Should I Stream My Whole Album Online?
THE ARTIST: Michael Gaither (Santa Cruz, CA) THE QUESTION: I’m finishing my third CD. I recently posted my first two records using the Bandcamp widget, so I posted full songs. Im curious: do you have any thoughts, pro or con, about posting full length songs? In a way this just seems more honest. Plus, clips only can [...]
Making The Most of Your Time on Facebook – PART 2
For many of us, it would be incredibly hard to “make it” as a musician if Facebook didn’t exist. Despite our recent post: “4 Reasons Why Facebook Timeline Sucks!” we do acknowledge the fact that FB has helped us along in our careers. With that said, here is Part 2 of a 3-part series on [...]
Making Your Fans Part of the Process
One of my favorite books, Blue Like Jazz, was turned into a movie and released last weekend in theaters all over the country. Go see it! The story behind the making of Blue Like Jazz is a familiar one at this point… movie has no funding movie gets funding funders back out production of movie [...]
A Simple Guide to Booking Your Summer Tour
Summer Touring is just around the corner. If you haven’t begun the booking process yet, what are you waiting for?! As you (or your band) jump in head first, here are some tips for doing it the right way START 3-4 MONTHS OUT By right, you should be working on July and August right now. [...]
THICK SKIN & A LITTLE MOTIVATION: Tips For Staying In The Game
Today’s post is another guest appearance by musician, Michael Yolch. If you read Yolch’s last contribution, “RADICAL MARKETING: HOW I MADE 80 NEW FANS IN 1 HOUR!” you know he’s a pretty outspoken individual who will stop at nothing to get his music into the right hands. Here’s a post that EVERY artist can reference [...]
The Anatomy of a Merch Table: What Sells & Why
After playing so many shows and talking to so many people after a shows, it gets easier to know what kind of fan will buy a specific item from your merchandise table. We thought we’d write a post based on our own observations. Let us know what you think and definitely add your input. [...]
5 Easy Ways to Get Last Minute Shows
If you’re a touring artist, no doubt you often find yourself looking to fill a random Tuesday or Sunday evening while on tour. Finding a good show can be hard to do, especially when you’re two weeks out. Here are some ways to fill a last minute hole. ASK TO BE AN OPEN MIC FEATURE [...]
5 Things To Keep In Mind For Summer Touring
1. YOUR FANS MIGHT NOT COME As someone who plays alot of colleges in the Fall and Spring, I sometimes forget that I can’t go to certain cities/towns in the summer b/c the audience turnout will be slim. Keep in mind that alot of people are back home, or on vacation during the summer. It’s [...]
Stand-out Artists and What We Can Learn from Them #3
To read the first two posts in this series, visit Stand-out Artists and What We Can Learn from Them #1 Stand-out Artists and What We Can Learn from Them #2 Artist #1: Ari Hest Brooklyn, New York’s Ari Hest stands out for several reasons. Aside from his excellent vocals and simple tunes, Ari has found a way to engage his fans [...]
3 Big Mistakes That Artists Make
The below suggestions have probably appeared on Grassrootsy in various posts, but last week I thought I’d loosely keep tabs on artist emails and FB messages and tweets just to see what people are still doing these days. Here are a few… 1. Falling off the map What!? Who are you? Oh…I almost forgot because [...]
5 Things I Learned from my Kickstarter Campaign
I first discoverd Kickstarter when I came across independent artist Allison Weiss last summer. KS caught my eye as an innovative idea – a recycled concept made fresh by techy art lovers using social media to help artists succeed. And they’re doing just that! With the struggling economy, I began to reconsider whether or not [...]
Social Media: How Much Is Too Much? PART1
Are you pushing your fans away by your use of social media? Today’s post comes from contributing writer Barbarie Jolie who writes for online classes. Here is Part 1. Check back on Monday for the second half. ______________________________________________________________________________ As a musician in the midst of the current technological and social media craze, you have everything to gain [...]
10 Tips for Writing a Good Email Newsletter
Be personal. Just do it. People appreciate hearing from you, not a robot! Check for broken links and broken facts. Nothing sucks more than sending an email to a few hundred or a couple thousand people only to find that you’ve sent the wrong information of faulty information. Put the most important at the very [...]
Getting Your Fans to Review Your Music
It’s great if they post a comment or a review of your album without you asking, but why not go out of your way to ask you fans to say a good word or two…or three! Why does it matter? Fan comments are a big deal; after all, it’s the fans that fuel the flame, [...]
Why is Everyone So Crazy About SoundCloud??
Today’s post comes from avid reader, Craig Allen. We love it when our readers visit this site, glean from its content, and then decide to give back by adding their knowledge to the pool of contributed articles. Last week I posted on twitter that I don’t really “get” the whole Soundcloud phenomenon and Craig offered [...]
Turning Facebook Likes Into Loves
We all struggle with this. You’ve got several hundreds (or thousands) of fans on Facebook but none of them are engaging with you. What’s the point of a Facebook Page if noboby is using it? How many true blue fans do you really have? Here are some tips to make your already existing fans, fans for [...]
What’s Wrong With Sending Newsletters Through My Email Account?
. After last week’s post, “DON’T DO THIS: 10 THINGS YOU SHOULD NEVER DO WHEN PROMOTING YOUR MUSIC” one of our readers asked “What’s Wrong With Sending Newsletters Through My Email Account?” We thought we should dedicate a post to this. Here are just a few reasons: 1. IT LOOKS LESS PROFESSIONAL This is [...]
Web Presence: How I’ve Built It and What I’ve Learned
Today’s post comes from New Jersey-based, full-time independent artist, Amanda Duncan. If her name sounds familiar, its because we interviewed her on our blog almost exactly 1 year ago. Check out “An Interview with Amanda Duncan“. Amanda’s web presence is serious stuff! In fact, its earned her free guitar gear and a recent quote in [...]
Promoting Yourself Like EVERY Fan Counts
So for one of my senior papers in college, I interviewed a booking agent at Third Coast Artist Agency to get a better idea of what working in the music industry looked like. I came across this paper last night and this line stuck out to me: “You might only know two or three people, [...]
How to Get Fans for Your Band – 4 FREEBIE Methods
credit: Shane Kelly (ballinascreen.com) Today’s post is contributed by Chris Rockett, a regular Grassrootsy reader, music consultant, and writer for PromoteYourMusic.net. So we all have music to promote but so what! If you don’t have actual fans, you don’t have anyone to promote to. Here are some tips from Chis on how to essentially “collect” fans. [...]
