All of these videos are chocked full of great content for musicians that want to make money from the current state of the music industry. It’s great for beginners or a refresher for those that may have heard some of this stuff before.

This content has been released as part of a pre-launch for the New Music Economy Blueprint program which is opening on Monday. The details have been hazy so far, but it seems to be the same content from the New Music Economy product Greg sells for $47 – except that there’s a coaching side to it, and it’s also going to be limited to only 25 people. So far there hasn’t been a single mention of what the cost for this program is going to be. However, there’s one more video coming out tomorrow that will spell out the details.

More to come – you can get up to speed by visiting the New Music Economy Blueprint and opting in.

UPDATE: While the program is similar to the New Music Economy – it goes far beyond it with accountability and a weekly live coaching call; which makes this a perfect training program for those who need a little more hand holding than the NME provided. However, it comes at a price – $197 for 3 months or a $400 one time payment.

Definitely not for everybody, but possibly the missing piece for people that need further guidance on how to integrate online marketing with their music business.

Find out if you’re in a good scene or whether you’re playing in a lame scene.
Is it good to be the big fish in a small pond, if it means your scene is rotting and slowly dying away (think gangrene).
What the hell is a strong thumb and what does it have to do with the music business (okay, probably not the best analogy in the world).

Anyway, please check out the video and let me know what you think. Do you agree? Disagree? Am I overlooking something?

What the heck is an anti-rockstar? Well, lets just say it’s someone that isn’t worried about the hype, the fame or the rock star lottery fantasy (you know, where something magical happens and you live the sex – drugs and rock n’ roll life style until the end of your days in bliss).The anti-rockstar isn’t out for the trappings of fame, he just wants to do one thing:

Quit the day job and make a six figure income as a musician/song writer & performer.

If this is a goal of yours and you can somehow contemplate going through life without limousines, an ego-stroking entourage and mansions all over the world, then you might want to listen to what I have to say.

The choice is yours though, and I’m not going to beg for your attention span. You either get it or you don’t. You can choose to chase the rock star fantasy and hope that one day you’ll make it, or you can take action now and build a career that can sustain you for a lifetime. One is fluff, the other requires a lot of hard work and planning. One allows you to waste your life away chasing a carrot like a dumb mule and the other allows you to profit from the fruits of your labours and actually have something to show for it. One requires a throng of adoring fans so that they get the attention that they crave (perhaps because something is missing deep inside) and the other gets a dedicated following that they serve rather than boss around.

Which will you choose?

I’m not going to sell you hype and get you to chase the carrot, I’m going to share what I’ve learned along the way and what I continue to learn. There’s no guarantees, besides your own faith and commitment in yourself, that you’ll succeed with what I teach you, but I’m quite confident that I can help you amplify your odds of success.

I’m not selling anything here; like I said earlier – either you get it or you don’t. If you do, guess what – you can subscribe to my RSS feed or even better yet – sign up for my newly minted Anti-Rockstar mailing list. You’ll then be in line to get access to my free Indie Band Alliance membership that I will be opening soon. Free membership will allow you to have access to portions of this site that the casual surfer can’t access. You’ll get to learn some great stuff from me because you’ve made the first commitment to wanting to have a career in the music business, and I want to reward you for taking that first step.

So, if you’re willing to learn about the music Business with the aim of having a career in music, I guarantee that you’ll want on that list and inside the Indie Band Alliance; otherwise – continue chasing the dream and let me know how that works out for you.

MUCH more to come!

Anyway, I dropped Greg an email and asked if I could get a review copy so that I can evaluate whether his product lived up to my standards. I liked what I was reading, but at the same time there are so many scammy products aimed at musicians that I wanted to be sure before I recommended the New Music Economy as a trusted resource for those who stumble onto my corner of the internets.

Before I dive into the review, I just wanted to say that I applaud Greg for having the balls to put a strategy for musicians together and offer it to the world. It seems that for the last decade or so the entire music industry has been waffling back and forth on what to do since the MP3 turned things on its head. Is it just me, or does it seem like many experts keep making suggestions to the powers that be (in the record industry) while  musicians sort of wait around hoping something will be figured out so that they can go back to dreaming about getting a sweet record deal. Greg studied internet marketing and took the fundamentals that are allowing others to make impressive incomes from home with only a laptop and applied it to the music business – giving musicians the chance to learn a model that can allow them to quit the day job and make music full time.

That’s the essence of what the New Music Economy is all about, but Greg doesn’t make any promises that this product will solve all your problems. In a refreshing twist, he stresses that the New Music Economy is only for “action takers” at the bottom of his sales letter. Yes folks, believe it or not you can’t pay $50 and retire as a millionaire rock$tar – the world just doesn’t work that way! That little disclaimer tipped me off that Greg obviously wasn’t out to cash-in on those starry-eyed and impressionable wannabes that are hoping to win the rock star lottery, so that makes Greg Rollett pretty cool in my book.

Even though his main website is called GenYRockstars – this self professed anti-rock star will forgive him for his use of “rock star” because he’s not a snake oil salesman, and he kept “rock star” out of the title of his product.

Anyway – lets get on to the review of the actual product shall we?

What you get

The NME training consists of 4 Modules; each module has a video and a workbook to reinforce the teachings. The modules breakdown as follows:

• Module 1: Your New Marketing Mindset
• Module 2: Creating Products that Sell Like Hot Cakes
• Module 3: Creating Effective Content to Drive Your Fanbase
• Module 4:  The Sales Process of the New Music Economy

The videos range from about 20 minutes long to 40+ minutes, in all you get more than two hours worth of video instruction for probably less than you’d spend for a night at the bar (and without the hangover as Greg states on the sales page!). The videos feature Greg displaying the theory behind the New Music Economy business plan on a white board, as well as some screen capture videos of him making slide presentations and surfing the web to show you specific examples of successful artists that are already using the techniques that he teaches.

The videos have very little fluff and are packed with concepts and held my attention (but I’m interested in all of this stuff), for some people it might be a little dry – but you need to know this stuff if you want to make a career out of music. Grab a coffee, jolt cola or some Red Bull and pay attention because this module alone can have a huge impact on whether you succeed or fail at music.

The quality was good as well, in the last video I experience some sound fluctuations in my headphones, but nothing that distracted from the presentation.

The workbooks range from 5 to 10 pages each and reinforce the material that is presented in the videos. It’s been proven that the more senses that you engage while you learn, the better the odds are that you’ll retain what you’ve learned – so the work books encourage you to write stuff down and plant it firmly in your grey matter.

On top of that, Greg also throws in two bonus MP3s on a topic that I’ll keep quiet on (can’t reveal everything in this review can I?).

The Verdict

So how does the New Music Economy stake up? It does make some pretty bold statements to entice you to buy – like the headline:

“Make More Money, Sell More Music and Have More Fans WITHOUT A Major Label, A Record Deal or Radio Spins”

Does it live up to the hype? I think that it does, Greg dishes out concepts and resources that have taken me close to two years, dozens of lists, e-books, audio training combined with hundreds of hours of “free time” to learn for myself. If I had access to this course prior to all those hours I would be much farther ahead of the game – even better – I wish I had this back when I was 17 (but the internet wasn’t around back then). For $47 – you’re getting a first rate education that is still at the cutting edge of the music business (because the big shots still haven’t figured this shit out yet really).

However, let me temper this glowing endorsement – there are some people who won’t benefit from this training including:

• People who don’t want to work to apply what Greg teaches
• Cover bands/musicians that never intend to create their own music and merch
• People with zero talent and ambition (sorry, but there’s some people that can’t helped)
• People who want to watch the modules on TV instead of computer (the training is digitally downloaded, I watched them on my computer but you could also watch them on an iphone/ipod if you’re on the go).

The other thing is that even though this training is detailed, there are somethings that are touched on briefly that you’ll need to learn more about. I don’t feel that this is a ding against the product because this is a huge subject and with the time allotted Greg does an admirable job. However, some of the technology (like auto responders for instance) require further training than you’ll get here if you don’t already know what they are and how to set them up and use them.

I think it’s unrealistic to think that if you’ll invest $47 you’ll have everything you need. The concept behind the first module can easily pay for this course ten times over if you apply it and pay your dues; however there are recommendations that are made that will cost you more to pursue. These are known as investments for your business, like a domain name, web hosting, an auto responder and more. Once again, if you use the resources that are mentioned in this training, you’ll make back the cost of your investment and be able to build up your own music career.

Parting comments

The New Music Economy is a solid product that does deliver the goods, but isn’t for everyone – which means it is perfect for those ready to embrace it and proactively determine their own fate in the music business. Some will be able to take off and apply all they’ve learned and others will require further guidance, Greg doesn’t leave you high and dry though. The two bonus MP3s explore ways on how to make the entire process easier to do and beyond that he refers students to his GenYRockstars and Label 2.0 sites.

To make the best use of what you’re going to learn – take this to heart – USE the workbooks, apply what you’ve learned. Also – resist the temptation to sit down and watch all the material back to back. Greg makes this suggestion at the start, but I’m the type that loves to dive right into all the content. If you’re like me, you won’t be able to wait a week between videos (as is recommended) and will just plow through them all in one or two days. If so, satisfy your curiosity and then go back and pace yourself – do one module per week and take action on what you’re learning.

Greg – if you’re reading this, maybe you can switch this training to be delivered once a week to help people (like myself) who just can’t help but watch all the videos at once. I’m not sure if Clickbank allows you to do that…so your hands might be tied.

The New Music Economy Guarantee

If you’re still sitting on the fence after reading this lengthy review, you might be happy to know that there is a 60 day guarantee on this product. If for some reason you don’t feel that you got your money’s worth from the New Music Economy, you can contact Clickbank and they’ll refund your money. I’ve never had to deal with a refund from Clickbank, but I hear that they have solid customer service; but I wouldn’t even recommend this product if I thought it didn’t provide massive value for my readers.

New Music Economy Bonus

So there you have it – the anti-rock star’s take on the New Music Economy by Greg Rollett. I’ve included my affiliate link on this page since I stand behind the product and I’ve put together a special bonus for you; buy NME through my link and I’ll give you lifetime access to my DIY Band Website Training modules for free. Plus I’ll share some auto responder resources and tips to help you get started.

To get my bonus:

• Send  your ClickBank receipt to mike[at]indiebandalliance[dot]com with the subject “send me my bonus pleez!”
• Limited to the first 10 bonus request emails I receive

Thanks for reading, and welcome to the new economy!

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• The Evolvor Music Marketing Manifesto for 2010 (evolvor.com)

Band WP Themes is the brainchild of Greg Rollett (of Label 2.0, GenYRockstars.com and The New Music Economy – review coming soon) has partnered up with a dude named Brett to create awesome WordPress themes for bands. Like I said, this is the perfect timing because I’ve been showing you guys how to use WordPress to build a band website (if you’ve checked out my DIY Band Website training). I’ve been doing my best to find some great themes for musicians to use, but I’m sad to say that there isn’t a heck of a lot to choose from.

Greg and Brett are hoping all of that is about to change with the launch of their Band WP Themes product on June 7th. So far the details are few and far between, the features, price and even the look of the themes have yet to be revealed, so I can’t say whether I recommend them or not. However, if it meets up to the same quality level of Greg’s New Music Economy training, then I have high hopes that WordPress will finally have some kick ass themes for bands, DJs and artists to use.

I’ll update this post when I learn more, for now you can check out the video on why you need to host your artist site.

UPDATE:

Greg & Brett revealed their new theme yesterday on the GenYRockstars.com site (check out the BandWPTheme in action). If you visit the page you’ll see that Greg actually walks you through the install process (again for WordPress – Brett already showed that step) plus tweaking out the them. The theme is clean and has a right sidebar with customization options for setting up your newsletter, hooking up a photo gallery and a place to bring in your Twitter feed. However, I’m left a little underwhelmed at this point in time; most of the videos show Greg using the standard features that come with WordPress. Aside from the sidebar (btw, I’m not too keen on how the photo header doesn’t run all the way across the top personally) I haven’t seen anything new from this theme in terms of customization – maybe Greg’s waiting for the next video to show us that stuff? He promises another video on Sunday – the day before the launch.

Here’s what the theme looks like – what do you think?

The other curious omission at this point is the price. Nothing has been said of how much it will cost to get this theme. Rather than just sell a theme, it sounds like they’re going to offer a membership of some kind where you get all the extra training and perhaps more themes, but I’m not 100% on that. I’m uncertain whether they plan to release one uber-customizable band theme or just a whole slew of different band themes that you can choose from. I guess we’ll find out soon.

Bottom line – right now it looks like this theme is geared to the complete technophobes that either don’t want to learn how to use the text widget in WordPress or are completely ignorant of what you can do with it. It’s really not that hard guys – trust me! Having said that the BandWPTheme will live or die based on its price – right now I like it, but I’m not sure that I’d shell out cash for it unless I see some more features. However, I’ve been playing around with WordPress for close to three years and messed around with Microsoft Frontpage for a half dozen years or so prior to that – so I’m probably not the target market for this product!

More updates to follow as the price and further details are released!

FINAL UPDATE: The price was released last Monday – $27 for the theme only or $37 for the theme with WordPress training videos and support. As I said before – I don’t think I’d buy the theme, but I already know my way around WordPress pretty well. However, for those that don’t know how to use WordPress, the $37 option is obviously much cheaper than attempting to get a designer to build a site for you.

For those that are looking for some great training for free, I just made a decision to provide the first module of my DIY WordPress Band Website training for free as part of the free membership level of the Indie Band Alliance. Membership is closed right now – but will be opening soon.

But many people are intimidated by creating a website. They don’t know how to go about it and figure that it’s pretty expensive to get someone else to do, plus – isn’t it time consuming if I do it myself? Well, none of those questions need to be true. You can design your own website yourself, save a ton of money and not have to lose a month of your life to make it happen.

DIY Band Websites can be every bit as easy to maintain as your Myspace profile page, but you retain ownership. You can tweak it out as much as you like, and if you don’t want to do it yourself – that’s okay, because there are thousands of designers out there that are willing to work on projects like yours for much less than you’d think. I want to save musicians and bands from forking out huge dough for a site that might look nice, but nobody will be able to find online. So I put together some sweet training for bands so that they can create their own website using WordPress.

It’s easier than ever to create a kick ass website that is loaded with features for you band, without having to pay an arm and a leg or have to chain yourself to your desk for a month.

I just wanted to share something that I’m quite excited about; I’ve finally been taking the information that I have in my head and have been writing a DIY tutorial for bands to get their own website up and running within minutes for next to nothing. I’m calling this product the DIY WordPress Band Website Training, and you can purchase it right now for less than $5! My personal guarantee is if you cannot build a website after following the steps as I outlined them – I’ll personally set it up for you free of charge.

Now here’s the deal, since this is my first product and I’m testing the market I decided to offer a special incentive to those musicians out there that take me up on this training. This product is going to give you a high quality education on what you need to know to set up and promote your band online, without you having to be chained to your desk for hours each day. Right now I have 4 modules planned, each module will cost $4.95 and as I load up the videos the price will jump up to $6.95 per module. So when the training is complete the whole thing will cost just under $28 or so.

However, if you buy now at the low price of $4.95 – you’ll have access to all 4 modules without paying a cent more. This is a great chance to get awesome training at a fraction of it’s worth if you’re willing to put up with waiting for the content as I update it each week. It’s important to me that I price my products so that real musicians can afford them and that they provide maximum value. By purchasing you’re also doing me a tremendous favour because you’re voting with your dollars and letting me know that you’re interested in this training and hopefully you can give me some feedback on what you like so that I can tweak the content to make it even better for musicians to learn from.

So, if you ever wanted to learn exactly how to build your own band site, where to find affordable and quality hosting and domain names – visit this page and grab your training while it’s still only $4.95!

I can only guarantee that this offer will be available for the next day or so – once I complete the videos for module 1 I’ll be raising the price to $6.95 and once I release module two the price will then go up by $4.95 again – and so on until it’s finished.

Let me repeat again, that if you cannot build your own website within a few minutes with this training that I give you – I will gladly build the site for you! Plus the information I share on where to get your domain name and hosting alone can save you easily more than $100 compared to if you bought band website packages available out there. Being able to build out your own site and save well over 100 bucks is surely worth the full price I’ll be charging, must less the $4.95 that it costs right now.

It’s up to you – this is a market test for me to see whether there’s a interest for this type of training. I don’t even have a sales letter put together yet! So if you’re reading this and you want to get this training for a steal, buy it now.

Okay, that’s enough of my sales pitch. If you’re still unsure whether you want to spend your money on my training, sign up for the Indie Band Alliance list and I’ll send you 10 videos that will explain all about web hosting, domain names and what I think is the best software to use for building your band website (hint, I’m using it right now!). You get all of that for FREE, and you get a chance to get a feel for the way I do things. If after that you feel like buying my actual step by step video and written tutorial guide to installing, configuring and running your band website – well it’ll probably cost a little bit more by that time, so you’ve been warned.

Thanks for reading this!
Mike – self professed anti-rockstar

UPDATE: True to my word, I’ve upped the price to $6.95 because I’ve added 7 walk through videos that provide 40 minutes of guidance along with the module one 23 page report. This is a tremendous value for the money, and you can save yourself over $200 compared to signing up with certain website services online that are aimed at bands. Wouldn’t you rather keep that money in your pocket?

If you’re concerned about being able to handle setting up your own website, hopefully this video will show you that it’s probably a lot easier than you may think. You can check it out below and see for yourself:

If you want to see more videos like this that actually break down exactly how to use WordPress – you’re in luck. I’m going to be recording more of these and make them available to those who choose to become a member of the Indie Band Alliance. These videos will show exactly how to hook up your domain to your hosting account, how to install wordpress (I showed you in this video already) plus how to tweak and configure your WordPress set up with free plugins.

The WordPress videos will be available to members of the Indie Band Alliance and I’ll probably get around to offering it for a modest fee on it’s own for those that just want the videos and not a membership. There will also be a free option for those who are very tight on cash but want to take control of their online presence and open up their opportunities even further. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or ideas about the Indie band website WordPress videos.

This video clocks in at a little over 21 minutes, sorry…but I took a little time off from recording these videos and my long-winded-ness returned with a vengence! However, it’s worth it to find out how to save some money and still create a kick-butt website right? You can watch the video below.

Click Here to Get Hostgator Hosting for less

For those that watched the video and were wondering about the surprise I mentioned, here’s the scoop: if you’ve decided that Hostgator is the right webhosting service for you, you can get your first month for only 1 cent! All you need to do is click on my sponsored link (or if you’d rather I don’t get a commission for sharing this info with you, go straight to Hostgator.com to bypass my link), choose the plan you want and enter the coupon code “404PAGE” (without quotes) and you’ll automatically get the first month of your hosting for only one cent – pretty cool. Here’s the link again:

Click Here to Get Hostgator Hosting for less
Just make sure you put enter coupon code 404PAGE in while your going through the shopping cart or else you’ll miss out on the discount!

If you’re looking for quality web hosting with lots of features, limited storage and for less cash – make sure you visit Geekhosting.com – you’ll want to click on the “Linux” page at the top of the page, then click on the “Classic Geek” plans and choose the one that’s right for you. In the video I mainly talk about the Mini Geek Plus web hosting plan, but if you want to save even more money and don’t want more than a single domain you can get the Mini Geek web hosting plan for about $2 per month! You’ll only have 150 megabytes of storage and 5 GB of bandwidth. You can get by with this if you don’t have hundreds of visitors everyday and if you go lightly on the rich media files (photos, videos and music) on your site.

Remember, you can always start small and scale up as you go.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the video and learned that you don’t need to spend a ton of money to have a feature-rich and fully functional band website!

Click Here to Get Hostgator Hosting for less

So right about now you might be asking – what exactly is an ubercheap website?

An Ubercheap website will only cost you between $10 – $15 a year and isn’t a Myspace page or something like that. I show you a little trick that will allow you to use a domain name while not having to pay for web hosting or bandwidth. This solution may not be the most fancy solution, but it allows you to get a site up in less than an hour for next to nothing and no worries if your band folds inside of six months.

Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t a few trade offs to make this happen – a typical Ubercheap website is only going to have 50mbs of storage, but I explain how you can get around that for free. However, I forgot to mention that you can actually upgrade this storage amount as well – but I don’t recommend it because it costs too much for what you get, trust me on this. We’ll be talking turkey about web hosting fees and recommendations in my next video – again, just hang in there.

This video kicks off by showing you an ubercheap website that I set up for my old band Omega A.D (currently on hiatus). The domain that I registered is www.omegaad.ca – you can go ahead and paste that in your browser if you want to see it up close. Again, please keep in mind that this site was put up in a few minutes to test out the concept and that I haven’t fully fleshed it out at this point in time (since the band is on hiatus after all!). I briefly explain the concept of URL forwarding and URL cloaking. I attempted to illustrate this using a notepad document, but I now realize that the window is pretty small so you may not have seen what I’m trying to get at. Basically, if you also try typing in www.omegaad.wordpress.com you’ll discover the true ‘home’ of the web page, it’s just set up (through the URL forwarding and URL cloaking options provided by my domain registrar Sibername.ca) so that it appears that the site is www.omegaad.ca and not a subdomain of a popular blogging service.

You can also use this method to point your domain to a Reverbnation, Last FM or your Myspace band page. It won’t fool anyone, but you’ll be reserving your domain name until such a time as you can set up a real website for your band.

Anyway, I’m going to leave it at that for now. I also apologize for the sound being on the quiet side – put on some headphones and crank it. Towards the end of the recording you’ll here my little guy coughing in the background…sorry about that as well, but I at least didn’t yawn too much during this recording!

As always, I look forward to any comments you may have – without further ado, here’s the video!

Oh yeah – and the software is 100% free. Not for some 30 day trial either…for real! This free product can do things that paid products a few years back could only dream of doing! I’ve been using this software for almost 3 years now and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Anyway, enough of me jabbering about it – take a few minutes of your time (sorry, this one is over 12 minutes I think) and get the low down for yourself on what this software can do for your indie band website.