Over the years I’ve managed to rack up over 17K subscribers to my YouTube channel despite only having a couple of “real” videos. Sure, I could take my phone to the beach and lipsync. But I won’t. I’ve spent my entire adult life learning how to play the piano, sing, write songs, arrange, mix and…
Unless you’ve been avoiding social media (good for you), you’ve likely heard of ChatGPT, a conversational AI that’s currently free to test. It does a lot of things really well, and some things quite poorly. It’s a consummate bullshitter who will readily and unapologetically admit to being wrong. Can it write lyrics? You betcha. For…
Last weekend, I had some time on my hands. My wife was in Vegas for a soccer tournament, my daughter was at UCLA for a Model United Nations conference, and my son was at UCI where he always is. So I went out drinking. Haha, no I didn’t. I stayed home and worked on expanding…
No doubt you seen AI-produced images popping up all over social media. One such AI is DALL-E, credited with creating the world’s first AI magazine cover. The one I’ve heard the most about is Midjourney, and the beta is now open to all! Over the past couple of days, I’ve had a ton of fun…
I recently explained my strategy for choosing the 22 Spotify countries I typically promote to Now minus one evil empire, it’s 21. Those countries were chosen with the express goal of growing my audience on Spotify. If I were planning a tour (I don’t perform, but hypothetically) I’d make different selections. Similarly, if I wanted…
In our last installment, I detailed a process to evenly distribute your Facebook and Instagram advertising budget across Spotify countries by splitting them into tiers. But what if you’d rather focus on only the countries most receptive to your music? I had an idea to do just that, and so far it’s worked out pretty…
You’ve got a new song and you want people to hear it. Despite all the iOS tracking changes, I still think Facebook and Instagram ads to Spotify are your best bet. For an overview, check out my post on Facebook Ads for Spotify Best Practices. I’m going to tackle a very specific problem here. Are…
A little over a year ago, I released an updated version of my Depeche Mode tribute album with three new tracks. I detailed my attempts to sell the CD to strangers on Facebook here. When the dust settled, I still had over 700 of them in my garage. The tribute has always been the best…
I’ve been releasing a new track every 4-6 weeks for some time now, and I daresay I’ve got it down to a science. I upload the track to DistroKid a month or so before release, then work my way through the checklist below. Many of the items won’t apply to you, but they’re sure to…
I’m exhausted. My 12th full-length album Mages was released on December 3, and I’ve been going nonstop since October. The album promotion was a series of five distinct campaigns, not counting two singles releases over the same time period. I’m going to break it down into bite-sized chunks and perhaps draw a conclusion or two….
I’ve got an album launch coming up, and I’m determined to make it my best yet. That means putting together bundles of merch that my fans will actually want, and not just what I think is cool. I would’ve been happy taking a chance on cassette or MiniDisc, but vinyl is too big a proposition…
Matt Mancid and I just released an album of 80s covers that we’ve worked on since 2013. As much as we would’ve loved pressing CDs or even vinyl, paying the rights for 1000 CDs doubles the cost. We would’ve absolutely, positively lost money. So we released it digitally in two flavors: a 12-track standard edition…
It’s been four months since my last post. Sorry about that! My new album of 80s covers with Matt Mancid has been keeping me busy, among other things. On the promotional front, I’ve got plenty of irons on the fire, including three big reviews in progress. I share all the details in my How I’m…
I’ve written about Facebook and Instagram ads for Spotify many times, like here, here, and this one from April of 2018 where I noted that I’d spent $5888.35 on Facebook ads to date. Three years later, it’s $20,614.84. While there are still useful angles to explore in those older articles, this post supersedes them. Not…
Strangers routinely hit me up in my DMs with overly broad questions like, “I’ve got a new song coming out. How should I promote it?” I’d generally just refer them to my blog, where they wouldn’t find a dedicated answer to that question. UNTIL NOW. It obviously depends on the budget. And to be honest,…
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 used the incident as the basis for a tribute album to the band. It quickly became my top seller, and the initial CD pressing sold out. Not wanting to become…
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 May through the beginning of August, netting $3249, which I used to press 1000 copies of each of my last two albums on CD. At the end of September, I…
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 get yourself up to speed here. When I started, I had eight titles available on CD. Now I’m down to five, with less than 20 copies of the two I’d…
Why would anyone buy a CD in 2020? Let me count the ways: I first heard about the “free + s/h funnel” through Chris Robley, who heard about it through Indepreneur. It’s a pretty simple idea: you offer a CD for free. The buyer (air quotes) just has to cover the shipping & handling. Throwing…
UPDATE: I’m doing things differently now! There are still some great pointers here, but don’t miss my latest post on the subject, Facebook Ads for Spotify Best Practices. 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 and I…
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 articles, you’ve given me so many things to try… but if you had to pick just one, what’s the best way to promote music?” I bet you know the answer….
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 the spirit of “why not?” I tested the feature out on both platforms to determine the premiére premiere-er. The winner, in my mind, was cliére (I’ll stop). The idea is…
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 promote my new album. Several subscribers emailed to ask for a copy of that list. It’s full of abbreviations, acronyms, and other indecipherables, so I figured I’d break it down…
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 was invited to not one, but two special workshops: Special Offers & Membership Reboot. The former allows you to offer a limited-time reward at a particular tier. The latter involves…
That's all, folks!
That's all, folks!