Tired of Playing Other People's Music

I'm making my New Year's resolution a little early this year. December 18th to be exact. I've decided to take a year off from gigging to focus on creating my own music (rather than playing other's). And, more importantly, to spend time helping develop my three little musicians.

To be sure I don't get tempted to accept any more gigs, I'm selling my rig. This is insane power, crazy ruggedness, and a money-making machine if ever there was one. Two or three low-paying gigs and this rig will have paid for itself.

Click here for details.

The True Indie business model...

...and by "True Indie business model" I mean the business model for "true" indies... in other words the Indies that DON'T "just happen to have indie contracts from indie labels that are 'indie bed' with the majors" if you know what I mean.

So here's the True Indie business model... the absolute cheapest way to go about the business of being a small-fry singer/songwriter or whatever you might prefer to call yourself:

A) MAKE MUSIC: See the other posts on this blog for help doing that as well as all the places that'll help you on the sidebar "Top Ten or so...".



B) UPLOAD IT TO AUDIOLIFE FOR FREE! These crazy monkeys will provide true on-demand one-off manufacturing of 4-panel shrink-wrapped CDs in standard jewel cases (or whatever you want):



C) PUBLISH YOUR STORE IN FREE PLACES: Put your store up in free places like a blog, Facebook, MySpace, etc.


D) AFTER A FEW SALES: Hook up with HostBaby and get yourself one kick-butt web-site or two.


E) GO GLOBAL WITH CDBABY: Hook up with CDBaby (through your already established HostBaby connection) and get yourself a real bonafied CD (complete with Barcode and presence on iTunes, Napster, and a gazillion other places).


F) UPDATE AUDIOLIFE: Upload the new version of your official CD onto Audiolife.


G) NEED MORE SONGS? I have over 600 songs written. There's no way I'll produce them all. If you need one, let me know. I've got all styles and I'll probably let you record, perform and sell your CDs with my songs on them in exchange for radio play (equate to royalties) and exposure (equate to more business):


H) GET EVEN BIGGER IN A VERY SMALL WAY: Now that you've got so many great tunes and you're selling even more CDs, you can start entering that other level of indie and that's when you'll want to get connected with the professionals behind the scenes at Audiolife who can and will take your music (and your look) to new heights.


Seriously... Audiolife is where you need to start and if Brandon Hance (CEO) has anything to do with it, this is where you'll stay because, as he puts it:

"...we can do manufacturing for you as well. Whether you need short run orders or a bulk purchase, Audiolife can facilitate the manufacturing process end-to-end. Our aim is to be the one stop shop for artists."

One stop shop. Revolutionary.

That's it. All your bases are covered. Now you've got all the time to work on that mysterious fourth chord you’ve heard about.

Blogs are good too

First of all, they're free. Second, they drive a tremendous amount of traffic to your site. Your blog need not be a daily posting chore, it just needs all the right buzzwords. For example, my wedding music blog gets picked up by every local search a bride or groom may make in my neck of the woods. I don't get contracts out of every visit, but at least I've given myself that opportunity.

Even my diet blog drives huge numbers. In fact, the wedding blog, this Indie blog and my All-U-Can-8-Diet blog account for about 10-15% of the hits on my site and, of those hits, are responsible for about 50% of the gigs I land.

I post once in a blue moon. If I posted daily, I might increase my traffic, but for now, I'm quite satisfied with the ROI.