Last time, I mentioned that the music industry might not actually exist as a separate industry, at least for the purposes of creating a business model that you can use to market your music.

Sometimes, however, it seems like there is a sort of music industry—one that has as its customer base all the musicians, songwriters, composers, and other creative people. Based on the pitches in my inbox, it is akin to the once growing vanity publishing business that made “pay to publish” a terrible phrase (although it came from a noble tradition). And we don’t even have to look as far as “pay to play” to see the demon rear its ugly head.

A quick history (optional)

Actually it has been around for a long time. It’s roots are found in ads in the back of magazines where you could find advertising for “song poems” that could be made into greatest hits, if only you were smart enough to hire this company to put your words to music and create a record that they would then “promote.” (If you aren’t familiar with printed magazines, don’t worry about it. Just bear with me.) Your professionally recorded song would be sent to all the radio stations (which is how it was done). Of course, your song would stand heads and shoulders above the others on the air, because the song would be crafted by a professional songwriter (obviously otherwise currently unemployed for unknown reasons) and professionally recorded.  Well, of course they were professionals—you paid them, which made them professional (i.e., earning money from music).

Back to current events

These folks, because they preyed on songwriters, were called song sharks, and although the magazine ads are mostly gone, and the disguises have changed, the fact that they prey on the desire of creative people to get their music heard hasn’t changed in the least. The internet not only makes it easier for music to get to people, it also makes it easier for the sharks to pitch their latest revolutionary way of getting your music heard.

Unfortunately, it is hard to separate the sharks (some of which seem to have morphed into vampires, in keeping with entertainment trends; so let’s use the term song vampire for them from now on) from legitimate toilers in the vineyards of music. Music is not a single product, nor simple. There are not any canned ways of doing things that produce more than canned results. So there is a great deal of room for hardworking agents, music pitching companies, music libraries, and so on. But there are few rules to help distinguish the revolutionary new idea (excuse me, we call them “platforms” now) from the same old con in new clothing.

It’s all very tiresome. And to add to the confusion, some things work for a while, then succumb to their own popularity.

Conventional wisbits

There are two competing bits of conventional wisdom out there. The first, the older, is that you shouldn’t pay for anything. That was the advice offered in the song shark era. If your music is any good, then people will pay you for it. If there is money to be made from your music, then plenty of talented people will be willing to work with you to get it in the right hands. This seems dated now, but there is a kernel of truth in it still. But it conflicts with conventional wisdom bit #2: If you won’t invest in your career, why should anyone else?

The problem I have with this wisbit (i.e., wisdom bit—it is the moral duty of journalists to corrupt the language with more meaningless jargon) is that first, it doesn’t provide any guide for where to invest. I have untold thousands of dollars invested in musical instruments, training, computers, software, microphones, sheet music, more instruments… I will stop here, having made that point. None of this is what the song vampires are talking about. What they mean is that my not giving them money is proof that I lack confidence in my own ability, music and career. To that I say (along with many things probably left unsaid): “Bullshit!” What I lack, often times, is confidence in their ability to help me in any way. The fact that they got some punk rock group into a club in Des Moines doesn’t mean a thing about what they can do in getting my music to recording artists, placed in films, or even get me more money when I play the local coffee shop (Yankee Creek, every other Sunday morning, 9:30-11:30—hope to see you there) or a regional festival. In fact, many of the “services” make my life harder because it seems to revolve around my running my life in a way they understand.

That isn’t how it works in the corporate world. In that universe (world is too small a word) the PR person goes to the client (hat in hand, dressed up real nice) and gets a spiel on “what we do and how we do it” and then goes back to the office to devise a program that does what the client wants.

But the point here is not to rant about the ineffectiveness of much music marketing; rather I simply want to point out that when it comes to song vampires, you not only don’t necessarily get what you want or need, but that it might soak up time better spent doing something frivolous, say making music.

Soft sell ending

So if you have some ideas of how to tell opportunities apart from the invitations of song vampires, share them. But bear in mind that everyone seeking money from you is not a vampire, unless they work for a government.

Because I have a passion for music, a lot of years dealing with it, and a background in economics, I recently spent time with people who wanted help in designing a new business model for the music industry. I felt I could use the exercise as well, for my own efforts. It is a subject that one of my cowriters and I discuss all the time. We didn’t come up with a good model (let’s get that out of the way right now) but we did come up with insights that I want to share.

Ayn Rand held that the biggest mistake philosophers (and economists) always made was in not checking their premises—the assumptions that you make when you start your thought processes. After rattling our  brains in an unproductive fashion for some time, I realized that we had never checked our premises. So the first question is, what were they? Were we even starting from the same ones?

When  business might not be business

A basic premise for me, in this case, was that we were going to produce a business model. That’s the words we used, at any rate. Immediately we saw difficulties. I understand a business model to be a set of strategies that can be used to produce a consistent profit. Old economics training dies hard, after all. I was looking for ways to, in the vernacular, monetize the music. The people I was talking with were asking the questions: “How can I make a mark on the music industry? How can I get a foot in the door.” And those are quite different. If profit making is not a critical factor, and sustainability of a business enterprise isn’t at stake, the horizons widen considerably. You have many, many more options. Including one I dislike, which is giving music away. (But I digress.)

The next premise was that it is possible to create a viable model for doing business (however you define that) that can accommodate all the facets of “getting music out there.” There are certainly some strategies, but the delivery systems, targets and attitudes of the people using music are in a lot of flux. People are trying all sorts of things to get music into the hands of folks who will listen to it and use it. Anticipating both technology and trends, when taken to extreme, becomes speculation, and can be a distraction from music.

When is an industry not and industry?

The final premise was that it is possible to model the music industry. And why wouldn’t it be? Well, the answer here is when there is no industry to model.  I know, we talk about it all the time, but that doesn’t make it real. And here is why: Music is a piece of several related industries, not one of its own. Music is used in movies and television and in theater. And these are a part of the entertainment industry, which also encompasses a lot more. As such it is subject to the fortunes of those industries. Songwriters are in the recording industry, which sometimes produces product for film and television, and sometimes for the multimedia industry and sometimes for educational purposes. Music teachers are educators and their career fortunes are tied in more to that industry than anything musical.

It is a tangle of economic indicators, fortunes, and requirements.

In major industries, they separate consumer (retail) activities from business to business products. Sometimes the products are the same, and sometimes quite different. In the world of music (as opposed to industry) a master recording is a business to business product and a CD or download is a consumer product. They are marketed quite differently. The investment and rewards are quite different as well.  As you can see then, a musician/songwriter/composer/performer/teacher serves a lot of different (and diverse) client bases. Each has different needs, requirements, and even business cycles. As a session musician or songwriter, the amount of government spending on education probably won’t affect your business significantly; as a teacher, it might. And the opposite is true if there is turndown in consumer spending on entertainment.

Get a handle on the goal

So, the discussion we had should have started with questions that helped defined what we want to do. “Making music” is too vague to mean much to anyone. But defining specific roles within that universe would tell us who and what you want to be, which makes it possible to find a way to get there. And that is a better understanding of the idea of a business model than we used.

A vision of what you would be doing, a clear picture that shows you touring, or sitting home writing music, or doing studio work, is a place to start. Then trust your gut reaction to that picture. Is it cool, or stressful? That will tell you a lot about whether to even bother pursuing it. There is no point in figuring out a way to get more gigs if you hate playing them!

I would like to hear about your business plans and models. How do you segment this fragmented, bit of lots of other industries? How do you plan to make inroads in your specific segment? This is less about trying to be a star than a serious, and business like, approach to doing what you want to do and being successful at it (by your own standards).

It seems that nothing is more important in business these days than being able to adapt quickly to changes in tastes, technology and other influences, such as the economy. And the music business not only is no exception, it is practically the poster child for a business whipped by changing times. Musicians, composers, songwriters, are just cogs in the machinery of the culture, and more things are affecting us everyday.

The delivery is the thing

Soon Apple’s Tablet will probably force us all to rethink music marketing once again (except for those farsighted enough to have been thinking about it for some time now.). The specifics will come out in the wash, but we know now that every new way of providing content, as we are fond of saying in this age, produces new challenges and promises new profits. The challenges are guaranteed, but the profits can be elusive.

It is said in legal circles that a lawyer who defends himself in court has a fool for a lawyer; doctors tell you that it is difficult for the best diagnostician to take care of him or herself. There is truth in this, and it applies to all of us. The issue here is a lack of objectivity. It is easy (relatively) to be objective about someone else. That is why, often as not, someone else can write a better press release about your new CD than you can. By extension, marketing your music, taking a long hard look at it can require another pair of eyes, ears, and with luck, another brain to analyze it all.

What I am getting at is the need for musicians to work together or to work with other people in some fashion. Someone who is dtrong in a field where you are weak can be more important than a collaborator or agent. You trade off work and viewpoints. Sounds downright communal, doesn’t it? But perhaps the day of the rugged individualist going it alone in an era of corporate marketing might be all in the past tense. Certainly there is room for the rugged individualist in music, but only if that person doesn’t might being an outsider in the world of success. Only if being an individual is better than being better known for your music and wealthy (ier) than the other kids on the block.

Knowing the turf

I confess to a bit of confusion about the culture I live in at the moment—the United States. Why anyone would watch reality television is beyond me. (Why anyone would watch television is beyond me, but that is another story.) Why anyone would by a CD by someone who won a staged contest fails me. It is supposed to be about the music.

The important point here is that I don’t know the turf—the rules, the motives of customers for the product. And the fact that I don’t understand it doesn’t mean anything at all, except that it is more of a challenge for me to market into that world than it will be for someone who lives in it. Common wisdom tells you that if you want to sell music to movies, you should be watching lots of them to get to know the trends (and hear mistakes as well). But what if you don’t like movies?

Understanding marketing and understanding how to reach people who live in another universe are quite different things.

Using what you learn

I could whine about fate; say that good music should find a niche, but that is useless and pointless. In this case, the music serves a specific cultural need. And this is a critical bit of information for me. If I attach my concept of success to getting music into reality television that I refuse to watch, then I need to connect and work with someone who does understand the attraction of the medium. Otherwise I just play a huge guessing game. You see, adapting to the environment doesn’t mean finding out how to sell them what I do, so much as figuring out what they want and giving them that with my own spin on it.

Just as I wouldn’t pitch a 15 minute classical price for a film scene in a jazz club, I need to understand how I can apply my skills and talents to what is needed in the market.

Alternatively, I can write and produce whatever I want, and be content with the knowledge that some pieces might find a home eventually, but that my standard for success has to be in the quality of the music I create.

It doesn’t matter much if you are talking about performance or licensing master tracks—the issue is the same. If the music you play doesn’t get people into the club, you will stop getting into the clubs as well (or the clubs will go out of business, which can be even worse).

So, if you are having trouble marketing, check your ability to adapt, whether it is to the new content delivery systems, the trends, or something else. If you can’t fix it yourself, it isn’t the end of the world either. You just have to be flexible.

If you’ve found a better path, I’d love to hear about it.

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FREE Teleclass With Kavit Haria on Mon 4th January 2010:
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You can read a lot about new business models that come from the use of the Internet. Many of the discussions reflect good ideas—thoughtful examinations of the implications of new ways of delivering products to consumers and ways of promoting music through the new media, such as ringtones. But some of it is, to be frank—crap!

One of the highly controversial ideas is that of giving your music away. The concept makes sense at a superficial level. By giving your music away, the consumer, the fan, decides they like what you do, and go to concerts, buy merchandise and otherwise (sometimes in vague ways that are left unclear in the hope that the future will provide new ones) support the musicians.

THE PROBLEM

So what is the problem?  Simply put—the market becomes flooded with music, and the music becomes devalued. If you have a touring band, the logic of the business model, at least, might hold, but it makes no sense at all for songwriters whose income is based on selling recordings, airplay and use in television and movies. And are you in music because of a love or music or simply as a business? Bands hungry for attention will allow their music to be used in movies and television for little or nothing, completely undermining the efforts of nonperforming musicians and composers to earn a living at their craft.

I’ve been told that this is simply a sign of the times—that nonperforming musicians and composers better get with it. That is nothing but foolishness. Times have changed for certain—music supervisors, who are rightfully as cost conscious as the next business person, are getting seduced into using clones of hits and mediocre music (due to its low prices) rather than opting to have truly original music of the highest quality. That might be fine for some productions, but this lowers the bar and reflects the economics of our culture rather than it richness and diversity. This does not bode well for musicians or film and television.

Jennifer Yeko runs True Talent Management in Beverly Hills, and does artist management, music licensing, and music publicity. In a recent email, she mentioned people offering their music for free, saying: “we just want to be able to brag to our friends that some big movie producer is using our songs in their movies/shows.” If you are a professional musician, that is the face of the future you are dealing with. With the exciting musical tools available, people who want to impress their friends are creating tracks that, in some cases, are “good enough.”

Yeko makes four significant points, which I will quote (with her kind permission):

Of these, I find point #2 the most significant. The reality is that we are not talking about exposure, but respect for the work and creative effort that good music takes. Giving away your tracks indicates that you don’t value your music. And what do you really want to be known for: Wild tee shirts and other merchandise, or great music?

Note that this doesn’t mean you should stick it to anyone wanting music. As Yeko advises: “Educate yourself.  Know when you’re being taken advantage of in terms of fees – and when you should be happy to get *any* money – i.e. a festival license for an indie film.”

Yes, it is okay to share in the risk of a project if you are reaping some benefit. I have done music for free for filmmakers under two circumstances:

1)   For a worthwhile charitable cause — I happily wrote and performed music for the video “A Will to Live, a Dream to Dive” produced by Ocean Opportunity which is a documentary of the amazing story of Mathew Johnston who became the world’s first ventilator dependent diver. As a a scuba diver and a fan of heroes, this was a no brainer for me. I wanted the word out and I wanted to be associated with this great project. (Later the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation agreed and provided funding for distribution—but otherwise the video was a labor of love).

2)      Working with someone you respect who is bootstrapping their production; working together, sharing the risk, might produce an interesting future. This one is not unlike cowriting with another unknown. It’s a gamble, but also a learning experience and you have the opportunity to get noticed.

But a funded, for profit operation shouldn’t be the beneficiary of your work without paying for it.

THE PRICE

So what should you charge? What does it mean to value your music fairly?  The fascinating thing about licensing is the lack of standards. Unlike union gigs, there aren’t pay scales. Even script writers have a standard fee schedule that sets a minimum.  Yenko suggests that is why you need professional help in negotiating these things. And that is true to a large extent. A professional has a better handle on what current budgets and going rates are. There are ways to find these things out of course, but how much effort you want to put into that depends a lot on how the rest of your career is structured. If you are a movie composer, or trying to be, some networking is in order. If you are interested in licensing music, but your focus is getting your band bigger and better gigs, then you are going to need help. The contacts and expertise can be of great value.

Once again, this brings you back to the position of that great jazz musician, Socrates, who said: “Know thyself.” (What is less known is that he also suggested playing the natural minor whenever possible, and always hitting the flat third on the off beat.)

Music licensing is challenging, complex, rewarding, and frustrating. If you have had some good or bad experience with it, or simply want to give your story about how you made millions giving music away, let me hear about it!

In part one we talked about your theme, then in part two investigated using it to write a press release, or several releases. Now we need to figure out what to do with all that work.

The PR job

Part of your job as the public relations person for your band or music is to find places that your message fits. Sure it is easy to see the big kids getting stories on themselves in the people pages, but until you are a name, that isn’t your goal. Your goal is to establish relationships with the media that cover what you do and, over time, give them a sense of your story. This is going to be a lot of work, but there aren’t many effective shortcuts.

In starting, you need to look at the media that cater to local and regional stories in your back yard. Because you are local, you have a leg up on other bands. That means you want your story to go to local radio stations, newspapers, regional magazines, and local television. One press release in that market might not make a splash. That’s okay. You don’t build an image overnight, just as you don’t make a career out of one CD (or shouldn’t want to).

When I was a magazine editor, often I would find press releases that I never used—even though they might be well written, they might not be appropriate. But the good ones (and the bad ones) make an impression, and when I was assigned a story on a topic I hadn’t covered before, those well written press releases could get me calling the folks who sent them to get ideas and information. Naturally, they got mentioned in the story. Similarly, your theme, expressed in a series of well written press releases, establishes you as an obvious subject for a certain kind of story.

If you have established a presence as a community focused band, and you send a press release out about a CD that is songs about the community, local television or radio might suddenly feel the urge to have you on the air. Local papers can disregard the press release in favor of a feature article. My letters and press releases on my music have gotten me coverage and an featured appearance on TV Ontario (my 15 minutes of fame), and features in regional publications. One multimedia magazine turned a CD press release into a telephone interview carried on the internet, and then used a song from the CD as background music for a slide show of photographs that were being featured.

Finding places to send your story

There are two great sources of information on publications—the internet and the publication itself. The masthead of most publications lists the editor names, often the areas they cover (such as CD reviews) and how to contact them. Sometimes features tell you exactly what information they want to consider you. And you should read the publications to learn what areas they cover and how they cover it (the angle). Make sure you fit. The internet can provide much of the same stuff.

For instance, if you think your story is perfect for the ROLLING STONE, under contact information, the site tells us:

That took about two seconds to find out.

If local tv is your goal, a quick search on, say “Television stations Nebraska” produces a complete list at states guides/nebraska. There, it tells you that the local affiliate for ABC in Lincoln is KLKN-TV . If you have a gig booked there, you can get the event announced on the community calendar by sending your press release to: Channel 8 KLKN-TV Community Calendar, 3240 South Tenth Street, Lincoln, NE, 68502, or fax it to 402-436-2236.

The challenge is to build up a core database that consists of the various media that get the message to your fans. You want the editor names, contact information and the kinds of stories they handle. All are not the same. Then you cultivate these people. When they run a press release, even just a tiny blurb, a thank you email is in order. EVEN IF THEY GET THE INFORMATION WRONG! This is networking at its most important. Editors get promoted or move to other publications and jobs, so treat them all right, and with respect. Your news is not the most important thing in their world, so don’t soak up a lot of their time. The easier you make their job (such as with a well written release with all the pertinent facts) the more likely they are to use it. Your job is to get better at that as time goes on. Editors, like everyone else, prefer to work with the willing.

Media depend on information—they are not hostile to your efforts. That is why they publish contact information. Collect it, use it, learn from it, and build relationships that will bring you visibility in a time when the information noise level is reaching absurd heights. After all, if you don’t make people aware of your music, they can’t know how good it is.

Soft sell ending

These three parts of the PR story are not all inclusive. They are highlights of my own experience on both sides of the PR world. PR will not make you a success, but if you are successful, it can let the world know about it, and that will grow your success—take it to a higher level.

So think about your PR effort. What can you do to make your music, your band stand out in the way you want to be known? (If you think any PR is good, check out Tiger Woods current problems.)

Also, I am very close to this subject. If you have more questions on DIY PR, let me have them. If I can provide a quick answer, I will. If it deserves another blog entry, then I will do that.  And, importantly, try to have fun with this. After all, it’s only life, and you won’t get out of it alive.

A cynic finds it easy to dismiss the plethora of songwriting competitions with the idea that art isn’t a competitive sport.

Unfortunately, that isn’t true. It might not be a sport, but art is very competitive.

On the other hand, it is easy to see competitions as a fast track to recognition. Your great song is sure to rise to the top and attract the attention of industry insiders who will do great things for you. And the big competitions are better, because the judges are industry pros, and just getting them to listen to your track is worth the price of entry.

Unfortunately, the odds of anyone important hearing your song are no greater than through any other way of getting your songs out there. In many contests, although they might list Sir Elton John as a judge, your song has to get through a series of screeners first. It’s likely that Sir Elton won’t do much more than listen to a handful of the finalists.

With entry fees skyrocketing and contests getting bigger, my personal skepticism about these contests grows. I admit to not liking competitions in the first place. And when it comes to judging songs, I’d rather know the criteria the songs are being judged by than the names of famous people doing some of the judging.

What’s on Offer?

The nature of the prizes gives some indication of the value that I would personally place on the competition. It answers the question: “Is this for songwriters, or about getting money from them?” When I read that World’s Best Songs gives one Grand Prize winner $1000 cash,, 1 Year Membership to Taxi, Broadjam and Sonicbids, and 1000 digipack cds from Discmakers, $1000 in gift certificates for Musician’s Friend and announce the winner in American Songwriter magazine, I start to think that they might have a clue what makes songwriters tick.

SongDoor lets you win before the competition is over. They provide all entrants with a free self-paced songwriting course from SongU.com and free melody-writing software. The Grand Award winner receives a private-session, full band demo, produced on Music Row in Nashville, as well as a single-song publishing deal, a one-year Platinum Membership to SongU.com and many other great songwriters’ tools. Not only that, the entry fee is only $10.

Getting Some Feedback

Another criteria is feedback. There is nothing worse than paying money, then sending in a song that you have sweated blood over, to learn nothing more than the names of the winners a year later. There are many of these.

Because some contests are what I would call “songwriter sensitive” there is a growing trend to provide critiques of your submission, which, if nothing else lets you see your song as they saw it. For example, the Annual Great American Song Contest (in its 11th year) provides written evaluations to all entrants. Many other contests offer similar benefits, and I think that for what they charge, they all should.

Staying Plugged In

Now understand that I am citing some examples, and showing ways you might evaluate competitions—I am not recommending or saying avoid any specific competition. You need to do the research to see what works for you. Many specialist competitions off better odds of winning. There are protest song competitions like Doing Dylan and, for the Tipperary (Ireland) International Song of Peace Contest “compositions should be of peace, love and harmony; about people, places or things; in fact anything that one feels constitutes a ‘Sense of Peace.’”

So there is literally something for everyone.

One way to track the numerous possibilities is with the songwriting contest link at musesmuse.com, which also provides great articles on songwriting and tons of other useful information. (You’ll also find my book reviews there). Check in regularly and click on the links to the competitions to learn what they are all about.

But as I said, I am not a fan of the competitions. I am not sure how they fit into the mix of strategies in your business plan. I would like to be shown the error of my ways, however, so if you have won a competition, let us know how it benefited your songwriting career.

A few weeks ago, I did a quick interview with Lior Shamir, director of We Are Listening (WAL). WAL is a London-based artist development company primarily giving opportunity through songwriting contests and their extensive and experienced list of content judges. Enjoy the interview. 

Kavit: Lior, thanks for doing this short Q&A. Could you share a little about your background and how you came to start up We Are Listening? What inspired you to start WAL?

Lior: I’m a Berklee College of Music graduate with a background in songwriting and post-production. After graduating, I knew I wanted to position myself on the business end of music (as opposed to the creative) because I felt that there were many others more talented than me as musicians, writers, producers etc. and, quite honestly, I felt that I was rather business savvy for a music guy. We Are Listening blossomed out of a kitchen table project along with a number of other new-media related initiatives.

Kavit: As far as I understand, We Are Listening primarily promotes songwriting contests. Can you share why you feel contests are useful and what you feel makes one successful as a songwriter contest winner?

Lior: Mainly because of the high return of a reward from a contest verses the risk of participation (or fee) and the relatively promising odds of winning. But, also, because the very nature of contests puts the participants in front of ‘people in the know’, win or lose, so there is always the value of exposure – which is a valuable commodity in the music space.

Kavit: Can you share a success story or two from your previous contests and what they have gone on to do so we have some idea of what’s possible with these contests?

Lior: We’ve taken unheard of artists and put them on 200 US radio stations. We’ve secured sync licenses for indies with networks such as MTV. We’ve made it possible for fledgling artists to work with big name producers, songwriters and executives. This is what we do and how we justify the entry fees.

Kavit: What do you believe to be the three most important success attributes or traits for music businesses?

Lior: 1. Know your shit. 2. Get online. 3. Make sure it sounds – and looks – fabulous!

Kavit: Where do you see the independent music industry heading and what can musicians do right now to jump on the bandwagon and get ahead in their career before the year is out?

Lior: I think LiveNation, TicketMaster, Radiohead and NIN have the right idea – but is that indie? As an artist/manager, if you’re not already very familiar with the various online tools and services available to you for self promotion (many of which are free), you will lose. Also, most artists think they’re great and, as we all know, most artists suck so try to be objective and focus on your strengths.

Kavit: So Lior, before we end, what can we all look forward to seeing happening in the world of WAL and Lior Shamir in 2008 and onwards?

Lior: Oooh… many wonderful things! We Are Listening is currently undergoing a facelift and we’re working with a number of up-and-coming brands that will make your head spin in terms of ‘getting ahead’.

Some interesting points in the above interview. I have never been a fan of promoting songwriting contests although if there’s a good enough reward at the end of it, I believe it’s worth the effort. It will help you move to the next level quite rapidly but it’s important you sustain yourself at the end by continuing your own promotion. Many of these types of contests offer promotion packages, but they don’t last a lifetime and you’ll need to pick up again and continue your own promotion unless you can afford to pay someone.

Here are some places you’ll find contests:

1. Jodi Krangle of The Muse’s Muse lists Songwriting Contests.
2. The UK Songwriting Contest
3. World of Music and Lyric Writer Awards from We Are Listening

What are your thoughts on this avenue (songwriting contests) into the music business? Have you had any experience and could you share your stories or tips for others…?

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? 

Blogging is great – but sometimes you run out of stuff to say or you may not want to post every single day. I made the choice recently to post at least once every five or six days and I aim to make them informative and useful. That way you don’t get bombarded reading lots of stuff and lose focus on running your own music businesses.

Instead, I microblog. And so do hundreds of other musicians too. Microblogging is a great way to share with others what you’re up to in any moment. It’s a great way to note down something you’ve found quite interesting wherever you are. 

I use Twitter to microblog. Twitter is a microblogging tool that allows you to post “tweets” or updates that are a maximum of 140 characters in length. You can follow others on twitter. And others can follow you too. People can respond to your tweets and you can start a dialogue. You can update your twitter from your computer, from your mobile phone via SMS or via Instant Messaging.

If you’re not yet using a blog (and even if you are), Twitter is one of my top 3 social media methods to grow your network along with Facebook and LinkedIn. If you’re not yet using it, go ahead and sign up. Follow me on Twitter too. You can also link up your Twitters on Facebook so you’re managing just one network. It’s that great even Barack Obama’s twittering.

Right now, as you’re reading this, I’m spending the week in Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt. It’s famous for the Red Sea, and I’m diving and snorkeling every day, reading by the pool, spending the time with my lovely partner and I’m also juiced in wonderful music conversations. I’m sharing my learnings with you at Twitter. It’s so cool. You don’t miss a thing.

As for you as a musician, Twitter is a great way to keep your fans updated on what you’re doing, where you’re at and what you are thinking. It’s a great way to share your ideas, your upcoming gigs, your latest news and spark conversation.

Share your song of the day. Share links to your videos, free clips and just have good discussion. Remember, being normal isn’t fun. Being abnormal, being insane, being creative and being different opens the door to more conversations and more attraction.

Join Twitter and start microblogging. It’ll help your music grow a following.