Guess we are all waking up to the fact that the old dream of “getting signed by a record label” i.e. rescued -
has all but disappeared.
While it is very liberating to realize that there are no longer barriers to getting your music out there,
it does mean that creating a publicity and marketing buzz around your act is left up to you.
So you need to get good at it.

Yup – You may be responsible for your publicity and marketing department forever.

So you have 3000 friends on myspace and 500 fans on your facebook fan page great !

Although we all know it is vitally important to have your myspace and facebook pages up,
what happens if either of those services close – or stops being flavour of the month like myspace did -
how would you contact your lists ?

Have you got the 2 golden rules for the modern music maverick already under way ?

Get your own website (with your act/band as the domain name)
This is no longer an expensive or daunting task.
get a wordpress site or try host baby.
If your budget is really tight check out Mr Site.com and get a site for 25 quid.

Start Your mailing List Now
Make sure you use a web based mailing list.
Use your professional band domain email address. i.e. not “fluffy124@hotmail.co”
Reverb Nation have one specially designed for musicians
I use Mailchimp.com which is free until you grow your list to 2000

why you should start building your mailing list now.
Even if you are not gigging already, when you do you have people to invite.
if your website is still under construction, let your list know you have launched ..

Try giving away a free track to entice people to sign up to your list.
Get a Bandcamp music site, it is great for collecting email addresses for downloads.