Good Tools = Good Work

I’ve had the most complicated two weeks as far as my music has gone. I’ve been in 4 cities, haven’t had consistent internet access, and have been working around a computer that shuts off without warning every 15 minutes.  I am tired. But in light of all of this, its made me think long in hard about how our resources determine how successful we are at what we do.

Good tools = Good work. If you have the means to accomplish something, and easy access to aids that will help you do it better, why wouldn’t you go for it!? Yea, we’ve talked about Facebook alot, but here are a few other must-haves…

Time
It might sound silly, but time is a resource that makes a world of difference. When I’m on the road, you’ll notice that Grassrootsy (unfortunately) takes a back seat to things like 4-hour drives from city to city and lack of regular internet access. Set aside some time…even if its 2 hours a day…to keep up with your music.

• Check emails.  More importantly, if you don’t have any emails coming in, try and figure out why. Do people know who you are? If not, why is that?
• Do you need to increase your social network presence? Become better at just a few social networks.
• Read. Do a search on Grassrootsy and its likely that there’s a post about it or reference to it. Click the links on the sidebar to visit other sites that have something worth reading.
• Network with other musicians. Open Mic. Meet at a coffee shop and talk out ideas. This is fun 🙂

Space
This might also sound silly, but SPACE is a huge factor!  If you can’t stay focused, make sure you’re not lounging on your sofa while working on your music. Setup shop at your dining room table, living room desk, or in a coffee shop.  When you set aside a specific time and space just for your music, you’ll be more disciplined. It won’t be an afterthought, and you’ll get sooo much more accomplished (spoken from personal experience).

ArtistData
Here’s something more tangible. I’ve written about it before on this blog. ArtistData is the ultimate calendar. Not only does it allow you to easily post and update your show information, but it posts that information to all of your other social networks, submits your shows to Eventful and similar calendar event sites, and give you embeddable code to incorporate the calendar into your personal site(s). Very clever and very useful (spoken again from firsthand experience). ArtistData does much more but you’ll have to do your own research to learn more.

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I’ve written about it before on this blog. ArtistData is the ultimate calendar. Not only does it allow you to easily post and update your show information, but it posts that information to all of your other social networks, submits your shows to Eventful and similar calendar event sites, and give you embeddable code to incorporate the calendar into your personal site(s). Very clever and very useful (speaking from firsthand experience). ArtistData does much more but you’ll have to do your own research to learn more.

Straight From the Mouth of The Big Guys

Over the past 8 months, a few industry execs have come across Grassrootsy posts featuring their products.  See what they have to say about why resources such as Oasis, Tuncore, and Artist Data are so great…

1.] Posted by Brenden Mulligan (ArtistData CEO) in response to “Incredible Resources You’ve Never Heard About #1“
“Thanks for the fantastic writeup. We’re really appreciative. Just a clarification, we have a big list of supported sites and services, and work with them all differently. But we strive to hook you into the important ones and get your information as many places as possible. Take care!”

2.] Posted by Micah Solomon (President of Oasis Disc) in response to “Starting from Scratch: What it takes to Release a CD“
“Here at my company, Oasis Disc Manufacturing, we **include** the opportunity to sell your music at itunes, napster, and dozens of other reputable sites, and the sale of your CD at CD Baby. There is no additional charge. Check out this direct link for more info: http://oasisCD.com/top. Plus we promote your music to more than 400 radio stations on our OasisSampler radio CD sampler in your chosen genre. We have genres ranging from OasisAcoustic (that one goes to more than 700 stations) to OasisUrban, from OasisAlternative to OasisUnderground to OasisRock&Roots to OasisBlues to OasisJazz to OasisAmbient to… You also get the complete radio list it was sent to so you can follow up as you see fit. Again, there is no additional charge for this service.

There is a page I’ve set up where you can get a sample of the Oasis radio sampler for our clients that I mention above and more complete information on the iTunes and other distribution you discuss as well. We can only currently ship these within the 50 united states, for which I apologize, but I would love for you to have them. Here’s the direct link. www.oasisCD.com/request”

3.] Posted by Peter Wells (Senior Vice President of Tunecore) in response to “Alternatives – CD Packaging, Production, & Distribution“
“Thanks for the mention! We really do try to do it right. If you or your readers have any questions about the industry, feel free to write me. Thanks! –Peter (peter@tunecore.com)”

 
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Social Networking in 1 Minute

napkin status update

Here are a few things that seriously only take 1 minute, but will ultimately make a load of difference.
A little invite never hurt anyone
Each time someone adds you as a friend on facebook or myspace, send them a link and invite them to join your FB music group or fan page.  You can leave the link as a comment on their page or in a msg.  Something simple like: “Hey, thanks for the add, if you’re interested in knowing more about my music, check out the facebook group: www.facebook.com/myfbmusicgroup I send semi-regular updates and do occasional giveaways.”

It might seem like an insignificant act to add one single person, but if you do this for each person who requests you as a friend, you’ll be suprised at how quickly your FB following will grow.  Don’t have a facebook group or fan page?  Hmmmm…i definitely suggest changing that.

Who’s adding you?
Be aware of who’s adding you. When you receive freind requests (whether its on FB or myspace), just take a minute to check out the person/organizations page.  See what city the individual is from.  If they’re from DC and you happen to be in DC next month, you can lv them a short comment mentioning that you’ll be coming through their town. If an organization or company has aded you, then take a few seconds to see what they’re about. You might learn something or even get the urge to contact them and inquire about more information.

Post something new every few hours
Yep, they’ve all got it now! Myspace, Facebook, Twitter (and others) thrive on status updates. Be sure to post a new update every few hours. Music related or not. People will read it even if they don’t always respond.  If you’ve got nothing to say, just put up a link to your website.

An alarming number of my music comrades have begun to use ArtistData to not only update all their show calendars on various social networking sites, but also to post status updates on those same sites. Read this former post for more information on all that ArtistData can do: Incredible Resources You’ve Never Heard About #1.  Be sure to visit their site as well, b/c alot has changed/improved since that post was written.

If you have simple, quick social networking ideas to suggest, please post them in comment.  To read more about Social Networking and information overload, check out this post: The Negatives & Positives of Information Overload.
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Incredible Resources You’ve Never Heard About #1

http://www.youlicense.com

In the last month, some new and interesting websites have been passed on to me so I thought I’d do a post on new and underrated music resources for independent artists. If you are aware of other resources please post them in comments…and give Grassrootsy readers a short description of what the they’re all about it.  If they’re really great, I’ll do a more extensive post on your suggestions in the future. Here goes…

YouLicense.com
What an incredible idea! YouLicense.com is a website specifically created for independent artist who want to license their music for commercialas, movies, and any/all types of media. How it works: Visit the website to create a free acount.  Upload your music (up to 10 songs). You are given the freedom to sell your songs at whatever amount you like.  YouLicense takes only %9 percent commission.

For example: Lets say you have a techno-pop song on your page.  A new sneaker company needs some music to use in a commercial they’re making to advertise their shoes.  You list on your page that you are willing to license your song for $2,000.  If they agree to this, YouLicense allows them to pay you through the site in exchange for the song and takes $180.  You keep the rest ($1,820). 

Companies can also post “Opportunities” which are brief detailed descriptions of the type of music they are looking for.  You can then respond to them with your song. Its a more proactive approach.

YouLicense is an incredible resource b/c producers are always looking for material for training videos, podcasts, movies…etc.  Its also been very difficult for independent artist to get into the licensing industry and this makes things so much easier.  Not to mention the fact that you get paid for your work and your music will potentially reach a much larger audiences.  Love it!

Thanks to Jim Dispirito of Rusted Roots for letting me know about this.  There is so much more to YL, but I still need to do more research.  If you end up using YouLicense, please post a comment and let us know how it worked for you.

ArtistData.com
ArtistData is all about making life easier thru data management. In short ArtistData takes information about your upcoming gigs and sends it to all of your networking sites.  How it works: Visit the website to create an account.  Type in information about your upcoming shows.  ArtistData will then send that information to Myspace, Facebook, Eventful, Twitter, LastFM, PureVolume, Showclix, Sonicbids…etc.  The list goes on.   

ArtistData is still a very new site from what I’m told but the concept is genius and its web layout is clean and easy to use. Thanks to Brooke Annibale for the word on this. 

 

Again, If you’re aware of other resources please post them in comments…and give Grassrootsy readers a short description of what the they’re all about it. 

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