you recorded your first album in your home studio. what do you do now?

[angelestevisjr]

Tony I Hope You Can Take It....you Yourself Sound Great Your Vocals Are Awesome.you Can Definatly Sing.a Real Pro With A Bright Future..but........its Your Band Man..your In The Wrong Band....go Solo Or Forget It Itll Never Happen

[audiofrenia]

Couple of questions to ask yourself before making a marketing strategy:
Where do you or your friends look for music?
Do you go to MySpace or YouTube to listen a song that you heard about?
Where do you or your friends buy your music. ...or do you even buy it anymore?
What is the target group for your music?

Change along with the industry and keep and eye for new ways to promote or sell your music.
Don't just follow the old habits of music promotion. Invent new ways.

Word of mouth! ...if a friend of yours tell you about this "fu***g great band", you probably go and find it to make your own opinion? But if you see a banner on the net saying "check out our new album! available on itunes now!" you probably wont click it?

...just few thoughts.

[Raffael Cavaliere]

Gourgane Records - New tendencies in jazz and worldbeat music

[Tony B]

Thanks Mixmaster for you r kind words - compliments never go astray - even when you've been playig for years. I appreciate it (even if I'm shit at the music business part of it).

Cheers,

Tony

Tony Brewin on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Videos

[whomper]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

In our town, there are at least 3 music stores that gladly carry local cds. It's more of an issue with the people who buy cds. No one will buy a cd unless it's a band they've heard of.

well......for rock yes
for classical its the composer

there are three things to deal with :
1 you have to be good enough
2 they have to hear about you - promotion and advertising etc
3 they have to want your product - dont try to sell hiphop to the aarp folks or classical to teenyboppers

1 - stop kidding yourself - if you learned guitar from some dvd lessons you probably have a lot more to learn - especially if you are also composing/arranging not just playing covers

2 - this is the hard part - you may be the next 3rd tenor but you will have to start small and grow your fan base - leave cds in the recycled music store (no real cd stores left in our city!) -- get gigs , get audience, more gigs, build audience, start locally, spread regionally, and hope. of course have a web site, newsletter, free samples, etc.

do freebie concerts for charity, get news coverage. you gotta promote promote promote the pr and then do it some more.

3 - the bigger your target market audience the better your chances. want to experiment with something new you may not find anyone who cares but you and your mother. figure out what is going to be big 5 years from now and go after that full time.

[whomper]

Originally Posted by spellcom

I have known people who basically ask a CD replication/duplication company to cheaply mass-produce their albums and to do good packaging. I personally have met lots of bands who do it this way. I personally know of one myself who has great prices and graphic artists on hand to help you get the packaging just perfect. I think it's one of the best ways to go, since you can also put barcodes and shrink wrap to make it look very pro. The CD replication/duplication companies pretty much help you through all the steps it takes to make a disc ready to sell or handout. It's a great way to go that gives a lot of bang for the buck.

I know all about marketing music albums and feel free to ask me any questions about marketing albums through CDs and DVDs.

sounds like self published book authors
who print a bunch of books and have big piles of them in the garage cause they cant sell them

you should have a way to sell the stuff before you make cds
or books

you need to get your name known - that is key

and you need to identify your target audience who is going to buy your stuff and how to get to them

dotn count on mom and friends to buy
they expect free copies

the dirty truth is tht if you record and home and never go out and get yourself known you are not goin gto sell squat

and are unlikely to be able to even give any downloads away
you might get folks to take a free cd
but will they ever play it ?

i have a box full of cassettes cds and dvds that i have been given that i might play someday - and i have 800 LPs and a couple of hundred CDs that I do play - because I bought them

you really need to get known so people will buy the stuff and then tell others
just having a great song that you like does not make you the better mousetrap guy with the world coming to you

[whomper]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

In our town, there are at least 3 music stores that gladly carry local cds. It's more of an issue with the people who buy cds. No one will buy a cd unless it's a band they've heard of.

we also have several music stores that do that
they carry about 2-3 local bands
the bad news is we have hunddreds if not thousands of them

you still have to convince the owner you are the one
or know the kid who is clerking there and get him to do i t

buying is another question
if they know you then a lot more likely
otherwise it has to be cheap and an impulse buy based on a killer cover and display box that gets their interest

price is important
not going to buy some unknown for $20 when i can get a proven name for that
probably not at $10 each if i never even heard of them
for $1 I might take a chance
For $5 the display has to be dyn-0-mite and the clerk has to hype the cd

[whomper]

Originally Posted by josh166

So now that you have that long awaited first album out of your home studio, what do you do and where do you go with it? I'm asking. do you try and sell it to a major record label? do you just get it mass produced and go around to stores and ask if they will sell it? What do you do?

you have to get known
you need to make contacts

no major label will even open the wrapper

you can spend a bunch to mass produce it
and then you have a room full of cds you cant get rid of

stores wont sell it if you cant sell them on you
they have too many otehr bands that are out gigging and getting press in the local scene rag and otherwise being talked about

making music is easy
marketing musis is hard
selling indie music is next to impossible (to make a profit)

[Ian Munn Solo Artist]

I think its all about social networks and radio. You need one good song or lots of fans or followers online. I used to rely on gigs but now I don't have that luxury (all married up with kids). I am reading this forum cause I wanna get some tips but to me at present its all about getting one song that "takes off" and is picked up by radio, whether it be internet radio or FM.

[Danny Danzi]

My God....I soo wanna post something here, but unfortunately it will be a huge book as there is so much to talk about in this one. I've been living this 24/7 since 1999. I'll ask a question to the original poster.

What are your goals? There's a difference between shopping something to a major label, shopping something to an indy label, shopping something to a label that thinks they're a label and selling cd's. Actually, there are a few different ways to sell cd's too. LOL! This is just such a loaded question, I'd be here all day and the last thing any of you wanna see is a 3 page post by my sorry ass. However, if you want the facts and the truth as I have lived it, I will do it gladly.