Songwriting is an art, but commercial songwriting is also a craft. Ignore the craft portion of your job at your peril because your competitors do not. Here are seven steps that help ensure that your songs succeed in the marketplace.

1. Write your songs with a goal in mind
2. Rewrite them
3. Arrange them
4. Get feedback
5. Rewrite them again
6. Produce them
7. Keep learning

Writing with a goal in mind should be obvious, but is often a stumbling block for beginning writers. Your  songs must fit in somewhere if you are going to place them. Innovation is wonderful and creative, but you need to demonstrate the ability to fit into existing niches before you’ll get much of a chance to innovate. Make it easy for your clients to like your songs.

Rewriting should be a joy. This is an opportunity to take your ideas and polish them into a gem. Writers say that books are not written, they are rewritten. The same is true of great songs. It is the little touches that come later in the process that make them standout. Not always, of course, but we are talking general rules here.

Feedback provides a sanity check. If you don’t know any pros, there are several professional places you can get high quality reviews and consultations from name writers online, such as at the site of Pat and Pete Luboff. If you belong to an organization like Taxi you even get song critiques as you submit to various markets. Feedback from friends and family is no substitute, even if it helps your ego.

Rewriting again lets you incorporate the feedback that makes sense to you to make the song even better. Remember that at the professional level a tiny improvement can make a huge difference. The devil is in the details.

Producing and arranging, as I pointed out in a previous blog, is essential to capturing the essence of your market niche. If you can’t do this part, work with a producer/arranger who can. After all, you want your client to hear the hit you heard in your head.

Keep learning. There are lots of places to study the craft of writing hits. Seminars are great and interactive. Songwriting circles work for many people. And I am going to recommend one particular book called The Billboard Guide to Writing and Producing Songs That Sell, by Eric Beall that clearly and entertainingly explains a lot that you will want and need to know. There are many other excellent books, but this is current and, in my opinion, exceptional. Being widely read in this area can only help. Other authors with excellent books on the subject are Jason Blume, Jimmy Webb, Pat and Pete Luboff, and John Braheny. I suggest you devour them all. I have profited by multiple readings of all their books.

There is a last step, of course. And although it isn’t on the list, perhaps it is the most important. WRITE THE NEXT SONG.

Here at InsiderMusicBusiness.com, we’re introducing Ed Teja as our new Featured Writer. Ed has already started to write in the last few weeks and as he continues I would like to get to know him a bit more and where he’s taking his writing with this blog. I asked him five questions, and here are his responses:

1. Ed, what’s your background in the music industry?

At first I played for the love of it–high school bands, playing in coffee houses, anywhere there was an audience. Songwriting followed almost immediately, although mostly just to have material that I liked to sing. As music became a more significant part of my life, I studied arranging formally, and took jazz guitar seminars in Los Angeles with Howard Roberts.

Mostly I traveled a lot. That exposed me to a variety of music and gave me the chance to play in bars and other venues in Asia and The Caribbean. In Hong Kong, a friend and I started an outrageous blues band (we played the Hong Kong Convention Centre) and although he is now in Canada and I am in the US, we still collaborate on outrageous music. Moving back to the US got me playing new venues in the US and Canada (I was featured on TV Ontario), including a number of blues and folk festivals, but I grew disenchanted with earning my living playing live. That’s when I really focused on songwriting as serious business. I managed to place some songs I had already recorded in television shows and got hooked.

Today I work through a number of music libraries, write (and cowrite) songs for some emerging artists, and I am cowriting a number of songs with the lovely singer (in every sense of the word) Victoria Lagerstrom (www.victorialagerstrom.com) for her second CD. I’ve also been writing music for videos. I placed a song in a small budget DVD and since have done the music for a number of promotional CDs for book authors. I am also working with some other video makers on some speculative projects. It is all great fun.

2. You’ve been involved for 25 years or more so you’ve seen over a length of time the changes in the music industry. Where do you think the music industry is going? What’s the trend saying?

The way people use and value music is the biggest change. Music is so pervasive in our lives, there is so much that is available, that paying the going rate for a CD doesn’t seem to offer value. Clubs increasingly have trouble charging a cover for live music. this forces musicians, songwriters, music publishers, everyone in the business to be more creative and more businesslike. Like any other change, it has its ups and downs. If someone is comfortable in a niche, they hate to see it go, but change is the currency of the music business, whether you are talking about the music or the way it is presented and marketed.

3. As a songwriter, what do you think is missing from most songwriters knowledge and repertoire these days and what guidance can you give to them?

Most songwriters, myself included, often write songs for themselves. While there is nothing wrong with that, if you want to be successful you need to understand the market you are writing for. Success demands that you develop a feel for the market. And the term “market” is an elusive one, because it includes current trends in the musical genre as well as the changing tastes of the listeners–the consumers (although that term isn’t always appropriate), and the musical formats that are being used. It means understanding the role of video in this market. So the short answer is that what is missing from the knowledge base of many, especially beginning songwriters is how to find out what is going to be needed tomorrow, and then how to create that.

4. What are the kinds of topics you are going to be covering on the InsiderMusicBusiness.com blog over the next few weeks and months?

To address this problem of understanding the markets, I plan to look a lot at various approaches to keeping your finger on the pulse of the business and the genres. I will look at a variety of ways you can get your songs out there, and a lot of what it takes to be competitive. I am going to let some colleagues speak about their experiences in breaking into specific markets, whether it is writing for television or creating songs for artists.

We will take a look at cowriting, which is a specialized form of networking, and how networking in general applies (or doesn’t) to songwriters. And, related to that, we will examine how songwriters need to prioritize their time if they are going to have any songs to take to market. How do you build and organize your song catalog? Do you write songs on speculation, or place them for credit only? These are not simple issues.

The overall intention is to inject some common sense into the business end of things, so the songwriter who is just starting can learn to determine which of the services available are serious, and which are just a way for songwriters to spend money they don’t have.There are many great resources in books and online, unfortunately a number of the people and places that cater to songwriters do little for the money they charge, and are mostly good at finding new things to charge you for.

As we get feedback from readers, I will research answers to their questions and offer strategies to their dilemmas. My hope is that the site will become increasingly interactive.

5. If you had to give one piece of wisdom or advice to upcoming talented musicians, artists and songwriters, what would it be?

Plan to be in the business for the long haul and never stop learning. That sounds like two things, but they are inseparable.

Click here to read posts by Ed Teja at the InsiderMusicBusiness.com blog.

Songwriting as a profession has always had a great deal to with trying to write hits. Hits are not everything, but they earn the songwriter lots of money and end up meaning a great deal to a large number of people. Songs become hits because, in some way, they touch people. They communicate a feeling or idea, and that sort of communication is what drives the songwriter to write. Clearly art and commerce don’t have to fight it out every time.

The ongoing explosion of the music industry, and the immediacy of the Internet has changed (and is changing) things drastically. The vast numbers of songwriters hawking their wares, and the immense number of sites offering downloads of the latest and greatest tunes, makes writing a hit both more important and more difficult.

One reason hits are more important in today’s music business (from the songwriter’s perspective, of course) is because there is no longer a market for album cuts. Album cuts are those decent, but unremarkable songs that often filled up albums that had one or two hits on them. For every hit there was a need for a number of good songs that bands could perform in concert and use on the album. As a result, once upon a time, you could make a nice living writing those. But today’s demand for singles is even fiercer than it was back in the days of 45 rpm records—mp3s don’t even have a B side. And only a hit is going to cut through and be heard.

One reason that writing hits is more difficult is that new niches develop constantly, new trends become old, and the song that might have captured the attention of fans last week is now done and overdone. The immediacy of communication is translating into an acceleration of changing tastes. Look at a slow motion example to see why this is important. If you listen to what soul and R&B music was when it came out, you can begin to get the idea. An old style R&B hit song would be retro today, at best. (Great to have in your song catalog for movies, through). And with so much music out there, what are you going to track so that you are current?

Some of the change comes from the constant demand for new, and different music, and part from the proliferation of bands, each with their own take on the music scene. As a songwriter, you face the triple challenge of finding someone who likes the sort of thing you write, can do it well, and then promotes it. But being close to, and working with, artists who are developing a fresh sound is a lot easier than trying to keep up with the tastes of the millions of music consumers. So there, at least, is a place to focus.

In all this change, one thing remains constant. Ultimately a hit is an indefinable combination of musical hooks, memorable music, and lyrics that somehow strike a chord in a huge cross section of listeners. So if you focus on just that goal—writing a tune that touches your audience musically and lyrically—then you are doing all you can, at least in the writing phase.

“Writing phase?” That’s right. This is just one phase of the things you need to master to be successful. As we will discuss in future blogs, writing that great song is just the beginning, and in practice might not even come first. Confused? You won’t be when we cover the next steps in your songwriting business.

Once you have written a great song, the business of songwriting kicks in—you need to get it ready to pitch. Pitching is your presentation of the song; the demo recording is a key element in making an effective pitch. The song must be heard.

A good recording simply isn’t enough. Your recordings have to cut through immense amounts of competitive clutter. Your demo is your main advertising and marketing tool, and it has to work. For your audience, the demo is the song.

For film and television placements, your recording is the final product. A music supervisor won’t ask you to change the vocal or fix a bad note because they like the song. If it isn’t right, they pass. When they listen, they imagine your particular recording, not just the song, in the scene.

You’d think that pitching to singers would be less demanding, but despite the quality of your lyrics or melody, it is the music, the hooky riffs, the cool sound, that listeners respond to first. Because your pitch is a sales presentation (and it’s all about getting attention) your arrangement and recording must grab them.  It should smell like a hit.

Remember that the music supervisor or producer won’t be listening to just your song—they get hundreds. The CDs and mp3s will be stacked to the virtual ceiling and each gets only a brief listen. Yours must instantly stand out and refresh those tired ears.

This bumps you from your comfy songwriter chair to that of producer and arranger. If you have a home studio, as I do, you might be the band as well. If you have those skills, this can be very cost effective. But even skillful songwriters and performers can trip over their egos in producing their own demos. It can be hard for me to identify weaknesses or give the song the polish that it needs to land the gig. That’s why hot producers are in demand.

An important point: In pitching songs to artists, the singer is the critical element in the demo. He or she has to have the right pipes and the ability to make the song sound the way it should. Most singers are good at one style of music, but less effective with others. Unless you write only one kind of song, for one kind of voice, you will outside singers, at least.

Many top songwriters turn to professional demo studios because they provide professional musicians using pro gear to get the right sound. You can send them a rough recording of your song (to indicate the tempo and feel), and notes about how although you sing like early Bob Dylan the song should have a female vocalist who sounds like the flavor of the moment. And the good ones come through.

One difficulty in working with a demo studio is that they have to interpret what you tell them, and their interpretation might sound wrong to you. The best thing is to set it aside for bit and listen as if it was someone else’s song that you had never heard before. They might have added some good ideas. It is easy to get invested in your own interpretation. One friend of mine who uses demo studios finds that he often hates the song when he first gets it back, but later loves it.

So a top notch recording is as much a key element of your business as it is for a performing/recording artist. Unfortunately, no matter how you do it, good work will cost a bit, however, because even studio musicians like to eat semi regularly.

Whether you DIY, hire a studio and musicians, or use a demo studio, the costs and time must be factored into your business plan.

And even a songwriter needs a business plan. If you haven’t done yours yet, check out How To Write Your Music Business Plan  and get started on one now.

Later we will discuss other essential parts of your songwriting business strategy, but this one ensures that your product—the song—is properly packaged and ready to take to market.

Bruce Houghton over at hypebot.com wrote a post a few days ago on “5 Lies Indie Musicians Tell Themselves” and it was a short and excellent post. I agree with all five at face value, with my favorite two being:

“The internet leveled the playing field for indie music.” - Big checkbooks and the marketing campaigns they buy still have the edge. The internet just opened the door for everyone.  It’s what you do now that you’re in the now overcrowded room that matters.

He’s right at face value – the internet hasn’t leveled the field between independent artists and signed artists – there’s no doubt about that from the point of financial budget and marketing capacity. Signed musicians have companies with many many people who can be paid to sit at the computer and work the internet to their advantage. They have the budget to do so. Independent artists don’t.

However, I sincerely believe the internet has leveled the playing field when it comes to being able to make a music career with the tools, ideas and strategies now available that wouldn’t be available before. There are now countless options to making a good music career that puts money into your pocket and gives you the feeling of fulfillment that we humans crave. 

The goal is how you use the internet and what you do in the overcrowded space as Bruce points out. It’s what I’ve been writing and speaking about for the last two years – and things are starting to change, people are starting to try new and unusual things that help them pick up more fans and more sales. But not everyone is still getting the message loud and clear – just this morning somebody showed me their music website and it was a complete brochure-style site with no mode of interaction with the fans. Poor.

Ask yourself, “how specifically can I use the internet to interact with my fans?”. What one or two networks do I want to tap into and how can I get myself to grow a big following there? Then do it. 

“My sales suck, but so do everyone else’s.” - Sure the numbers have changed, but if you can’t get people to pay something for your music then you’ve got a problem…with your music.  

This is the second of the five lies that Bruce points out that I like. Not everybody’s sales suck – if they did then we wouldn’t have high music sales. A good percentage of my clients end up with sales they never envisaged in their goals but others don’t. If your sales aren’t good and you’ve tried at least 5 to 10 different tactics to sell, then it’s your music. 

What are your thoughts and what lies do you think musicians tell themselves? 

Don’t be surprised. Your fans talk to each other. Conversations between your fan base happen whether you like it or not. Can you control what kind of conversation develops? Maybe.

Imagine you played a gig. You had a healthy audience of 100 people who at least had five close friends each. That means, potentially, 500 more people could know of you. And of course, their friends would get told too. Based on how your music sits with your fifty audience members, those 500 people will shape their view of you. If the gig went really bad, word spreads. If the gig went really well, the word spreads.

Regardless, the word is going to spread.

And because of that, I believe you can direct the conversation. Everything starts with you, the artist and music business leader.

Good music, good marketing and good communities encourage better conversation amongst your fans. Music in web 2.0 world is all about building interactive communities where you engage with your fans. When you grow a community around you and your music, you keep people’s attention. You stimulate conversation. You engage fans by asking questions. You share your thoughts honestly and allow them to share theirs too. 

Building communities is no longer a one-way thing. It’s two way with a focus on relationship building. How can you do that? Here are some ideas:-

Start microblogging with Twitter. Grow your Facebook fan page. Write a proper blog. Start a local meetup around your type of music and meet people. Do what your fans do and hang out with them.

There are so many ideas in the web 2.0 world for building communities – but don’t do them all. The idea is to pick one or two and start really using them. Do too much and you will dilute your fan base.

For example, I currently prefer to just use Twitter and LinkedIn in addition to this blog. The Facebook page is something that grows on its own and I haven’t really focused on it. Not because it’s not good enough, but there’s just too many ways.

Your fans talk to each other. What do you do to instigate positive buzz? 

I hear this (or something along the lines of this) quite a lot: “I launched my CD about two months ago and sales have only trickled in, it’s been nothing spectacular. What went wrong, and what can I do to promote it and get more sales?” I respond with this: “What did you do in the six months running up to your CD launch?”

The answers vary, but usually along these lines… “I set up my Myspace page and just put up a few clips”… “I haven’t really done much, we’ve been busy recording”… “I did a few gigs but haven’t really performed any of this new material”… 

I rarely hear of independent musicians who devote hours upon hours to promote and market their new music months ahead of launch and frankly, you’re losing out and leaving a lot of money on the table if you’re not. 

In order to build up a successful launch during launch day and the following week, you’ve got to build up enough buzz to get people talking about it, getting juiced and marking their calendars for your launch ready to download or buy your CD. The ultimate record launch (or re-launch) is one that generates buzz, puts you in the papers, gets your music heard on radios and takes you up the charts. This kind of ultimate record launch can only happen when you plan and then act on that plan.

Nearly every musician is so juiced about releasing a music record that for the majority of the time, they forget about how important the release is and don’t plan it. I agree that I’d love it to be this way and hope that someone else can take care of it, but as independent musicians it’s important to remind ourselves that we’re music business owners and have to also take care of the planning as well.

The question is what should you do to build your buzz. Here are four quick ideas.

1. Start a blog. A blog is a great tool to use in cultivating relationships with your fans – starting new ones on the web and continuing relationships from your gigs. See this post for more: Do I need to blog as a musician?

2. Build your mailing list. Musicians Mastermind members, my audiences and readers know what a mailing list means to me: it’s probably the best way to tell how many fans you have and how many potential sales you’ll make with your launch. For example, if you have 1,000 subscribers, you have the potential to sell 1,000 downloads. I understand that other mediums such as the radio, TV, newspapers, websites and magazines can get you to hundreds of thousands of people – but the real fans are those who’ve subscribed. 

So make the mailing list a core feature of your promotional activities. Capture their details. Ideally their name, email and if possible, their contact number. The reason you’re doing this is so that when it comes to launch time and pre-launch offers, you already have a base of people you can offer this too!

3. Play regular gigs. Book a period of lots of gigs. Grow some momentum and grow your crowds. If you also play covers, use the gigs to also throw in some originals with some promotion of upcoming gigs, free downloads and launch information. That way you can also see what people think of your new stuff too. Get a friend to come along with a camera and video your entire show. Don’t worry too much about the quality, just get it all on video.

4. Upload all your recorded gig videos to YouTube and share them. Upload songs individually. Share them at your blog, share them with people who sign up. Offer them new videos on a regular basis to keep them coming back and checking out your music. The more they hear it, the more they’ll want to hear it and then download/buy it.

These are just four ways. There are lots more, of course. What have you done in the run up to any of your launches – what worked and what didn’t work? I’m interested in hearing how this has worked for you. 

Succeeding as an independent musician can be done through a number of routes – there is no one correct model. One that appeals to some of the musicians I speak to is the idea of starting to “dominate” your local region with your music before gaining traction and broadening your appeal through a progressive and carefully planned route.

The idea is straightforward and works great for those who really prefer the offline, personal touch than using the internet. Make and promote your music locally. Work with local venues often. Make and build strong relationships with the local newspapers, magazines and radio initially with press releases every few weeks and then as you get going, by e-mail. After a while, you’ll probably have their number on speed dial.

Be a social musician offline. Get out there and hang out where your fans would hang. Go to your local music stores and see if you can get your music there with posters, flyers and regular gig information. Do whatever it takes to get your local neighbourhood to listen to music. (Nothing illegal, please.)

This is what I believe to be the process to having success in the music business:

HEAR – LIKE – BUY – SHARE

That’s what people do. That’s the process they go through to get from first hearing your music to finally doing what fans do best – sharing your music with their friends. The process can repeat itself for every track, single or album you release.

Do it locally. Get enough people to like your music offline and go through this process. I believe it’s more easy to get lots of people locally to buy and share your music (because you’re THEIR local talent). Naturally, that will give you press, radio coverage and news will start to spread.

You can then move to the next region slowly whilst retaining your local base but with your focus now stretching between two areas, rather than just the one. As you continue to grow your fan base in different areas, the number of times you appear to perform in one area will reduce and your fans will want to make sure they don’t miss each event. It increases the attraction factor and uses the “scarcity” marketing tactic. They will change their diaries, get babysitters in and make sure they don’t miss your gig as you won’t have another gig locally soon. It’s possible to get to this point as an independent musician.

This strategy of starting locally before growing globally is also great for you as the music business leader who is assembling a team so that you don’t have to wear all the hats and can focus on doing what you love best – making music. You will build a good network offline and you’ll also be able to find people who can join your team so you can have them all in one place.

Start local, grow global. What are your thoughts? 

Without vision, it’s difficult to be clear on your future. Many of the independent musicians I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with don’t seem to have any vision. I can usually tell that from their character and attitudes towards their music, or their answer to my question, “Where do you see your music career in five or ten years?”

Vision isn’t just about thinking long term. It’s about what you want your music to do to you, your band members and your audiences. Vision is about a future that’s filled with hope and promise for you and your fans. Vision allows your music career to pan out like a story that you’ll be able to piece together at the end of your life (if it ends in this lifetime). Vision is what Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and Anita Roddick had, all in their own unique ways. Vision is about how you’ll leave your mark on the world, your footprint, your reason for living.

Character is about your attitude towards your music. It’s about belief in your vision through what you do every single day. It’s how you live your life and how you deal with opportunities. When you’re clear on what you and your music represent, your character will not be influenced by the people and peers around you.

For me, my music career has always been a long term thing. I am fortunate to do the work I do as a music business consultant that it’s become much more exciting and fun for me than my playing career itself. But I still play. I just don’t go after recording stuff, bands and gigs as some may. I have a clear vision of what I want for my Tabla career that I can make clear decisions on who I say ‘yes’ to and who I say ‘no’ to.

We all have different visions that are unique to our music and unique to who we are. Our vision is created through our upbringing and the experiences we’ve already had in our lives.  Your character is a reflection of what you want to achieve and the challenges you’re working to overcome, based on what your vision is.

Whenever I take on staff in my team, it’s important that they have a vision and character that excites them and the people around them. That comes from me, the leader, having a compelling vision myself. The same will go for you and the team you build around you.

Many musicians I speak to work a day job as well as trying to pursue their music career. One of the biggest challenges they are faced with is “not enough time to get everything done”. As an independent musician, you’re a music business owner. If you don’t already believe and understand that, I think that’s the first place to start.

Having a vision ensures that you will not jump around from strategy to strategy, idea to idea and product to product. Once you find a proven path, with proven case studies, then you can simply follow it. There are only 86,400 seconds a day. You can’t buy more time, and what you do with your time determines your income. Your vision and character helps determine what you do with your time.

One of the first personal development books I ever read was ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ (see Wiki summary) by Stephen Covey. His second habit, “Start with the end in mind” is all about creating a vision. Derek Sivers gave this book a mention too. 

Create some time in your life to think about your vision. Clear your space and just think about where you want your music to go, what you want it to achieve and how you want to leave a legacy. These things make up your vision. Then the attitudes that these create for you are your character, but it’s not something you force, it’s something you live.