Construindo Uma Mídia Social Para Músicos

Building a social media foundation for musicians

First of all thanks to Kayla Rigler for this article.

Social media has made self-promotion for indie artists easy. The main problem is that there are so many different platforms, it’s difficult to know where to start. You don’t have time or money to waste. You want to get potential fans hooked and buying tickets and downloads.

Before social media, bands and musicians had to wait on the goodwill of their record label for promotion. That’s if they ev had a recording contract to begin with. In the past, DIY music production and sales were unheard of. In the post-Myspace era, bands can now record, produce, distribute, sell, and promote their music without an A&R rep ever darkening their door.

Here are the top tips for creating a following, gaining fans, and promoting your music and merch to the masses via social media:

1. Create a YouTube Channel

YouTube has replaced MySpace for band promotion. It’s one of the most-used social media platforms for music fans. The search features make it a powerhouse for finding a new audience. YouTube promotes you in “Related Videos” to the fans of bands in your genre, making it easy to capture an ever-widening base of music lovers. You might find you’re getting more traffic from other bands’ channels than organic searches.

Get our free guide to promoting your music on YouTube. 

Tip: Be sure to enter a description and tags that’ll help people who like your kind of music find your videos.

2. Create a Facebook Fan Page

Although not as popular with the under-35 demographic as it once was, it’s still the social media platform that most people go to connect with artists. Twitter is great, but it’s no Facebook. Set up a fan page for yourself or your band, and put the time it to make it look good. To engage fans, consider the following:

Schedule content updates.

You’re going to want to share several different types of content on your Facebook page. Upcoming events and new releases are vital, but fans also want to see candid shots, rehearsal videos, even some personal day-in-the-life content. Make sure you have a regular stream of content by using a social media scheduling tool like Hootsuite. Keep it relevant to your work, but make it relatable and fun.

Interact with your followers.

Take some time out of your day to respond to fans commenting on your Facebook posts. Let them know that you’re paying attention to their feedback and that you appreciate their support.

Use Facebook ads.

Set up your gigs as Facebook events and use the Facebook ads manager to zero in on your target audience and sell more tickets. You can narrow your audience by age, location, gender, even income. Then target your ads at those who like bands like yours.

3. Connect Your Facebook and Instagram

Save time by integrating your posts to deliver to your fans on both Facebook and Instagram. These social media platforms have different strengths, but combining them saves time.

• Instagram is more casual and fun, so use your feed to plug other bands in the lineup and selfies with fans.
• Instagram relies heavily on tags for targeting content to the right audience, and even Facebook is somewhat responsive to tags, so don’t forget to tag your posts.

4. Learn to Livestream

There are several ways to livestream your performances online. Gain new fans by broadcasting performances, signing events, even fan chats. Fans love to feel that they have a direct connection to their favorite musicians, and letting them in on your day as you rehearse, record, even pick up new equipment can be a memorable event. Facebook allows you to livestream right from your band page or personal profile.

Learn how one indie artist used Facebook Live to earn more than $74k in under a year. 

5. Get on SoundCloud

SoundCloud is one of the biggest audio file-sharing services around. You can share your tracks with fans, potential fans, and music reviewers anywhere on the web. The widget allows play on a variety of social media platforms to share exclusives with dedicated fans, and it even keeps stats on plays, so you know where to focus your marketing efforts.

6. Distribute your music

All the social media promotion in the world won’t help you much if people can’t access your music on the platforms they already subscribe to (Spotify, Apple Music, etc.) So make your music available globally! With CD Baby, it’s simple — and there’s never any annual fees!

7. Use Social Media to Create an Email List

Social media has become swamped ― even your grandma has signed up. But email marketing is so old-school that it’s new all over again. People love free stuff. People also want a sample of something before they hand over their hard-earned bucks. It’s been a tough economy out there for everyone. Offer incentives to get potential fans to sign up for your mailing list.

People blank out on ads, most still scan their inbox daily. Use your social media platforms to put together an email list by offering some cool exclusives only available to your most devoted fans ― those willing to part with an email address.

You can offer subscribers exclusive materials:

• Recording studio video footage
• Pre-release access to new music
• Exclusive or free-to-download songs
• Song demos
• Early ticket access
• Merch or other swag

Don’t Just Create a Product, Create a Culture

Music is more than a product, it’s a lifestyle, and genre identity is a thing. Become a social media influencer by offering your fans more than just your music. Plug other bands on the lineup for every gig.

Livestream interaction with other musicians and fans at the venue. You’ve probably already targeted your market, and you know what other bands will appeal to them. You might even have an idea of what clothes, movies, or video games they like.

Find your niche and give your potential fans the whole experience. Recommend venues and boost other musicians on their road to success ― they’ll probably return the favor. You’ll find that marketing your genre is a lot more effective than just advertising your latest song.

Jimi Hendrix Novo Album Apresentará Canções Inéditas

New Jimi Hendrix Album Will Feature Unreleased Songs

Unreleased songs recorded by Jimi Hendrix between 1968 and 1970 will be released next year.

Experience Hendrix and Legacy Recordings announced Wednesday that they will release Hendrix’s Both Sides of the Sky on March 9, 2018. The 13-track album includes 10 songs that have never been released.

Hendrix died in 1970 at age 27. The new album is the third volume in a trilogy from the guitar hero’s archive. Valleys of Neptune was released in 2010, followed by People, Hell and Angels, released in 2013.

Eddie Kramer, who worked as recording engineer on every Hendrix album made during the artist’s life, said in an interview that 1969 was “a very experimental year” for Hendrix, and that he was blown away as he worked on the new album.

“The first thing is you put the tape on and you listen to it and the hairs just stand up right on the back of your neck and you go, ’Oh my God. This is too (expletive) incredible,” said Kramer. “It’s an incredible thing. Forty, 50 years later here we are and I’m listening to these tapes going, ‘Oh my God, that’s an amazing performance.’”

Many of the album’s tracks were recorded by Band of Gypsys, Hendrix’s trio withBuddy Miles and Billy Cox. Stephen Stills appears on two songs: “$20 Fine” and “Woodstock.”

“It sounds like Crosby, Stills & Nash except it’s on acid, you know,” Kramer, laughing, said of “$20 Fine.”

“Jimi is just rocking it,” he added. “It’s an amazing thing.”

Johnny Winter appears on “Things I Used to Do”; original Jimi Hendrix Experience members Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding are featured on “Hear My Train A Comin‴; and Lonnie Youngblood is on “Georgia Blues.”

Kramer produced the album alongside John McDermott and Janie Hendrix, the legend’s sister and president of Experience Hendrix. Kramer said though “Both Sides of the Sky” is the last of the trilogy, someone could find new Hendrix music in an attic or a basement, which could be re-worked.

He also said they have live footage of Hendrix, some just audio and some in video, which they plan to release.

“It was amazing just to watch him in the studio or live. The brain kicks off the thought process -- it goes through his brain through his heart and through his hands and onto the guitar, and it’s a seamless process,” Kramer said. “It’s like a lead guitar and a rhythm guitar at the same time, and it’s scary. There’s never been another Jimi Hendrix, at least in my mind.”

Spotify O Top 5 De 2017

Spotify's top 5 songs of the year — one of which is its most popular song of all time

Spotify has shared the songs and artists that were streamed the most on its service in 2017. 

Ed Sheeran was the most-streamed artist of the year on Spotify with over 6.3 billion streams, the company said in a release. 

Sheeran's single "Shape of You" was also the most-streamed song of the year with over 1.4 billion streams on the service — a total which surpassed Drake's "One Dance" to become the "most popular song ever on Spotify," according to the company. 

Drake, The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, and The Chainsmokers (in that order) made up the rest of the top five in Spotify's most-streamed artists list.

Below are the five songs that were streamed the most on Spotify this year:

5. DJ Khaled — "I'm the One" (feat. Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper, and Lil Wayne)

4. The Chainsmokers & Coldplay — "Something Just Like This"

3. Luis Fonsi — "Despacito" (feat. Daddy Yankee)

2. Luis Fonsi — "Despacito - Remix" (feat. Daddy Yankee & Justin Bieber)

1. Ed Sheeran — "Shape of You"

YouTube Agora esta Ficando Mais Interessante Para Os Artistas Independentes

How YouTube Is Leveling the Playing Field for Indie Artists: Guest Post

The last few months I've been on the road in Nashville, Barcelona, Mumbai and Rio, meeting with artists and I've noticed something is brewing. The gates are down and independent artists are dashing into the music world like no other time. It's got many people outside the independent music scene looking over their shoulders. 

What's the cause of all this? YouTube. 

It's no secret that YouTube is a disruptive factor in the music industry. It provides incredible opportunities for every type of artist to reach fans all over the world with their music, plus enables new and unsigned artists to compete with popular artists and the mainstream music industry on a more level playing field thanks to its technology. Those once-rare viral music videos that plastered headlines a few years ago were signposts for a new way to build music audiences.

Artists are now using YouTube to act like the TV stations, radio programmers, and newsrooms of the past. And YouTube itself is highly engaged in helping creators unlock the potential of its platform. In August, at our third annual DIY Musician Conference, YouTube staffers attended in force, showing creators how to create and promote their music and videos on the platform.

As I traveled, I got a little curious myself about how YouTube might be changing the world of music. So, to explore these international scenes, on long airplane rides, I read Streampunks, the new book by the company's chief business officer Robert Kyncl. It left me energized and intrigued, with a new appreciation for artists around the world who are unlocking YouTube's potential. 

YouTube Success Stories

The first time I observed a YouTube success at CD Baby was in 2012 when we got a call from a publisher that owned the composition rights to the song "Somebody That I Used to Know" by the artist Gotye. He called because Gotye's song was number one everywhere in the Western world, except Canada, where a cover of the song had topped the charts instead. That cover was an appropriately licensed version by the band Walk Off the Earth, who released a brilliant video, "5 Peeps, 1 Guitar," that powered its version to number one instead. As of this writing, the group now has 2.8 million subscribers and is approaching 700 million aggregate views on its YouTube channel, in addition to 188K followers on Instagram and 2.9 million Facebook likes. They've used their YouTube channel to continually create quirky, interesting, compelling videos and build their repertoire to include a major label release that includes a gold certified record.

At CD Baby, we're fortunate to work with a number of other artists who have built thriving independent music careers using a similar YouTube-first approach, building a fanbase with a steady release of covers before releasing their own original content. We're also thrilled to see the rapid growth in earnings for independent creators whose music and videos we administer on YouTube. In the past five years these earnings have grown from virtually nothing to nearly 10 percent of the $100 million our artists will earn this year. 

The amazingly talented vocalist Peter Hollens whose channel has 1.7 million subscribers and 264 million views has built much of his career on YouTube. He also has 126K Twitter follows. The band Ninja Sex Party appealed to its 1 million YouTube subscribers last year with a physical pre-release of Under the Covers, selling nearly 44,000 CDs and vinyl records and debuting on the Billboard charts at No. 9. And just in case you're tempted to write this off as a fluke, it's worth noting that NSP has just repeated this success a few weeks ago, with their second release, Under the Covers 2. The group used YouTube to pre-sell 25,000 CDs and released in the top 20 on the Billboard charts. This approach to building a fanbase of YouTube subscribers as a bridge to the next level is no longer novel, and it's happening all over the world. 

Unlocking Progress

YouTube is unsettling the order of things everywhere in the music industry for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it enables the artist to connect directly with more than 1.5 billion potential fans worldwide. There is no other digital platform that unlocks this large of an audience worldwide (second place might be Apple's iTunes with over 1 billion users, and third is China's Tencent, which has more than 500 million subscribers.)

YouTube also lowers the barriers of investment for art. A well-thought out, highly creative and competently performed video can now compete with the high cost, commercially produced, major label financed videos on a more level playing field. It enables artists to retain both ownership and creative control, leading in my opinion to more diverse creative expression.

The platform also provides incredibly valuable data directly to channel owners and creators with a few clicks. Utilizing YouTube's analytics, creators know who their fans are and where their fans are, which in turn helps them conceive content that resonates with their audience. This enables creators to understand how to better deploy their most scarce resource: their time. It helps them understand things like where to tour and even what kind of content to create. And it does this in near real time. YouTube enables transparency in an industry known for opacity.

YouTube paid out more than a billion dollars to the music industry in 2016. That is triple the amount of ad supported revenue paid out by Spotify, although less than either Apple iTunes or Spotify in aggregate dollars. And YouTube is here to stay as part of the massive Google-Alphabet ecosystem.

The next time you hear an industry pundit decry the low per stream payouts from YouTube, consider who the source is and who is really threatened by access, transparency, diversity of art and competition for fans worldwide. I'm excited to see how both YouTube and other platforms evolve in how they are connecting artists and fans.  My hope is that Apple, Spotify and emerging platforms like Tencent also invest in these tools of connection that are clearly helping independent artists level the playing field.

Tracy Maddux is the CEO of CD Baby

Conheça O Electric Feel Um 'Indie Management Label' Que Ocupa O Top Da Billboard

Meet the Indie Management Label Behind the Success of Post Malone's 'Rockstar' & Camila Cabello's 'Havana'

Indie management label Electric Feel -- comprised of founder Austin Rosen, manager James Canton, and head of strategy and marketing Justin Stirling -- has a talent roster that has amassed over 10 billion streams, 6.5 billion YouTube video views, and 20 Grammy nominations, including 14 this year alone. The company's roster includes super-producer Frank Dukes, Louis Bell, Brian Lee, 1Mind, Carter Lang, Mike Stud, Buddy, Vory, Bridge, Demo Taped, Chuck Adams, Blonder, and rapper and Republic Records signee Post Malone.

In addition, the company is behind the current No. 1 and No. 2 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, with Louis Bell producing Post Malone and 21 Savage'scharismatic "Rockstar" and Frank Dukes, Brian Lee, and Louis Bell teaming for Camila Cabello and Young Thug's hot "Havana". Other Hot 100 hits Electric Feel's roster has contributed to include Bruno Mars' "That's What I Like" (Brody Brown), French Montana and Swae Lee's "Unforgettable" (1Mind), Post Malone and Quavo's "Congratulations" (Frank Dukes, Louis Bell), and Selena Gomez and Marshmello's "Wolves" (Brian Lee, Louis Bell). 

With some many accolades and accomplishments under their belt, the company still flies under the radar and focuses more on the work rather than a public image. However, Billboard had a chance recently to sit down with the label heads and speak more about the company's founding, how they motivate and manage expectations of their talent, and what's to come for 2018.

What made you open up a recording studio at 21 as opposed to signing someone right away to manage?

Austin Rosen (Age 29): The studio was just to find talent and put [the artists] together. It was to connect people and give them a place to work. I didn't have to have someone else picking people. We had a chance to pick people and find out about them. We got to do it on our own terms, so that we were able to develop talent and work together. So now we have it where there's multiple people on a record that's a part of the team. 

How did you know how to do that? Did you have any friends in the industry?

Austin: Trial and error. And no I just watched the way my dad worked with designers and other creative people. I saw how he was able to connect with them. 

How did you go from having a studio to creating a company?

Austin: I worked with French Montana a lot early on in my career around 2012, helping to put together and put out his music. I wanted to do more and work with writers and producers, so around the time he got signed to Bad Boy, I started doing that. But in those sessions, I starting meeting people and working with them. Nipsey Hussle was one artist I was working with. He had a friend that introduced me to Brody Brown, who he thought was really talented. Him and I started working together, and Brody eventually started doing Bruno Mars' records. But it all started with me just meeting people coming into the studio. 

How did the three of you come together?

Austin: I've known James for a long time. He just graduated from school and was working for another company, Three Six Zero. So I thought it would be cool for him to come work for us. I thought he was really smart. Justin, I know through Andrew Watt, a writer and producer we work with a lot. And so, I was working with him for a while and we decided to partner.

Why do you feel like you all work together so well?

Austin: We just had to scale the business and it was about having people around to handle the artists we were taking in and trying to break. 

How did you come up with the name Electric Feel?

Austin: I had to come up with a name quick, and the song by MGMT was out and I thought it was a really cool play on words. But now I actually do like the name [Laughs].

How important is capital when starting a music management company?

Justin Stirling (Age 24): It depends. It doesn't cost us money to manage clients unless we sign them to development deals and production deals. Most of the people we manage are generating revenue already. We are at a point where we have operations and overhead so we manage top level clientele. If talent isn't generating revenue, then we sign them to an early developmental deal and that's where it does cost money. But it's important to find talent early, believe in them, and help them get their point across.

How do you scout talent?

James Canton (Age 23): First and foremost, the studio. I believe it's the best location. Our roster speaks for itself. A lot of dope artists and dope producers gravitate towards each other. A random kid might come in here one night and we might be able to do great things together. Also, you can always find people online. You could get a link through SoundCloud or blogs like Hillydilly. There's just so many outlets these days. But first and foremost, the studio. 

What's the quickest you've signed someone? 

Austin: Vory. Literally the day we met him, we started working with him. We just scrapped everything he had done before and put him in here with our guys. Then, he brought in other guys he was finding, just having them come through. Even Brian Lee, the first time I met him, we started working with him on that same day. Brian came from a friend who introduced us who shoots a lot of videos for us.

A lot of it is word of mouth, people introducing us knowing that we do a good job with the people we work with, so they bring people to us. That definitely happens a lot. I like it when it happens that way because then someone is vetting it out already and happens more in an organic way. 

Justin: We've also created this crazy ecosystem that exists of producers and songwriters, artists. We have a publishing arm of the company and are able to put records out. We kind of have the capability of a management company and a major label that all takes place in-house. We have resources available if you're a songwriter and want to sit and write music. If you're a developing artists, we have an in-house studio. That structure alone is very unique... We may have a developing artist and a successful producer, and we have the ability to pair them without it being a big problem of studio rentals or paying high producer fees. 

How do you manage your talent's expectations in what you can do for them?

Justin: I think it's just providing them with great communication. Austin handles all of the negotiations on splits and everything. I work more on building brands on our producers and writers because at this point, they're coming out into the forefront in pop culture. Things like the Spotify Genius program puts visibility and focus on them. I look at producers and songwriters as artists and want to build massive brands out of them. Austin does the same thing, but handles the finance and negotiations.

Is there a difference in managing talent in front of the camera or behind the scenes?

Justin: I would like to say that we're starting to treat it all the same. We partnered with Spotify to put up this massive billboard of a producer we manage named Frank Dukes in the middle of Toronto. That was up until 6 months ago. That was only done for artists. So it's becoming very similar. In a way, sometimes producers and writers might be less of a hassle than artists. 

Why do you feel that producers and writers are more at the forefront?

Austin: Because people want to know who is making the music now. It's less about manufactured records and more about true records. It's why songwriter artists are more effective right now than artists that are getting records handed to them. 

Do you have any mentors you look up to in the industry?

Austin: Ron Perry. I signed one of the first writers to his company that was non-catalog, which was Brian Lee and we've worked a lot throughout the years. He's really impressive. He sets his goals and he always signs whoever he wants.

James: Definitely Jody Gerson. I was fortunate to grow up around her and she's definitely part of the reason why I chose this path. She's always someone I can always call on when I need advice. 

Austin: She gave us our publishing joint venture and we work really close with her. She signed Post Malone to his deal as well. 

Why do you think it's important to have mentors in the industry?

Justin: To be humble and give them the respect of knowing that they've been there before you and put their dues in. A lot of times young guys like us come so hot-headed at things and don't realize the people who have experienced more are coming from a place of knowledge. I think it's a respect thing and there's no better education than actually talking to someone and seeing what they've learned. 

What's next for you?

Austin: We did the entire Camila Cabello album. It's insane. I'm really close with Roger Gold, which is her manager. We're both involved with 300 Entertainment and he had known about the writers and producers we had. We did "Work From Home," which was also the big record for Fifth Harmony. He was scared at first to work with us at first because of not wanting to be so close to the Fifth Harmony sound. But then, we had a session where we made "Havana" and right from there, he let us work with her for three months. We executive produced it, and our producer Frank Dukes did the entire thing. All of our guys are on it. It's amazing. And then we have Post Malone's album, which we did the entire thing as well. 

What's some advice you would give to someone who is an upcoming manager? If they wanted to know where to start, what is the first thing you would tell them?

Austin: Hit us up. Partner with us. 

Netflix 'Perdidos No Espaço' Apresenta A Música De Christopher Lennertz

Netflix’s ‘Lost in Space’ to Feature Music by Christopher Lennertz

This week, Christopher Lennertz is recording his score for multiple episodes of the upcoming Netflix original series Lost in Space. The show based on the 1960s sci-fi classic stars Toby Stephens, Molly Parker, Ignacio Serricchio, Taylor Russell, Maxwell Jenkins, Parker Posey and Mina Sundwall.The drama follows the Robinson family as they must come together to survive when they are stranded light years from their destination. Zack Estrin serves as the project’s showrunner and is executive producing the Legendary Television, Synthesis Entertainment and Applebox production with Jon Jashni (Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla), Kevin Burns, Marc Helwig and Neil Marshall (The Descent) who is also directing several episodes. Lost in Space will premiere in 2018 on Netflix.

7 Coisas Que Um Músico Deveria Fazer Antes De 2018

7 things every musician should do before 2018

Don’t waste your downtime this holiday season.

For musicians, the holidays can be a time of either frenzy or famine. You may find yourself rushing down the freeway from your tenth corporate gig of the month to your fifth holiday house concert, finally getting a second to to check the Spotify for Artists app to see how your new Christmas single is doing while stopped at a red light.

Either that, or you’re on the couch in a food coma while A Christmas Story loops endlessly on the TV, longing for the New Year to arrive so you can put this holiday haze behind you and start playing club gigs again.

Whether December provides you with only a few free moments or gives you all the time in the world, there are a handful of important things you should do as a musician before the end of the year.

An end-of-year checklist for independent musicians:

1. Professionalize your publishing rights

Even if you don’t consider yourself a “songwriter,” you ARE one if you create original music.

As a songwriter, you’re owed publishing royalties for the usage of your music, including mechanical royalties for global streaming and international downloads, performance royalties for radio plays and live shows, and more. But these kinds of royalties are not usually paid through a distributor, and only a portion of them are collected by Performing Rights Organizations such as ASCAP and BMI.

If you don’t have a publisher or publishing administrator working to collect these royalties, you’re missing out on YOUR money.  But there’s a simple fix: CD Baby Pro Publishing!

Sign up or upgrade your releases to CD Baby Pro Publishing and we’ll make sure you’re paid everything you’re owed.

2. Get verified as an artist on Spotify

Spotify is the dominant player in the streaming world, and they give you a number of tools to boost your music’s profile on the platform. But not if you aren’t verified. It’s a pretty easy process though.

Go HERE to learn how to get verified, what you can do as a verified artist, and how to build your following on Spotify.

3. Create a Show.co account (it’s FREE!)

Show.co is a super elegant suite of music marketing tools that have been used by major labels and major artists like Maroon 5, Tove Lo, OASIS, and more.

Show.co campaigns give you a way to turn casual fan interest into concrete, action-driven results. As a CD Baby artist, you get to use Show.co for free to boost your presence on Spotify, grow your email list, drive views or subscribes on YouTube, and more.

Claim your Show.co account and launch a campaign in minutes by logging into your CD Baby members account and clicking “Free Marketing Tools.”

4. Buy your early-bird ticket for the DIY Musician Conference

It’s our event, so this might sound hyperbolic (or at least biased), but we’ve heard it from so many attendees: The DIY Musician Conference can be career-changing, giving you a super affordable opportunity to learn from experts, get one-on-one mentoring, meet reps from important music and tech brands, network, showcase, and make friends that will support you for the long-haul, because they understand exactly what it’s like to be committed to a life in music.

Our fourth annual DIY Musician Conference will be happening in Nashville from August 24-26, 2018, and tickets right now are only $79. Get ’em before the price goes up.

5. Sign up with SoundExchange

SoundExchange collects royalties for the digital transmission of a sound recording. Think satellite radio or Pandora. These royalties are paid to the artist, performers, and label — not the songwriter and publisher — so if you’re the artist and/or label, you can collect these in addition to any publishing royalties generated for the use of the underlying composition.

Like lots of royalties, if they go unclaimed for too long they’ll disappear, so register with SoundExchange today to collect what’s yours.

6. Submit your set lists for 2017

If you perform original songs live, you can earn publishing royalties for your shows (in addition to whatever fee the venue is paying you).

In order to collect, you must file your set lists with your Performing Rights Organization. HERE are the deadlines.

Keep in mind, some venues you perform at might not be doing things by-the-book, meaning they haven’t paid any fees to the P.R.O.s. If you file a set list for such a venue, the P.R.O.s might come knocking on that venue’s door. That puts you in a weird spot. On the one hand, that venue SHOULD be paying songwriters and publishers for the very music that brings in customers and gives them a reason for existing as a venue in the first place. On the other hand, you don’t want to be the person the venue blames when they get a threatening letter in the mail. So use your judgement, and don’t be afraid to ask venues if they’re paying one or more of the P.R.O.s before you play your show.

7. Make a plan

5-year goals are great, but c’mon; we’re musicians. We usually can’t see past our next gig. That’s why the holidays are a great time to plot out some small, medium, and large goals for the coming year. It forces you to give some shape to your efforts, set some metrics for success, and something even more important: get excited and inspired to put in the work.

Book a tour, launch a crowdfunding campaign, shoot a video, whatever. Set the goal, plan accordingly, and do it.