spotlight is the excuse. You can get away with anything, all in the name of entertainment.

Imagine the world’s attention as a big foggy cloud. So thick you could cut it with a knife.

You want to cut through that foggy cloud, to call attention to your music.

Only problem is, if you’re well-rounded, you can’t cut through anything. You need to be sharp as a knife. Sharply defined.

Example: Your name is Mary and you put out an album called “My Songs”, and the cover is a picture of your face. The music is good quality, songs about your life, and when people ask what kind of music you do, you say “Oh, everything. All styles.”. You send the album out to be reviewed and nothing much happens. Doors aren’t opening.

Imagine instead: Your name is Mary and you write 9 songs about food. You put out an album called “Sushi, Souffle, and Seven Other Songs about Food”. Maybe you recorded your vocals in the kitchen. Maybe you quit cooking school to be a musician. Yes it’s a silly example, you see how this would be MUCH easier to promote.

You may be thinking, “But I have so much to offer the world, I can’t just limit myself like that!” If you want to increase your chances of the world hearing your music at all, though, strongly consider stretching-out your musicial offerings to the world, and keeping each album focused clearly on one aspect of your music.

Notice the long careers of David Bowie, Madonna, Miles Davis, Paul Simon, and Elvis Costello to name a few. Each went through sharply-defined phases, treating each album as a project with a defined mission.

Here’s some top-sellers at CD Baby:

Eileen Quinn. She’s a full-time sailor. She writes songs about sailing. That’s it. Five albums of them. And sailors LOVE it. She gets written-up in sailing magazines all the time.

Rondellus. Sabbatum. A traditional medieval music group from Estonia doing an album of Black Sabbath songs played on medieval instruments and sung in Latin.

4th25. American soldiers in Iraq wrote and recorded an album in their barracks on a cheap computer with a $100 mic, about what it’s like to be over there at war.

Each of these albums got a LOT of press and a lot of sales, because they were sharply-defined, newsworthy, interesting to write about, easy to tell friends about.

In this indie music world, the best thing you can do is think in terms of “Test Marketing.”

This is what food companies do before they release a new product. They release it just in Denver (for example), and see what people think of it there. They get feedback. They try a different name. They try an improved flavor, based on complaints or compliments. They try a different ad campaign. They see what works. Constantly improving.

When it’s a huge success in Denver, they know they’re on to something good. They can now release it in Portland, Dallas, and Pittsburgh. Do the same thing.

When everyone seems to like it, they get the financial backing to “roll it out” and confidently spend a ton of money to distribute it around the whole country, or the whole world. The people investing money into it are confident, because it was a huge success in all the test markets.

Think of what you’re doing with your music as test marketing.

When you’re a huge success on a lower level, or in a small area, THEN you can go to the big companies and ask for financial or resource help to “roll it out” to the country or world.

Then they’ll feel confident that their big money is being well invested.

In doing this test marketing you should make a plan that will make you a success even if nobody comes along with their magic wand.

Start now. Don’t wait for a “deal”.

Don’t just record a “demo” that is meant only for record companies.

You have all the resources you need to make a finished CD that thousands of people would want to buy. If you need more money, get it from anyone except a record company.

And if, as you’re following your great business plan, selling hundreds, then thousands of CDs, selling out small, then larger venues, getting on the cover of magazines… you’ll be doing so well that you won’t need a record deal.

And if a record deal IS offered to you, you’ll be in the fine position of taking it or leaving it. There’s nothing more attractive to an investor than someone who doesn’t need their money. Someone who’s going to be successful whether they’re involved or not.

Make the kind of business plan that will get you to a good sustainable level of success, even without a big record deal. That way you’ll win no matter what happens.

It used to be that, as a musician, only 10% of your career was up to you. “Getting discovered” was about all you could do. A few gatekeepers controlled ALL outlets. You had to impress one of these magic few people to be allowed to present your music to the world. (Even then, they assigned you a manager, stylist, producer, band, etc.)

As of the last few years, now 90% of your career is up to you. You have all the tools to make it happen.

Record labels aren’t guessing anymore. They’re only signing artists that have made a success on their own. As Alan Elliott says, “A record label used to be able to look at a tree and say, ‘That would make a great table.’ Now all they can do is take a finished table and sell it at Wal-Mart.”

You have to make a great recording, a great show, a great image. You have to come up with a plan and make it happen, too. You have to make thousands of people want your music so much they pay good money for it. You have to make things happen on your own. Even if a record label puts it in the stores for you, it’s still up to your own hard work to go make people buy it.

The only thing stopping you from great success is yourself. This is both scary and exciting. At least you’re in control.