Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Why You Need A Professional Musician Bio

As a musician you are not just selling your music your selling yourself and your story also so not only does your music need reflect you,but your music bio or band bio needs to be sharp compelling and brand you professionally also.Its mandatory that you have a professionally written musician bio

Your artist bio, is NOT an autobiography talking about what school you went to or what hood your from your musician bio is a music business document. Your bio is to sell your story and yourself to your fans ,its also reeling in music business contacts you want to network with and build long term relationships with .(because your trying to turn your music into career and not a hobby aren't you?)  

Before you create your artist bio, make sure you highlight your past music success from your  background,your goals and objectives as a musician you also should highlight some key things that made you the artist you are you bio also helps create your image. For example I heard about 50 cent being shot 9 times all over the web, I know Kevin suffers from depression and has been locked up alot. You need to pull a situation your niche of music can relate to that is what makes a professional music bio, but once again, remember that your are writing your bio for  A&R's at Record Labels, Booking Agents,Bloggers,Radio Stations, Promoters,Management Contacts etc.

These are the professionals that you HAVE to network with to get your career to that next level and they are  busy individuals, and they come across hundreds wanna be starts every week so you have to make your music bio sharp, informative with quotes, and uses motivational language  that can make them want to listen to your music your bio is bait to make them want to hear or learn more about you. 


Every artist needs a professional bio it is mandatory if your trying to take your career to the next level don't kill your career before it starts by not presenting yourself the right like having grammar errors, or by not be able to express your sound and image in words. 

If you need a professional musician bio writing service  that can tell your story and make readers connect with you  I recommend checking out this site you can also checkout examples of artist bio's they've done for there clients http://mixtapecoverking.com/music-artist-bio-writing/





 


Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Promoting Your Music With Apples New Music App

Apple's New Music App For Musicians

In June of 2015 Apple announced at their annual WWDC ( Worldwide developer’s conference ) that the new IOS being IOS 9.0 will bring a new music application to the now popular iPhones, among other things apple music will allow music developers to be closer to their fans, which naturally gives numerous ways for you to promote yourself and your mixtape,mixtape covers,singles,videos or anything related to build your music care and connecting with your fans. This can be utilized in a number of ways, many of which include uploading videos for your fans.
Increase the hype!
What every fan likes is to know their favorite band or rapper more personally, this new application offers the ability for you to do just that, by uploading videos of your daily life you can use this application like a streaming service, fans will get to know you and your lifestyle, by doing this they will surely be more contacted to you and your music and by doing so you can expect a marginal increase in interest for your music and in album sales.
Keep the fans updated!
Another way to utilize new function of the iPhone is to update your fans on how is the music going, when will the next album be release or when will the next music video be released. This type of advertisement ends up to be a powerful tool of promotion for many reason.
  • YouTube – Most music videos and songs are on YouTube, and this can be quite profitable for some people, if you market your new music video or song over the Apple music application, including its release date, your new music video is bound to get a huge amount of views in short period of time, if you combine this with the idea that YouTube offers the possibility for anybody to become a partner, this can be quite lucrative. So by doing this you not only stand to gain in popularity but you can also make some money over YouTube.
Other social media
It’s not an unknown fact that a lot of musicians promote their music over the social networks such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Apple music allows any musician to increase the traffic of people through their respective pages. So the idea that you should upload videos to your fans that imply that there are some new interesting things on those pages, or that you tweeted something interesting will increase the flow of people through those pages, and as this is done you will get more attention from the public and from the people, ultimately making a name for yourself all over the internet and on the street.
Combinations
If you read all the previously stated than a couple of things should be clear by now, apple music application has a lot of potential for any musician which is trying to make a name for him or herself, while all of the previously stated methods of utilizing this application have their strengths you should try to experiment with your own unique ways of marketing, maybe make the content personalized for your fans, or give a couple of shout outs to all the people that are listening to your music now. Whichever the case is and what ever method of promotion you think of while using the apple music application, you should use it in combination with other means of promoting yourself.  So feel free to promote your new mixtape cover, or to announce special events, whatever you decide to do, the sky should be the limit because it’s a new market and as such its unexploited by other musicians so the competition for the audience will be low. Needless to say that if you wish to cash in on this new form of promotion you will need to monetize it as soon as the application launches this fall.
Further monetization
Promoting your music isn’t the only thing you can do with apple music, there are numerous ways for you to make money over it as well, as we stated before there is a simple way to monetize apple music by simply promoting your YouTube videos over it, however this isn’t the only method. If you have a significant number of people watching you on apple music, you can use this to your advantage. It isn’t an unknown fact that musicians make a lot of money selling merchandise. This can be used in your advantage, simply promote something that’s unique to your music on your channel, like maybe a discount code for your T-shirts or your albums. Like before these are only a couple of ideas, and you should definitely put in the time and the effort to think this through before advancing any further, the possibility for you to promote your music and to make money exists, but it;s up to you to figure out a way that suites you the best.

Friday, May 29, 2015

New Artist Model-How To Build Your Own Music Empire Without A Record Deal

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

The New Artist Model For Independent Rappers,And Singers

Boy has shit changed in the music game. It went from record labels pimping rappers for every dam dime they could to artist being able to use the internet to build them a loyal fanbase, get exposure, and release and sell their music whenever the hell they feel like it. Now don't get me wrong record labels still have all the connects to get the promotion, press coverage, tours,etc,but now with the internet you have access to the exact same companies it just takes a little time and research.

Of course we know that cd sales have went down the drain,but its a dam lie when they say artist don't sell music anymore they just don't sell cd's anymore because everything is digital so people are buying music still they are just purchasing it in a digital format, and once again you don't need the major labels to get your music distributed now you can use sites like Itunes to get your music to the  world and it only takes about 15 min.

The New artist model for indie artist is about building your own brand and you having control over your fanbase,tours,music releases, and more. Here are a couple of things as an independent artist that are mandatory if you want to take your career to the next level and make a full time living from your music without a label taking 70 percent of your income.

You have to be active on the top social media sites so you can connect with your fans on a regular basis and on top of that  nowadays everybody is online so you can also use social media sites to generate new fans also.Some of the main sites that are a must to be active on are Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter,Tumblr, and Reddit Music .These sites all have over a million visitors a month and these sites can make your music go viral easy but the whole goal with these sites isn't to spam  your music on peoples walls and in their inbox the goal is to build a real relationship and then slowly and indirectly.

1.Having your own website with an email capture for is a must also at the end of the day this is about building your name and brand not another companies brand like Reverbnation,or Soundcloud that is just plain retarded. You should use those sites as funnel sites to send the traffic to your own website that way you can have an email capture form that collects viewers emails and then you will also have a list of music fans you can build a relationship with and covert them into a buying fan
Also there are a ton of sites where you can get free responsive website themes that are professional and slick and you can be up and running within a hr. 

2.Building Your Team-It takes a team to make it in this business and  there is only 24 hrs in a day and you the artist should be focusing on recording music you don't have the time to contact bloggers,music sites, venues,radio stations,or make your own mixtape or album cover designs  and do all the other networking that is involved in the music biz.

I understand at first you might not have the budget to afford these people upfront (keep in mind their not expensive at all) , but you should do your research now if you don't have a budget ready just so you can start to build a relationship with these people in these niches.

You need a manager.A good manager will already have good contacts in the music biz but if not your manager should always stay busy trying to get you quality shows booked, interviews,talking to label reps and any and everything that has to do with you getting more brand awareness and getting you paid.

You need your own graphic designer. As an independent artist you have to make sure you brand yourself like a professional just like the major artist because your image and plays a big role in your music career.You need to checkout  some different graphic designers and find someone who has the type of feel your looking for. Make sure you look at their portfolio so you can see some of their mixtape cover art, flyer designs, and logo designs you don't want to settle for less when it comes to your graphics because thats what reels people in to checkout your music. I would make sure they have some professional  high quality mixtape covers and make sure the mixtape cover art is Hi-def ,then I would do the same thing for the logo designs and flyer designs also. 

You need a publicist or a online promotion team.  I know this sounds expensive and it is and isn't lol a publicist might want a couple of thousand a month to run a social media campaign and to get your music music bloggers and sites they should already have an established relationship with.
You could also have your niece or friend do the exact samething  as far as pushing your music online and contacting bloggers and get your music to them so they can write about you on their high traffic sites.Blogger have the power to get your music and stories to hundreds of thousands of music fans, dj's and A&R's at the push of a button.

You could also go on a freelancer site and pay someone 20 bucks a week to push your music on all the social media sites and contact blog sites for 3hrs a day and that is well worth it, plus it gives you more free time to work on music and perfecting your craft.Just take a look at all these new independent music artist you see blowing up nowadays from Kevin Gates to Fetty Wap they're all over the music blogs sites anywhere you go and they make sure everything that represents their brand is professional from their custom mixtape cover designs to their club flyer designs..

If your trying to get to that next level apply some of this information you just read and I guarantee you will get positive results.





Monday, May 11, 2015

Mixtape Cover Art-Professional Mixtape Graphics For Indie Artist

If your a professional artist I'm pretty sure you already know that look and image is everything in the music industry and  one bad move can make or break your career.Anything and everything that represents you and your brand has to be professional whether its a mixtape cover,flyer or a logo. At www.MixtapeCoverKing.com they will have low rates and provide high quality work. Press play below to checkout some of their work for yourself.


Saturday, May 2, 2015

How To Get More People To Listen To Your Mixtape Guaranteed

The Mixtape Game
The music business is much like any other business model, there are several aspects of it and you have competition on each and every one of those. Let’s take Hip-Hop and rapping for example, in recent years this genre of music became ever more popular, thus resulting in an oversaturated genre of music with a lot of high-grade to low-grade artists. Now that is the problem, because the market is oversaturated with low-grade artists, any new artist that actually has talent will have a hard time making a name for himself. However there are a couple of methods that we will be discussing regarding new rappers and how they can make it to the top, or at least make a name for themselves.
The first thing that we should mention is the fact that any new artist doesn’t have enough money to buy studio time in order to make a high quality record which can be sold later on. With this said it’s safe to assume that any artist that is looking to make it big time starts with homemade mixtapes in order for him to make a name for himself. When it comes to mixtapes and mixtape covers in general there are a couple of things that you need to be aware of. First of all mixtape purchases are purely what you call “impulse buys” this means that people who actually buy your mixtape are the ones who do it because they are curious and the price tag is right. It’s important to understand that at this stage of your career you still didn’t make a name for yourself and the odds of a person who purchased your mixtape knowing you are slim.
Let’s take a look at the whole “impulse buy” thing for a moment. Why did the person in question buy your mixtape instead of any other record? The visual representation of your mixtape, meaning your mixtape cover has to do a lot with it. The fact is that if something looks nice people will spend a lot more time looking at it, and that increases the probability of your mixtape being sold, this can go a long way in terms of gathering the needed funds to buy studio time that you need.
Designing a mixtape cover as a marketing tool
The term “designing” should not be taken lightly under no circumstances. Examples of rappers taking this aspect of marketing to lightly are all over our music stores including iTunes and various other programs. Everybody who even attempted to listen to music encountered a mixtape cover that lacked overall quality and immediately disregarded the product that was in front of him as something that is simply not worth the time, without ever listening to it. Needless to say that this can be a huge problem to someone that is trying to make a name for himself. Another thing that we feel that we should mention is the fact that the disregarded music gets labeled as “trash music” or more popularly called “clutter music” with low quality and not soon after these unlucky pieces of art fad away from existence.
How to design a mixtape cover
The first thing that you should be aware of is the fact that you are a rapper, and not a professional mixtape cover designer. So needless to say that you should hire somebody that knows exactly what they are doing. Jour job here is to revise the following.
  • What is your genre of music
  • What emotions does your music bring you
  • What is the theme behind the music you make
Only after you have grasped the concepts of the previously mentioned feel free to start looking for a designer to make you a mixtape cover.Your cover art  places a big role in your project  when it comes to getting new fans and listeners especially if they have never heard your music before you need graphics that will grab their attention. Another thing  is make sure you don’t get overcharged by a designer for your design the average designer charges anywhere from $50 to $100  dollars which is a great price as long as they have a quick turnaround and provide unlimited changes if needed.
Also make sure you checkout the designers portfolio to give you an idea of the type of work he or she does and make sure it fits the style you’re looking.. Needless to say that all aspects of your music need to be integrated in your mixtape cover, the ability of the final product to represent itself is key here, and if you and your designer did the job to the fullest extent regarding your mixtape cover, it will be your own private personal salesman.
Promoting With Email Marketing To,Managers,Booking Agents And More
It is a well-known fact that that every rapper which is trying to make a name for himself sends a lot of E-mails to various record companies around the world, it’s a free way to promote your music and yourself and by any chance you aren’t doing the previously mentioned, we recommend that you start now!
When it comes to sending mass E-mails you need to be aware of the fact that it’s much easier to see than it is to listen. What we are trying to say is the fact that if somebody actually opens your E-mail and sees a link to a YouTube video the odds are that they will most probably move that E-mail to the spam folder. On the other hand, if that somebody opens an E-mail and sees a picture of your mixtape cover and actually likes it, they will click on the link in the E-mail as well. Visual representation of a good mixtape cover can go a long way, especially in the early stages of your career.
In conclusion
As you undoubtedly know by now, mixtapes as well as the mixtape covers that represent them, can be a powerful marketing tool when trying to make it to the big leagues, especially when it comes to music, so under no circumstances should you disregard the importance of all the previously mentioned aspects of your marketing and promotion.

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Shit You Need To Realize As An Indie Artist!

 Indie Artist Facts

The first problem that indie artist face is the fact that they didn’t become musicians because they are in to promoting themselves and their music, people become musicians because they love making music and expressing themselves with their instruments and their voice. Now this is a problem, while we would love to make money by simply doing something we like, it doesn’t go smoothly as we would like. A musician, in order to be successful needs to be good at promoting and marketing. Especially in the first stages in their respective career where this is crucial.
This fact is any musician, without an effective marketing campaign, musicians simply will not be able to do what they like in order to make a living. And the fact remains that you need money to make money, this of course applies to making music as well, money is constantly lost in promotions and marketing, and the bottom line has to leave you in the profit zone.
How and why people buy your music?
When a musician tries to launch a marketing campaign with minimal investment they all tend to do the same thing, send a bunch of E-mails and of course promote their mixtape covers and tracks on Facebook and twitter. After a couple of days of doing this people tend to generally give up after they landed a couple of sales. This however can be a fatal mistake. First of all you need to understand that people who like your music aren’t labeled as those who buy and those who don’t buy, there is a wide spectrum in between. For example. Somebody saw your Facebook post, and actually wanted to buy your new album, but at the time didn’t have the money. That person needs to be reminded of the fact that you have a new album out. Another angle of approach would be a person who wanted to buy your album, and had the money, but at the last moment didn’t do so for reasons unknown. This list of situations can go on for miles, and the bottom line is that keeping an active marketing campaign is a must when you are a musician, don’t just give up after a few weeks of promotion.
Driving our sales
First let me stress how important your mixtape cover artwork or single artwork is hi def and professional that is the first thing people pay attention to so make sure you graphics are attention grabbing.Now you have a basic understanding of your clientele and how they should not be labeled as those who bought your album and those who didn’t. the first thing that any musician should know is where people fall into the previously mentioned spectrum, understanding this will help you drive you sales.
Let’s say that your first step was sending out mass E-mails to the people who are subscribed to you, of course needless to say you had a link in your E-mail to the location where you album can be purchased and downloaded, the next obvious step would be for you to track your analytics. After a couple of weeks take a good look at them. Look for information that indicates how many people opened your E-mail, how many people clicked your link and how many people actually bought your new album, tracking these analytics will give you a good idea where the people on your mailing list are on your spectrum of buyers, and always keep in mind that a lot of people that are on your mailing list could have missed your E-mail for various reasons. As before, constant marketing will help you drive your sales, with the exception of having analytic data that will improve your overall marketing campaign.
Know your audience
Now that you have actual hard data for you to look over, you will have a general idea what type of people actually like your music. The next step you should take is to make a marketing campaign aimed at the people who already bought your music. The first thing that you should realize that this portion of your audience is generally interested in your music and what you have to offer. With this said its safe to assume that they will most probably buy your older albums as well. So take some time to set up a marketing campaign covering your older albums, people who bought your more recent work will be interested, so feel free to cash in on your previous hard work.
The analytics of your older albums
This is something that most musicians simply do not do, and by not doing so, are making a colossal mistake. After you have marketed your’ newer and older albums, take a look at the analytics one again. It is a hard fact that the number of sales will differ with your new and old albums. So what can you learn from this? The differential margin in sales between your old and new work is a direct indicator of what kind of music people are looking for in your albums. Needless to say that if your new album has more sales than the old one, you are going in the right direction. However, if this is not the case, and your older album has indeed more sales than the new one, take a good look at what you are doing with your music, and maybe take a step back, even listen to your old album and see what kind of vibe you are getting from it.
In conclusion
With this article we hope that we have helped all the musicians out there understand how important it is for them to promote their music, and how important it is for all the musicians out there to understand that there is a wide spectrum of people who actually like their music and who actually buy their music. Whatever you as a musician decide to do with your music, remember that your audience and your fans will ultimately be your way to success, or the way to your downfall, so go ahead, listen do what they have to say and promote your music the best way you can.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Smart Online Music Promotion That Works

Online Music Promotion Blueprint

Music is currently an oversaturated industry with a lot of new artists and bands popping up with each passing day. With this said, it’s needless to say that artist all around the world have a lot of problems promoting their work. One of the most popular ways of promoting work are the well-known mixtapes which are found all over the internet and in our local music stores. So what makes a good mixtape? 

There are a lot of things to consider when it comes to this. A mixtape cover is one thing to be aware of. Making good mixtape covers can be underestimated greatly and is usually the first mistake artists all around the world make. When you start making your mixtape cover design you need to have a lot of things in mind. 
For example you want your mixtape cover to reflect the music and the energy behind your music. So it’s needless to say that making good mixtape cover art can be one big step on your way to success. But there are also many other things that need to be consider, like the promotion of your mixtape for example. This is a topic that we will cover later on. But for starters let’s get back to the design of your mixtape cover. As we mentioned before the mixtape cover needs to reflect the music that you are making, what we didn’t say is the fact that a lot of people actually buy albums and mixtapes based on the appearance of their cover art. 
A fan of heavy metal music will never buy a mixtape that has flowers on its cover, no matter how good the music is, so keep that in mind when making cover art for your mixtape, also if you are not experienced when it comes to making cover design, then you should consider that you hire a professional cover designer in order to get the job done with the best possible outcome.
How to promote your mixtape?
How to promote your mixtape is the topic that we will be covering next. And it’s a tricky topic to say the least, so to put it in simpler terms we are going to go over some of the most common business strategies when it comes to the promotion of your mixtape.
  • As we stated before the music market is oversaturated at this very moment, and this is due to a lot of albums and random music being released daily on to this very market, this music doesn’t have quality and good cover art, so ultimately it’s needless to say that this project that is most likely made for fun will eventually fall. This music that saturates the market without any obvious purpose or reason is generally called clutter music, and this is the first piece of advice that we have when we talk about promotion of your mixtape, don’t make clutter music.

  • A good word will spread fast, with this piece of advice we want to say that most rappers that make mixtapes and music in general have no idea what they are doing, and their so called music eventually ends as clutter music which is instantly labeled by the community as something that nobody even considers buying. With this said it’s needless to say that you shouldn’t release unfinished product just for the sake of making a name for yourself, this type of marketing often has strong drawback effects, and can ruin your career before you start.

  • Eyes see better than ears. By this little phrase we want to say that most people will buy your mixtape just by the look of your mixtape cover art, we said this before and we can’t stress is enough how much making a good mixtape cover design can be important.

  • Free music is usually bad music, so don’t give out your mixtapes for free. When people see a mixtape cover and see the label “free” below it, it’s a clear indicator that this piece of music is something that is very low in quality and isn’t worth their time. But don’t charge full price for your mixtapes either, because the price tag can turn away a lot of potential customers when it comes to your mixtape. The best thing we can recommend is that you charge something symbolical for your mixtape I would just ask for a donation for the mixtape . People will recognize that its quality music being developed and the developer needs the financial support.

  • Free music is easy to make. A lot of artists are aware of the fact that they will give out their music for free, so the correspondent mindset dictates that they will simply not try hard enough when making a mixtape, when you make music, keep in mind that people will pay for it and try to give them something that is worth their money.
Marketing
When it comes to marketing your mixtape there are a lot of things to consider, for example how to do it. This is the topic that we will be covering next. For starters, you might want to consider that you can “rub-off” somebody else’s success, what we are trying to say that you can go ahead and hire a famous musician to host in your mixtape, and appropriately include him on your mixtape cover art. 
This will almost certainly bring a lot of potential listeners to you. Another way to do this is simply making a mixtape that has the instrumental of famous songs. But this can often be quite tricky because when you attempt this kind of promotion you need to be aware that your final product must be equal or better than the original piece of music. 
Beside the previously stated, there are many other methods for you to promote your mixtapes for next to nothing money spent. Social media like Twitter and Facebook can be quite good for this. If you include a small text and a picture of your cover design when posting on Facebook or Tweeting on Twitter most people will take a look at what you have done, and at least listen to a sample of your music. Making remixes of popular songs can quite often work in your favor as well. So don’t hesitate to make remixes of popular song and put your mixtape cover on top of it all. So let’s revise what we just said.
  • Invite famous DJ-s if you can afford it
  • Make music over somebody else’s instrumental
  • Do remixes of popular songs
  • Use social media to market your mixtape
YouTube
Promoting your music over this popular free service can be quite lucrative so don’t hesitate to do so, and remember to put your mixtape cover art as the video and give a link to your album in the description. Another thing that we should add is the fact youtube offers ads now and there dirt cheap and they can get you in front of your target market and build you a solid fanbase .  This method of marketing can quite often bring your YouTube video to go viral, needless to say that this can be a game changer for you, and your career.
 Release Singles
Releasing singles before the full album has proven to be a good strategy when it comes to promoting mixtapes, a good mixtape cover art combined with a good song can go viral in a matter of days, and this will bring a lot of positive marketing and positive feedback for your album and its release date.
Finally making a name for your self
What to do after your mixtape has been downloaded more than ten thousand times? This is the breaking point in musician’s career. We have a couple of suggestions when it comes to this. Corresponding with how popular you are at the moment, try to book a couple of press releases, journalists worldwide are always looking for a good story. 
So don’t be afraid to send out mass E-mails to journalists everywhere. Another good idea can be for you to make charity shows. If you have the ability to cash in your success why not do it for a good cause, people will pay the ticket price to help the needy, and this will increase your overall popularity and give tons of positive feedback. Another good idea when it comes to putting on shows and performances in general is to offer free music. 
Not literally of course, but every big name to day has been a nobody at one point, and made a name for himself by rapping or playing music at clubs for free, if you can achieve this than you are already on your way to success, and not for long you will start charging full price tickets for your performance and that money will surely be well spent on your way to towering success.