
Selling CDs to Strangers
Way back in 2001, my song “Ponytail Girl” spread like wildfire on Napster, mislabeled as an unreleased Depeche Mode b-side. Turning lemons into lemonade, I
Way back in 2001, my song “Ponytail Girl” spread like wildfire on Napster, mislabeled as an unreleased Depeche Mode b-side. Turning lemons into lemonade, I
Seven months ago, I added a WooCommerce shop to my site for a free CD offer, which I discussed here and here. It ran from
Over the past two decades, dozens of my mastering clients have hired music PR companies to promote their music. They always regret it, and always
Email is my #1 promotion tool. Always has been. I’d been using FanBridge since 2012, but it didn’t integrate with the WooCommerce shop I added
In my last installment, I detailed the mechanics of my free + s/h funnel. If “free + s/h funnel” is gibberish to you, you can
Why would anyone buy a CD in 2020? Let me count the ways: Getting stuff in the mail is fun Superior sound quality The artwork,
It’s been over two years since I wrote How To Promote Your Music with Facebook Ads, and it’s still one of the most popular articles
If you were wondering how I found your work, it was through Spotify. I was looking for vocal synthwave playlists. Yours had the most followers
In March of 2016, I published what quickly became my most popular post: These 59 Music Blogs Will Listen to Your Song, Guaranteed. Four years
Your new music video cost $2000 to make. One week after its YouTube premiere, it has 134 views. What to do? You could share the
Over the past few months, I’ve received a handful of emails asking me the same impossible question: “I love the blog, I’ve read all your
Three weeks ago, I received the following email from SoundCloud with the subject line “You’re invited to an exclusive promotional opportunity.” I immediately created a
You’ll recall from my last installment that streams don’t equal fans. Two campaigns yielded 180K streams, with no obvious boost in followers. Keep those results
John Gold, founder of Hypeddit, recently published a course called Fans on Demand Formula, promising a thousand new fans in one week. I put it
It’s always a good sign when a Spotify PR company rejects your song. It means they’re selective, a prerequisite to establishing fruitful relationships with influential
Spotify launched their Ad Studio platform early last year. I was giddy with excitement. For the first time, I could make potential fans hear my
Did you know that each time your song is streamed, it generates a mechanical royalty that is not paid through your distributor? You need a
You may have noticed that whenever you schedule a video release on YouTube or Facebook, you have the option of making it a premiere. In
Drooble is a social network for musicians. Like Facebook, it has a news feed with comments and likes. Like SoundCloud, it has artist profiles, radio,
I would never buy fake plays, and I strongly suggest you don’t either. You risk getting your material taken down, your account suspended, or worse.
In a recent How I’m Promoting My Music This Month email newsletter (subscribe here), I mentioned that I was working through a long to-do list to
Patreon has been doing a lot lately to help creators maximize their potential on the site. In addition to the recently launched Patreon U, I
You’re probably familiar with song share links that direct fans to the music service of their choice. For example, here’s one for my last single: There
A few weeks ago, I stumbled on this giveaway from Taylor Davis, and was blown away by what I saw: With almost two days left,