Showing posts with label music promotion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music promotion. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

A Few Last Glimmers






I've written before about the endless stream of emails I receive, touting the latest music opportunities.

I always click on them....eventually....out of curiosity more than anything else.

For example, the latest Music Dealer's "opportunity" is a song about Grandma.  I think grandmas are great, although I barely remember one, and I never knew the other.  Hence, I have written no songs about Grandma.  I've written a song about Mom, but that isn't what they're going for here.  It does make me wonder, though, about the grandma I never met.  I wonder if she was more like me than my mom was, because Mom and I weren't exactly simpatico, if you get my drift.

But, as always with these posts, I do digress.

Generally, with the Music Xray emails, I just delete them without reading.  Because they're always touting the most recent "opportunity matches" that don't really match in the least, and I don't have the money to toss around like some wild-eyed millionaire anyway.

Not to mention the scathing reviews I received from some of my earlier submissions.  I never even asked for critiques!  What was that?  Just an extra-added soul-crushing bonus?

One guy said something (I actually deleted the email, so I can't reference it) about how tentative the singing was.  Well, yea!  I hate (hate!) recording!  In fact, I'll make up any old excuse just to avoid it.  I'm tired; I have a tummy ache; my voice is shot from all the smoking (which is true, by the way).  I AM NOT A SINGER.  But the fact remains that I have no money to hire a professional singer, so if I want a demo recording of any of my songs, I have to do it myself.

But for some reason, tonight, I clicked on the latest Music Xray email, and it said something about submissions for radio stations, or something.  And I thought, well, let's see.

So, I surfed on over to the site, and I found a particular outfit that shops music around to various regions of the US (because apparently different regions have different tastes; little did I know) and to radio stations in the UK.  The UK thing was somewhat intriguing, because I find that those fine people are more discerning than the dolts that market and/or listen to music here in the good old USA.  No offense to the US, but here, it's all about the cheese quotient, and about the butterflies and rainbows and unicorns; not the actual music (ahh, cynicism is alive and well tonight!)

So, I thought, what the heck?  Why not give it a go?  I could put it on my credit card, so that's not like real money.  Is it?

I'm a big fan of this song by my husband, so I bit the bullet and clicked the submission button.



Then, I thought, well, let's see what else is out there, radio submission-wise.  And I found this place called, "Women of Substance Radio".  Isn't that precious?  Women of substance.  As opposed to what?  Women of Superficiality?

But I figured, hey, I'm a woman.  So, I, in a fit of insanity, submitted this:



I'm really pulling for my husband's song, though.

And I, too, looked at song critique opportunities.  I almost thought about doing it, but then I saw the submission price ($35.00) and thought, why in the world would I pay $35.00 for somebody to diss me, when some of these other guys took it upon themselves to do it for free?

I'm a realist, and yet not a masochist.  My focus now, really, is promoting the other band guys' music; not mine.  Yet, there's still that little self-indulgent side of me that wants somebody to say, "That's a good song!  Terrible singer, but good song!"

Just don't feel compelled to send me a critique, cuz I really don't want one, and I'll just send it to my "trash" folder anyway.





Friday, May 6, 2011

Jango?


Sometimes I don't follow up on emails for a long time. I mean, so-called "professional" emails, not personal ones.

I had a couple of emails regarding Jango; one from CD Baby (who is distributing our first pitiful CD), and another from......somebody. I don't remember.

These two emails have sat patiently in my in-box for a few months. Yes, months. Okay, I don't necessarily follow up on things that require a lot of time and effort (and if I don't think there's a whole lot of reward).

But tonight, since I was really at a loss for something to do, I thought I would clean out my in-box.

The thing is, everybody promises stuff, and experience tells me, none of that stuff actually happens. And does it really make any difference if our songs pop up every couple of weeks on a website, and whoever happens to be listening clicks on the "next" button and just moves on to the next song? And do I even want to know that?

But I'm just barely enough of an optimist to think, well, somebody might like our stuff! I mean, somebody?

I don't really like to diss artist sites, because someone is likely gaining some benefit from each of them. However, I will say this: If you sign up for Hello Music, be advised: Apparently, if you're not considered (by them) to be in their top, top echelon of artists, all they are using you for is to push electronics and equipment (at a very special price!)

You will get almost daily emails from them (until you put a stop to it), advertising their latest deals. I don't want to say that they just solicit artists in order to get their email addresses, but yea, that seems to be what they do.

I was curious, after awhile, to find out why they never seem to advertise any "opportunities". So, I did a search for the company, and found this:

Not every band will be plugged into a potentially revenue-generating slot such as Pump Audio, Zalon said. Some will instead be offered discounts for services that partners offer for a fee. Still, he said, "no matter what [the song] is, we're going to listen to it, and we're going to find opportunities."


If that's what they do, fine. I just think they should state that upfront, when they are soliciting bands. "Hey, if we don't like you, can we still spam you to try to sell you stuff?"

Needless to say, I've crossed Hello Music off my list, as they have crossed us off theirs. And more power to the guys who've gotten deals through the site; good for you. It's just not for us, as has been obviously and subliminally communicated.

Now, Music Xray, so far, I like. Why? Well, yea, they charge you to submit to opportunities, but they don't arbitrarily exclude you. If you pay your money, you get to submit. They don't screen. If one is willing to shell out the fee, then one gets to compete. And they don't spam you, trying to sell you stuff.

Which leads me to Jango. Why sign up? Well, I figure, why not? They give you 100 free credits. We can't get on Pandora, lord knows. So, at least somebody will listen, at least for half a second. And you get feedback, so they say. Feedback can be a soul-killer, but one has to have a thick skin in this biz. I guess I'd rather have one honest person say they don't like my song, than a bunch of songwriters on some music forum giving me disingenuous "atta boys" (or girls). At least I know where I stand.

Basically, the reason I wrote this post is to solicit feedback regarding Jango. Has anyone had experience with the site? And if so, what's your consensus?

It's really neither here nor there if we (meaning, I) wasted my time uploading songs. I'd just like to know if it's something to keep on my radar.

But, if they start trying to sell me stuff, then they're (truly) barking up the wrong tree.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Promotion




I've been thinking a bit about promotion (or "marketing", as the snake oil salesmen prefer to call it).

As musicians and/or songwriters, everyone tells us that promotion is key. In fact, there are a WHOLE BUNCH of sites out there just begging us to believe that.

But do we ever stop to think about who we're marketing to, and why?

Here's the thing; I just like making music. In fact, I find that I like the process more than I like the finished product.

Thus, even though I created my own ReverbNation site for my acoustic songs, by no means does that mean that I'm looking to grab the brass ring, or any other cliche you can recite. I just wanted a place to keep all my songs in one handy spot. Not everyone with a music page is trying to promote themselves (but I guess most probably are).

The fact about ReverbNation, Soundclick (that old chestnut), PimpMyMusic.com, ListenToMeOrElse.com (okay, I made up those last two), etc., that none of those sites want you to figure out is, the only other people there are other artists.

Yet, all these sites are more than happy to try to get you to buy the "pro" package, or "pro" widget; pretty much the "pro" anything. Can't they make enough money from ads? And why in the world would I need a pro package? Will that get me discovered? ha ha

I've ranted about "fanning" before, but humor me: I keep getting all these stupid emails clogging up my in box, telling me that John or Estelle just became my fan. Yet, when I checked my stats on ReverbNation today, I've had only 26 song plays. Twenty-six song plays and 58 fans. It's amazing!

So, this morning, I posted this in my bio:

PLEASE NOTE: I REALLY APPRECIATE GETTING FANS, BUT I RESPECTFULLY ASK THAT YOU DON'T BECOME MY "FAN" UNLESS YOU'VE ACTUALLY LISTENED TO MY MUSIC, AND YOU LIKE IT. I WILL NOT TRADE "FANNING". THANKS FOR UNDERSTANDING!

I haven't gotten an email since! Wow ~ I don't get it! ha ha

I consider it a rookie mistake to post one's music everywhere on the web, and to take seriously someone deciding to become your "fan". I'm not saying there aren't any true fans out there, but believe me, they're few and far between. As I said before, 99.99% of the people on these sites are other musicians, and they just want you to listen to their music.

If I could remember every place I've uploaded our music, I would go to those sites and cancel our membership, although I've noticed that some sites don't even give you that option.

Choose one or two sites to host your music, at the most. Then you'll still have a place to direct your friends to, if you want to share your music with them. Cuz honestly, it's only your friends that will listen, and even they might not really want to.

As the manager of our band, I've decided that I'm only going to promote something I really like. Face it, every artist does a lot of songs; not all of them are gems (just ask me!) I'm focusing on promoting the best of the best.

And by promoting, I mean, trying to get the best of the best to someone who might actually do something for us. (Never fear, since this is my personal blog, I'm going to continue to promote all our stuff here; that's what blogs are for!)

In a future post, I'll talk a bit about "opportunities"; the good, the bad, and the ripoffs.

And yes, I love fans ~ real ones!