nairboman's insights #6 - Almost Here (We Go...)

I am planning on publishing my Electronic Music debut double album Here We Go... on CDbaby next week and they will also send it to Itunes, Amazon, and many other outlets. After that for a week or two, I will undoubtedly do a lot of internet and local marketing for it, but following that, as I have stated before, I will put just as much time and effort into finding help from within the music business itself as I do self-marketing, particularly from a manager and/or record company, as I find the more marketing I do, the less I like it, really. If it were feasible for me to remain an independent musician without management, I would. Unfortunately, that would mean having a full time job marketing myself and that isn't necessarily my idea of a good time and what's the point of working at a job for very long, if you aren't enjoying yourself. I would end up spending much more time selling my music than actually making it. Having a manager and/or record company would free up my time and relieve some stress. Of course, I do know that choosing a manager and/or record company is serious business. You don't just sign the first contract presented you, however enthusiastic you might be to. It's still a business and with contracts at least, you most definitely have to treat it as such. I would assume the first thing to do is to make sure they actually like your music and not simply want to use it only for profit. Secondly, I would want near-full control over what I choose to do with my "image" and my music. I will always want an "image" that reflects the real me, namely a combination of eccentricity, humor, and individualism, with touches of gentleness and playfulness. Also, I wouldn't want anyone to ever tell me what kind of music to make. Advice is one thing, demands quite another. And I don't wanna be treated like a slave. I will do or not do what I want, regardless of what they would like. If I sign a contract and fully understand the contract, I will abide by it, but If I feel like I am ever being used unfairly (ie deceived or lied to), I might just break a contract, even if it loses me money. I have no ambitions to be rich but if it happens, I will be giving a lot away to less fortunate people. I am in this mostly for the art. If somebody wants to help me with the business side of it, I would be very grateful and appreciative. But that does not mean submissive. :)

nairboman's insights #3 - Crossroads

With the arrival of my book by Bob Baker on Guerrilla Music Marketing on the Internet, I find myself at a crossroads. I think I picked the right book to purchase on the this subject, as it covers so much ground I can't easily find all grouped together and explained clearly about on any free internet site. I have taken the next step in my marketing endeavors, but now I have to make a decision about what format to continue publishing my blog in and I need my reader's help in deciding this. The book wisely says that it would be better to concentrate on my music and my genre on my blog for marketing purposes(and in fact, I already knew that). But I do love to write about all kinds of music and all kinds of movies. Should I only talk about electronic music? I mean, I do love it and it might even be good for me and a learning experience to do a blog concentrating on electronic music. Do I separate it into two different blogs: one for general music and one for electronic? And what about movies? Do I stop reviewing movies altogether or start another separate blog for it or keep it part of the regular blog? Another factor is time. I would have more time freed up to do my marketing if I simply concentrated on electronic music and my musical and marketing endeavors to write about for my blog posts. What I also need to know is "what have I written about that you guys and gals have particularly liked reading? My insights, my movie reviews, my music reviews, certain posts?". Please share your thoughts with me about this. Next month I officially release my music through CDbaby, and after I do that, I will be working 6 hours a day on my marketing 5 days a week, but I still might fairly easily have time to publish the same blog with the same amount of content. Tell me what you think about it. :) Bob Baker site

nairboman's insights #2

Above is a video of mine I made a few months ago for my track Acid Trax. The video is minimalist in style and so is the song, really. I didn't have a lot of resources at the time to make a video with any kind of budget. This one was simply made with a photograph I took of myself and then my girlfriend Heather Campbell used a graphics program online to change it to black and white/distorted and we used windows movie maker to make the video of it. It is definitely my goal to make higher quality videos in the future, but I think the videos I made(with my gf's help) are kind of hypnotic in and of themselves. All 5 of them can be viewed here.

I wish I had more to say about my marketing endeavors right now, but the fact is that it has all been internet marketing so far and internet marketing isn't the most exciting thing to talk about. It's basically making profiles and adding content to sites that can help you spread the word about your art. I recently ordered a book by the famous music and book marketing guru Bob Baker about internet marketing. I have been using a book by Catherine Parker about social media marketing and it has been very helpful as well, but I'm hoping that Baker's book will be even more helpful considering it is specifically for music marketing.

Of course, I also wanna do local marketing this month including business cards, flyers, and playing music for folks in public areas, but being low on money might become a problem, though I'm hoping not. Luckily, these things on my list to do are pretty cheap. In May, when my music is finally published through CDbaby, I also want to make it a point to contact more people in the industry, such as artists, managers, D.J.'s, record companies, and possible benefactors(volunteer personal financiers). The fact of the matter is that while I like marketing my music better than any job I've had before(because I confidently believe in my music's value), I would rather be doing creative work and accordingly, would rather someone else do most of the marketing work, so hopefully I can get a manager to help do this eventually, so I can concentrate on more creative endeavors. If you have any suggestions about marketing or any of the things I mention, please leave a comment. I welcome them.