4 tips for indie music makers

             1.Don’t Just Give it Away.... Get Their Email Addresses:
Trade your content for an email address. Many fans aren’t willing to pay for your music. That’s okay. But get SOMETHING for it. An email is next best. Artists who exchange email address and permission to market for a song download grow their mailing list 600% faster than those who do not. ReverbNation has offered this feature (as simple as checking a box on a song you upload) for almost 2 years and it works.
- Jed Carlson
http://www.reverbnation.com
                2.Consistently Give Out New Material:
Since I started posting either new videos or new songs every month, the open-rate on my emails has gone up drastically. And I’m getting emails from the friends of friends who have forwarded them on. I’ve been asked to do two high-profile benefits in the last month, one from someone who had never even heard of me before.
- Dudley Saunders
http://www.dudleysaunders.com
               3.Don’t Measure Yourself Monetarily:
The key seems to be not to measure your indie music success by monetary standards and increased sales… I can’t measure mine that way at all… I don’t have anything for sale (yet)…. The key is asking yourself: How do these tools move you forward toward bigger things happening in your career?
- Jennie Walker
http://jenniewalker.com
Don’t Suck
             4.No amount of marketing can make up for a total lack of talent– this is why people don’t want to spend $20 on major label CD’s anymore. 25 years of piano and a music degree doesn’t guarantee I’ll be a success, but it gives me one hell of an advantage. I try to keep myself sharp and never assume I’m good enough. Even long-time pro baseball players go through spring training every year. If nothing else, I find that surrounding myself with talent raises the bar for my own ambitions. I listen to Ben Folds to inspire my production and piano abilities, I follow people like Ariel Hyatt and Amanda Palmer to improve my outreach, I keep a steady stream of Pat Monahan on my Pandora list to hear what kick ass vocals sound like. I always want to be on my toes.
- Matthew Ebel
http://matthewebel.com