The Independent Recording Artists Must Do List

1. Make an album

2.Have pictures made (a press kit) and no glamour shots do not count

3.Shoot a decent video or get somebody to do some flash animation. The video does not have to look like you at all. Just find something that goes with your story line. (You can find some on You Tube--make sure you email the creator and ask if its okay to use it on your webpage)

4.Register with Cdbaby.com to sell your Cd * its only $30 a year and they also send your songs to itunes and all the other major download stores to be sold. Remeber you don't have to worry about paying for thousands of Cd's to be burned. People are steadily buying more and more online music. It's only going to increase. Gas costs a fortune why burn gas and drive to the Cd store that shelves no independent artists' music, when you can real music online!!** Sell digital downloads people ----it's the way of the future!! I don't care what anyone says (not even cdbaby---cdbaby cautions artists that digital downloads sell less than cd's. This is my only problem with Cdbaby. My response is go grab Billboard Magazine every month and read the record sale numbers vs. the digital download numbers. Own an Ipod? Seen the new one? I rest my case. We still love Cdbaby. We just respectfuly disagree**

5.Make a web page ---post your music and videos on there, performances, fan club, etc...

6.Make a music MySpace page, Facebook page, YouTube Page, cdbaby page, hit up craig's list

7.Link all the pages together and submit your pages to search engines (make sure your page works before you submit it!!)

8.Start performing---give people your webpage, let them know who you are


Its still a long road but there are plenty of resources and opportunities. If you are stuck on task number 1 (making an album) because its costly, here are some quality resources you can use that are affordable.

For selling your music
http://www.cdbaby.com/ they connect you with a host of other companeis such as itunes and SoundScan. Also for $20-$30 extra they provide a UPC barcode from SoundScan for your product.

For music production (beats/tracks)
http://www.trackmasterz.com/
http://www.soundclick.com/
http://www.beatport.com/



For promoting yourself
http://www.myspace.com/ (music pages)
http://www.facebook.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.bloger.com/ start making blogs and also exchange links with other artists to your webpage
http://www.craigslit.org/ we also recommend Craig's List as well.