The blog is a case study of how the band Nicki Bluhm and The Gramblers converted YouTube sucess into an increase in fans and sales.

What I like about the article is that it includes so many ideas for improving your YouTube presense, from how to maximize the fan experience through video descriptions, to tracking views, licensing and copyright issues related to using cover songs, and becoming a youtube partner.   A very detailed, educational and interesting read for the business focused independent artist.

So whether you are already experiencing sucess on YouTube, or you are just hoping to in the future, check out “How to turn a YouTube hit into Dollars and Fans” and maximize your YouTube efforts.

While the focus of this blog is getting asked back to venues, the theme of building relationships and maintaining a good reputation is one that you can apply to all aspects of your career.

So check out “Get Venues to Ask You Back: 8 Tips You Can Use For Your Next Show,” and get to work on building lasting relationships with venues.

These issues are paramount to an artist success because according to Mr. Winogradsky, “Indie artists, and artists in general, need to understand that as much as they think it’s about making the music, in some ways it’s really about making money and understanding the business, because if they can’t make the money, they don’t get the chance to make the music.”

What are the top things independent artists should be doing from a business standpoint that they aren’t doing?

Most of the time, they are not getting agreements upfront as to what their business arrangements are.

With people who are songwriters, if they co-write, they need to make sure they get agreements with their co-writers as to what everybody’s shares are, what everybody’s ownership interest is, and who administers the copyright.

There is something called a split sheet which is a fairly short document that all the parties should be signing to say what each party controls and owns, because as soon as something is successful, everyone thinks they wrote more than what they wrote. So you end up with more than 100% of a song, which means nobody gets paid.

For indie artists, one of the big issues is dealing with producers and recording studios, trying to figure out what those services are, and who owns the finished product. If you are working with a producer, you need to know what the producer’s deal is, what he or she is expecting in terms of compensation. Is it just a flat fee and the artist walks out with the master recording? Does the producer expect some kind of participation on the back end? Some points in the record or some revenue share? In certain genres of music- dance, hip hop, rap, sometimes the producers think they are co-writers which gets back to the first issue of split sheets.

So in most cases artists don’t pay attention to those details and that’s where all the problems begin.

What are some of the biggest business/legal misconceptions that independent artists have?

The biggest wives’ tale, if you will, is mailing the copy of a song to yourself, then thinking it’s protected by copyright. It’s called a”poor man’s copyright”. Copyright protection begins as soon as something is put in a tangible medium of expression – as soon as it’s on paper or on tape. In order to get full protection, they do need to register with the copyright office. Just sending a copy to themselves with a postmark doesn’t help. That’s a huge issue for indie artists.

The copyright office has made it fairly easy to register songs online. It’s cheaper if you register them online than if you send hard copies to the copyright office. Artists and songwriters can use what’s called a compilation copyright – in other words, they can register the equivalent of an album all under one copyright and save themselves some money and then they’d have full protection. Most people don’t do that.

What are the most important steps for an artist to take early in their career to set themselves up for success from a business/legal perspective?

Most artists don’t have the business and legal background that professionals do to handle their career. It’s important for them to try to get a team of people around them that can handle some of these things for them. Getting a music attorney, and make sure it’s a music attorney not just some attorney who does real property or car accidents. This is a very specialized business so you need someone who knows the landscape and does that, same thing with accounting people.

The music industry is pretty unique in some ways, so if you are in a position where money is going to start to come in an artist needs to know about the tax implications – what they can deduct, what they can’t deduct, how monies get paid out. If they are indie artists with a band and they are paying their band members, there are tax implications. Things like filing with the IRS, sending out 1099s so that these expenses are deductible to the artists. But they have to be documented, and so an accountant and an attorney are crucial.

Managers are also crucial. Managers perform an overall function in helping the artist guide their career. All of these people usually work on commission. Attorneys usually work on an hourly basis, but some work on commission. So the artist needs to be very clear about what sources of income are commissionable. A manager will usually commission every aspect of an artist’s career. So it’s important to know what’s commissionable and what’s not, and what deductions there might be from artist income that might not be in the commission.

What are the most common types of contracts an artist will encounter over the course of their career?

There are 3 main contracts: the management contract (contract with a manager), a publishing company contract if you get signed to a publishing company, and then a recording contract if they are lucky enough to get signed to a label. These are complex documents.

Recording contracts can be anywhere from 20 to 100 pages. They’re very detailed, very complex, with lots of legal mumbo jumbo in them, so it’s important for an artist to have representation to review it.

Publishing contracts are a little bit simpler, but they’re still complex. They talk about issues that a lot of artists don’t understand. That’s the real key, having an understanding of the business that you’re in, because it is a business. It’s not just about making the music. It’s about making money from your music and having solid contracts and having a solid team working around you can really help an artist.

It won’t propel them to success, but it will keep them from getting screwed

At what point in their career would you recommend an independent artist start seeking advice from a lawyer?

The first time they are presented with a contract of any kind.

These are very, very complex documents. Artists don’t understand them in many cases. There are rights being granted having to do with the artist’s work that the artist needs to understand or have explained to them. There are too many artists who have signed away their copyrights to somebody else for no money thinking it’s a good opportunity, not understanding that the artist has certain rights, the writer has certain rights that they may not be aware of.

Same thing with recordings. Usually there is a participation in the income stream in these contracts so if that income participation is not spelled out clearly, the artist won’t get the income they are probably entitled to.

Do you have any advice on how an artist can find the right attorney?

Word of mouth – artists know other artists. If you have a friend who’s an artist who has an attorney that they’re happy with, that’s a good recommendation. There’s an organization called California Lawyers for the Arts, I think they’re based in Santa Monica, who has some attorneys that they recommend.

Belonging to music industry organizations where attorneys hang out, the California Copyright Conference, the Association of Independent Music Publishers, these are regularly attended by attorneys in the music industry and it’s easy to talk to people there, find out who they are, talk to them over dinner or over a drink, and find out a little bit about them. Then if you’re interested most attorneys are happy to set up a meeting and have a conversation to see if it’s the right fit, the right mix.

What are some common legal issues that arise with bands, and how can bands prepare for them?

In a band context everyone likes to think it’s a democracy, that everyone has an equal voice, but that’s not always the case.

If you have a band, there need to be agreements drafted so that the band and each member of the band understands their responsibilities to the band, and more importantly what happens if somebody leaves or if the band breaks up.

Who keeps the name of the band? If a member leaves are they entitled to royalties? If 2 members of the band are strong songwriters and the other 2 band members are not strong songwriters how does the publishing for the band get split up?

Some bands take a very democratic approach and say that everybody wrote everything, so all the band members will be listed, and the band’s publishing is handled as an entity. Sometimes each band member will have a separate publishing company. Sometimes only the writers – the actual writers of the songs – will get credit and will own the publishing on the songs. So it’s a very complex situation.

What legal issues should artists be aware of when posting content on their websites?

If they are posting it to their own website, the key thing they need to be aware of is that all the songs are original to them.

If they do a cover song, if they do a recording of a George Harrison composition, or a Police composition, or a Who composition, they don’t own the rights to that composition. They may own the recording, but they don’t have any rights to the composition. They don’t have any rights to use other people’s material without those parties consent, getting a license. That’s huge.

If the band owns content 100%, they can almost do anything they want with it. They can post it online, they can offer it on iTunes, they can create YouTube videos – as long as they are the owners they can do that.

What frequently happens is that are 3rd parties that have some rights in the project – the drummer’s cousin wrote some lyrics and is not a member of the band. They don’t own his share unless there’s an agreement that says they own his share. So it’s important the band owns and controls everything they have.

And then once they put it up, it’s the usual protections – is their website coded so it can be streamed not downloaded? If somebody can hack it, and admittedly 12 year olds in Sweden are hacking things every day and there’s no way to stop it, but you take whatever precautions you have for security, so if you offer downloads people can do it for free that’s great, but if all you want is streaming, make sure that people can’t download it accidentally because then you’re losing sales and losing money.

What changes in technology have created new legal issues for artists?

Well one of the things technology changes, is it had made it much, much easier to sample things.

Taking an old James Brown recording, or an old Earth Wind and Fire recording, and putting it in a new recording is much easier than it used to be, but those have legal consequences. In order to sample those songs you have to get the rights to those songs, and a lot of artists don’t understand that. They think that they’re only using a little bit, no one will catch them, it’s fair use which is a legal concept where under certain conditions people can use other people’s material.

Sampling is not fair use. It’s been clearly shown in the courts time and time again. So there are rights that have to be obtained that a lot of artists are unaware of and think they can just do without any consequences. That’s a huge problem.

Other technological issues have to do with the ability to transfer files back and forth, making sure the websites are secure. Some bands, some companies have ftp sites which are password protected so only some people can listen to the music and download it in a business context.

If you are going to put music up online, you want to protect it in some way so that everyone can’t get access to it and take it.

What resources can you recommend to an artist who wants to educate themselves about the legal/business aspects of the music industry?

The Bible is a book by Donald Passman called All You Need to Know About The Music Business. Don Passman is a very well respected attorney and he’s represented people like the Eagles and Janet Jackson. His book has been out for about 25 years. It’s constantly being updated. It’s written on a couple levels, a basic level for musicians, and a little higher level at some points for people who want to know more about the business. That’s one of the bibles.

There’s a book called The Business of Music by Bill Krasilovsky, Music Money and Success by Jeff Brabec and Todd Brabec. These are all sources that people in the industry use, and artists who want to learn about this type of thing should do so.

At least here in Los Angeles, UCLA Extension has an entertainment studies program where you can learn about contracts, learn about music publishing. There are other programs around the country that have similar types of classes and it’s to the artists’ interest to try to learn about their business. They don’t need to become an attorney to draft contract but they need to understand what’s in the contract and that’s what these classes and that’s what these resources offer.

What types of services and solutions does Winogradsky/Sobel provide for artists?

We do a lot of different things – publishing contracts, recording contracts if they’re with 3rd parties. We do a lot of licensing for TV and film, so if an artist has an opportunity to get their music into TV and film we know that landscape. Also for some of our independent clients, we pitch music for TV and film. So we’re their representative to try to get them placements and we handle all the legal work and handle the collection. We take a commission, and we take a fee for that.

We’ve had some success in getting indie artists into network television shows where the money can be somewhat significant on the front end in terms of upfront license fees, but once they get on network TV the money you can receive from the performance rights organizations, ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, can be far, far more than the license fee they get. And so it’s a long term play and it’s what we in the business like to call “mailbox money”. It just shows up at your door 3 years later, when the show that you’re in airs in the UK.

We assist our artists in getting their music placed. We do publishing admin if we have a successful client who already has a deal, or already has some music out there, we can help them collect their royalties, handle licensing for them, register their copyrights, register with PROs. We’re kind of a full service firm in that sense, not everything we do is lawyer based.

There are a lot of things we do that don’t require a lawyer to do, we have staff who are very well versed in this area and know the business and can assist our clients at less than lawyer rates, because they aren’t performing legal services, so the rates we charge are cheaper.

You’ve highlighted your success at getting music placements for artists on winogradskysobel.com, can you offer any advice to artists who are working on getting songs placed themselves?

It’s very difficult. It’s become a very crowded landscape. People have begun to realize that record sales are down, radio airplay is down. Getting music on a television show is not only good money but great exposure.

The trick for indie artists, as well as for us, is getting the right music to the right people. So you have to start off with having the right music.

If you’re a hardcore rap indie artist, it doesn’t make much sense to pitch your music to a program on Country Music Television. You have to understand the difference; you have to know what your audience is. Finding music supervisors for those shows and making a relationship with them is very difficult. They get bombarded by artists and cds and mp3 files on a regular basis.

We’re lucky in that we’ve been doing this for a while and we have good relationships, so in addition to sending music to the music supervisors, sometimes they’ll actually call us and say we need a certain type of song, I know you guys have a good reputation, you’re easy to deal with, you know what you’re doing and you have a broad catalogue, do you have something that fits this slot that we need?

Indie artists will almost never get that phone call. Because they have a very specific type of music, where we represent a broad range of music so sometime supervisors will call us if we’re lucky, and say: “we need this type of song, what do you got?” So for artists, getting to the music supervisors is difficult, and making sure that you send the right music to the right supervisor for the right show -that’s a real challenge sometimes.

About Steve Winogradsky: With over thirty years experience as an attorney in the music industry, Steven Winogradsky is a partner in Winogradsky/Sobel in Studio City, California, providing global media and music business affairs & legal support for composers, songwriters, music publishers, recording artists and television, film, video and multi-media producers. In addition to an entertainment law practice, the company handles music clearance and licensing in all media for many production companies, worldwide administration of the publishing catalogs for a number of clients and New Media strategies and Revenue Modeling.

Prior to being in solo practice with The Winogradsky Company from 1992 to 2009, Mr. Winogradsky had served as Director of Music Business Affairs for Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc., Managing Director of Music, Legal & Business Affairs for MCA Home Entertainment, Director of Music Licensing and Administration for Universal Pictures and Universal Television and Vice President of Business Affairs for The Clearing House, Ltd.

He was twice elected President of the California Copyright Conference, after spending nine years on the Board of Directors, served for four years as President of The Association of Independent Music Publishers and was named as one of the Outstanding Instructors in Entertainment Studies and Performing Arts at UCLA Extension, where has taught since 1997. He has written numerous magazine articles on the subject of music for motion pictures and television and lectured on a variety of music-related topics at various symposia.

Below is the About page from Volume 11′s webpage.  Written in 2007, has anything really changed?

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The model for musician development is in shambles. The industry is facing a period of profound change.

Recent developments like Radiohead’s recent efforts to give away its album for whatever someone wants to pay and Columbia Records’ recent proactive efforts to re-evaluate their ability to be profitable in the music business only bring this into sharper focus.

The mighty music business is in free fall — it has lost control of radio; retail outlets like Tower Records have shut down; MTV rarely broadcasts music videos; and the once lucrative album market has been overshadowed by downloaded singles, which mainly benefits Apple…

Only 10 years ago, companies wanted to make records, presumably good records, and see if they sold. But panic has set in, and now it’s no longer about making music, it’s all about how to sell music. And there’s no clear answer about how to fix that problem.

David Geffen September 2007

The record industry no longer knows how to sell music. With its decreasing ability to sell music for their top acts, the record labels lose the ability to take their profits to fund the development of new and up and coming bands.

So where does that leave the independent band or musician? In other words…

Where do we go from here?

Helping Bands Help Themselves

As with any change there are both positives and negatives. For the positive, the Internet has allowed musical distribution to become more democratized. Independent musicians now have the power to get their music out to fans through the web. Bypassing the old models.

However, the record label marketing machine is fading. Bands cannot rely on labels to help thems become known and listened to a by a larger audience. Radio is becoming increasingly less relevant. No longer is it the way people discover new music.

… no one listens to the radio anymore, … they mostly steal music, but they don’t consider it stealing, and … they get most of their music from iTunes on their iPod. … the biggest thing in their life is word of mouth. That’s how they hear about music, bands, everything.

Rick Rubin September 2007

Now what to do? Musicians in the digital age must play a more active and educated role in managing their musical endeavors.

Why Volume 11?

Moving Bands To a Higher Level

This website is dedicated to providing self-managing musicians or managers of one or two bands to quickly and easily keep themselves educated on the changing music industry’s trends.

Everything from the latest news to companies and products that can help independent musicians best self manage in this amazing time of change and opportunity.

With so much change and so many new businesses being created almost daily to attend to the needs of independent artists, there is a real need to provide a place to voice comments and opinions so everyone can learn from each other’s experiences and companies can adapt to user recommendations. With trial and discussion, a new music industry model will eventually be created. An active user of this site should be able to both play a role in scoping the new direction of the music industry and stay ahead of the game by being made a aware of the new companies that exist to help their music get heard.

In this blog Bahaijoub lays out steps to formulate a mobile marketing plan (useful in starting a marketing plan other platforms as well) like determining goals and knowing your target audience.

She also suggests getting to know different types of mobile apps and what types of consumers use them in order to ensure you choose the best one for your fans.

At the end of this introductory article about mobile marketing there is a link to an ongoing series on mobile tools available to independent artists, so you can stay up to date all year.

Just remember to make sure a mobile marketing campaign fits in with the rest of your marketing strategy!

Here is the interview:

What is a Royalty Statement and when should writers be receiving them?

A royalty statement outlines what money you are getting paid for the use of your song.  Some royalty statements are paid quarterly, some twice a year;  it depends on what you negotiated in the contract.

When should writers receive a royalty for the use of their song?

You have basically 4 types of royalties: mechanical, performance, sync, and print.  So if we go through them one at a time:

Mechanical is for sales of your song in terms of digital downloads or CDs.  Streaming is in effect this type of royalty.  Standard accounting here in the United States is quarterly, 45 days after the end of each quarter.

Performance is for the broadcast or performance of your song.  There are all kinds of different little performance royalties- on cable TV, on network TV, in commercials, as a promo, on radio, on the Internet. Those royalties are paid out quarterly byASCAP, BMI, and SESAC.

Sync is a negotiated license that’s necessary when you sync music to a film image. Usually it’s a one-time licensing fee, but if it’s on a DVD or something like that it’s negotiable.  They will usually be quarterly too.

Print is often quarterly, and that’s for sheet music basically, whether digital or physical.

What are some common ways songwriters miss out on royalties they should be getting paid?

Change of addresses, lack of license, lack of registration, split disputes.

Digital: a lot of people don’t realize that digital has to be licensed too, so they don’t get paid for it.

What are some things writers can do to ensure they are receiving the proper amount of royalties?

The way I like to think of it is: my song has a folder, or a report on what activity it has.  Maybe it was on a CD, maybe it was also in a TV show.  So what are the royalties involved? For the CD the best way is to make sure you have a mechanical license in place, you’ve contacted the record company, and you’ve given them your address, your tax information.  For the TV show, you need to find the producer of the show, or the network it’s on, contact them, make sure that you negotiate a sync license.  So licensing is probably the best answer to your question.

What should writers check for on their PRO statements to make sure they are collecting all the royalties that they are entitled to?

The two biggest things I look at are percentages and periods.

Percentages: make sure the statement reflects the right ownership of the song that you have, both writer and publisher, if you’ve kept your publishing.

Periods is a big one.  Make sure the statement reflects all the periods for which the song has been released because if you miss the initial periods, you often miss the largest amount of royalties, and there’s a short window of time to collect.

When are writers entitled to performance royalties for live performance and how do they make sure they get paid?

All three societies have different rules.  At this point, in the United States, ASCAP is paying on the top 200 grossing concerts of the year, (so pretty much big acts), but BMI and SESAC are paying on every concert, everywhere.  Obviously the smaller the venue, and the smaller the amount of dates, the smaller the amount of money.  Somebody like a Bon Jovi, I’m sure makes a ton, having the biggest tour in the country last year.  Basically, what you can do is go to BMI Live or you can go toSESAC and you’ll see “Live Concert performance” on their website and enter the information they ask for.  Usually they’ll want to know the venue, the dates, and the songs.  You’ve gotta have the set list.

Do you expect ASCAP to change their policy to all concerts?

I do.  Absolutely.  I think they’ll go to a similar all concerts thing.  Again, it’s a big time sliding scale.  You’re talking about thousands for a huge song for a huge venue tour, and maybe a hundred bucks a song for a small coffee shop tour.  But it’s worth it, right?

What is a suspense list, and how can writers use them to find royalties they should be paid?

Suspense list, unidentified list, or pending list (they’re all the same), are royalties that the licensee doesn’t know who to pay, or maybe it’s on hold because of a split dispute.  It can be a number of reasons.  Some of them post them on their website.   Some are very protective of them, so you have to get in touch with their copyright or royalty department and ask them.  You’re going to meet different levels of success, but it’s a great way to find money for your songs that you didn’t know about, you didn’t know it was on hold, you don’t know why.

What is an ad buy?

An ad buy is- when your song is used in a promo or a commercial, the ad company has to pay for that show to be aired, whether it’s on TBS in a commercial or CBS.  The ad buy information shows what that song was licensed for or paid for so you can track how many performances you should be paid for.  It might say “Renee’s Song- we sold it to this network for ads for 3 months,” so then you’ll know you should get paid for those 3 months.   All of the PROs have a form for you to fill out and ask for ad buys, but it’s not for every kind of use.  There are different rules for network and for cable. What you want to do is just get that form, and say- I have a song that’s in a promo, I have a song that’s in a commercial, I wrote a jingle, whether you are with ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC, get that form, fill it out.  They’ll let you know if they need something else.  A lot of people think, hey I’ve got this song registered, so I’m just going to automatically get paid, and that’s not true.  Most of them will ask you for a copy of the spot too

What are tips specifically for indie artists with regard to royalties?

So for indie artists- SoundExchange.

If they own their own master- for a sync use, they should license the master too.

I think you mentioned protecting the work by registering it, the sound recording and the publishing too.

If they go into a record contract, look out for cross collateralization where the record company basically will say- because you are unrecouped in this area, we’re going to take royalties from anywhere else to make it up.  Obviously you want to avoid that.

You want to avoid a 360 deal if you feel that they aren’t going to actually do anything with it and they just want the rights.  If they’re going to do something with it and actually act as your merchandiser or your publisher or whatever, then it could be a great thing.

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Eric Palmquist is the Director of Global Income Tracking for Disney Music Publishing.  An industry veteran of nearly 20 years, he also has served as Vice President, Income Tracking & Music Services for Warner/Chappell Music, and has held executive positions with Famous Music & Quincy Jones Music Publishing.  He currently is Vice President of The California Copyright Conference, and in 2011 received NARIP’s Best In The Biz Award.

The featured blogs had a great mix of advice ranging from how to land a record contract and a festival gig to John Mayer’s tips on avoiding social media pitfalls to how digital streaming is affecting today’s music industry.

Here are my favorite Blog Posts of the Month from 2011:

February Post of the Month: The Top 7 Things Independent Artists Do Wrong

I picked this article to help everyone kick off 2011, and I think now is a great time to go back to it.  Did you fix these problems this year? If not, it’s time to write some of them into your 2012 resolutions!

May Post of the Month: Great Marketers Aren’t Afraid To Annoy and Why You Need To Think Like Them

Artist and blogger Minh Chau discusses the marketing lessons he’s learned and encourages you to think like a business person, find a way to consistently and purposefully keep your music and your brand present in front of your target audience.

September Post of the Month: So, You Want a Label Contract?

Read Jon Ostrow’s tips on what to do (and not do) to get a label contract, learned through his discussions with many major label reps.

I hope you enjoyed 2011’s Blog Post of the Month Column! Have a Happy New Year!

In “5 Ways to Make the Most of the Holidays“, musician Cheryl B. Engelhardt gives advice for taking advantage of holidays to do some positive things for your career.

It is telling that Engelhardt starts out by pointing out how much work she is putting in the rest of the year, and that her advice is based on the assumption that you are working hard on your music career, year round.

She describes her own efforts:  ”I’m never not working. I’m either plugging my next show, looking for the next film placement, writing a song, scheduling a band rehearsal, calling booking companies, or, at the very least, thinking about one of these things.”  So before you move to steps 1-5 of her holiday advice, make sure you are starting with the same strong foundation.

Engelhardt offers many useful suggestions for your holiday to do list, including:

- Recording a holiday song for release on ITunes.

- Remixing your own song with a holiday twist (or if you want to record a Christmas song, see Limelight’s article for a list of Christmas songs which are in the public domain and therefore don’t require a license to release).

- Planning a show since you’ll have more family in town who could attend.

- Using the opportunity to tell your family about your upcoming plans (my favorite part of her advice).  As Engelhardt puts it, “They’ll be inspired to see you’re following your dreams with confidence, and inspiration is priceless.”

So check out 5 Ways to Make the Most of the Holidays on LivingOnGigging.com and give yourself the Christmas gift of advancing your career goals!

Happy holidays!

Basically unlimited access to music new and old; I can listen to whatever I want wherever and whenever.  Check Wilco’s new album out?  No problem.  I’ll have it up in 10 seconds.

It is so cool, and so well done.  That Spotify is so well integrated with Facebook is super great for independent musicians as well (though a bit frightening on other levels), since there is no better way to spread the word about new music than for everyone to see that you are listening to it.  Their playlists also have much potential for music exposure.

However, music exposure aside, are musicians making money from it?

This is the question posed by Music Think Tank in October’s post of the month.

From the article:  For a stream on Spotfy… 5000 plays generates around $6.50. In comparison, 5000 track downloads at iTunes generates $3487.

Another recent article on Fast Company cites that Lady Gaga had over 1 million plays of Poker Face, for which she was paid around $167.

This is not promising for independent musicians who at most could expect 10,000 to 20,000 plays.

The MTT article sees a minor victory in that there are no longer gate keeper restrictions limiting potential air play, as would be for internet radio or regular radio.  We can get advice from a friend and listen immediately.  (Still, Myspace was not so different when you think about it.)

Though Derek Miller of MTT sees an additional issue – whereas before he would purchase CDs of his favorite musicians as they came out, now the incentive to purchase is greatly reduced since he can listen for free on Spotify.  So the income musicians had before from core fans may be lost.  Tough one.

Please read both the MTT article and Fast Company piece.  They both highlight a new issue of the day – is streaming a good or bad thing for independent musicians?

Tough one.

I love this blog because it is about having fun while getting work done, and who doesn’t love that?  According to Jackson, “The atmosphere you build around your music can be just as compelling as your music,” so by finding ways to have fun with both current and prospective fans, you are increasing you opportunities to connect beyond what you could do with music alone.

I love suggestion #1 – Pictures with fans

“After your show, take pictures with everybody at the show. Let them know those pictures will be up on your site the next day. If you use Facebook, make sure to allow tagging so they can tag themselves and friends.”

As a music fan, I personally love taking pictures with artist after shows (and the sillier the better for me), so I can tell you first hand that this one works.   This tip can also have a two-fold benefit because not only can you have fun with fans while taking the picture, but they’ll probably post the pictures on Facebook, Twitter, etc where their friends can see how much fun they’re having.  Then their friends may want to get in on the fun at the next show!

I also really like #8. – Create a silly sideshow at your merch booth

“The fun doesn’t have to stop at your stage show.  Create fun games at your merch booth where people have a chance to win some special prizes you’ve cooked up.  Just be mindful if there’s another band playing.”

I like this one because it gives people who would normally keep walking a reason to stop at your merch booth.  People are at shows to have fun,  so why not make stopping at your merch booth part of the fun!

For these and 18 other great ideas for how to have fun with your fans, check out “20 Easy Ways to Have FUN and Get More Fans!” by Chris Seth Jackson.