Indie Update

Internet radio is the best route for the indie artist to get their music exposed to the masses and it comes along at a time in which many of the local radio stations are being bought out by corporate conglomerates who dictate what is to be played on your local radio station.

There are many internet radio stations that will play your music. Live365 was in the first group of pioneers (along with Win Amp and Shout cast) to ever stream artist music over the internet. DJ’s are constantly looking for new music to play on their internet radio stations and some stations will even do live interviews with you or your band online!

Some internet radio stations have to pay a fee to performing rights societies, such as ASCAP, BMI or SESAC. So depending on what station your song is played on, you can get royalties from your music being played. Other radio stations are promotional stations which promote your music for free but usually no royalties are paid.

Use a search engine to find an online radio station concept that fits you and go to its web-site. Many of these radio stations have online submission of Mp3 files built into their site. Submit your music and start receiving airplay right away!

Indie artists should support their local community radio station that still believes in “breaking” an artist locally and playing their music.

Most community radio stations are non-profit. They don’t receive any funds from corporate big wigs who want to take over the radio format. They are usually run by volunteers that have a passion for music and broadcasting and they have annual fundraisers to keep their radio stations going.

Community radio is so important because after all, it is in touch with community issues. The commercialization of radio stations have really hurt the communities that they reside in because it was also an informative channel for what was going on in the region close to your community.

Community radio still features indie artists during morning and afternoon rush hour traffic, therefore, exposing your music to hundreds of people. Commercial radio has a person sitting in another part of the country providing you with a syndicated program that is out of touch with your region or listeners. You get some DJ that doesn’t know anything about the audience or the region that they are serving and it can turn out to be a bad scenario.

Indie artists should support their local community radio station by donating their funds, time and effort to keeping community radio alive.

You’ll hear many women say that a “good man is hard to find”. The same goes for a good man-ager!”

As an indie artist, you want to spend your time creating music. After all, a lot of energy goes into composing, arranging and producing a song. Many artists don’t want to deal with the business aspect of the arts but you must know certain things about management and administration and this will help you choose a manager.

A manager is an administrator for your band or group. He or she handles the day-to-day operations of the group and usually, a managerial agreement between the group and the manager is signed for a certain length of time. A good starting point for negotiations could be one year.

The manager works along with promoters, venue managers and lawyers to communicate the group’s vision and music to these entities. Usually, a manager gets 20% of the profits from what the group does and the manager should have great resources and the ability to have someone keep adequate records. The manager is also the person who is present at group activities, making sure that everything runs smoothly.

When it comes to handling to group’s finances, the manager should be given a Power of Attorney stating certain things that he can do without the group being present, such as, spending money, making business decisions and other business related items. It’s good to have an accountability system in which someone else is auditing your managers’ activities.

A good manager can take you to the stars. A bad manager can take you to the pits! Get a good manager and you’ll go places!

There are a variety of ways to build networks in order to establish a fan base for your music.  One of the most effective ways available now is web rings.

Web Ring sites can expose your music to people that are looking for new artists to support.

These types of sites are virtual communities for people who have a lot of things in common. There is a music community which you can join under the genre that you perform and introduce yourself, your music and even have meaningful conversations with fans.

Webring.org has a great site that you can join for free. It links other like minded musicians and fans to your web ring and even your web-site! Your web-site will get maximum exposure and the web-ring sends out newsletters on new sites and will even feature a web-site and bring you new fans.

Yahoo has a group concept but you have to have an email to join the Yahoo discussion groups but it’s worth it. The discussion groups exchange information about music and even technical information for the musician. Fans weigh in on what they are looking for as far as an innovative sound and provide feedback on your music and the music of others.

Web-ring sites can provide that musical exposure that you’ve been looking for at no cost and most of them are really good for building street teams for you or your band!

MySpace is a great site to promote indie music through and it really works. You get to meet new people and they get to listen to your music. Some executives in the record industry won’t admit it but they are using MySpace to find new acts. MySpace is rated the number one social networking site in the world.

There has been confusion about posting music on MySpace. Many artists are concerned that they give up their music rights by putting their files on MySpace. Of course, this leads to various rumors that spread on the internet and in the artist community like wildfire.

MySpace cannot steal your music or put their own copyright on your music. It’s totally a social networking site which just happens to specialize in music promotions. That’s all the site is about.. Promoting music. You can grant rights of your music to another music label and the people at MySpace wouldn’t care one bit. They make their money through good old fashioned exposure.

When you post your music on MySpace, you grant them a NON-EXCLUSIVE CLAUSE. Now within that clause is a royalty free (You don’t get paid any royalties) worldwide license to use your music through the service. There is nothing in the clause that assigns EXCLUSIVE rights.

So MySpace is okay and it’s cool to post your music there. You don’t have anything to worry about.