Who Should I Formally Tell About an Independent Album Release??

[dudernut]

Hello all,

Although I rarely post here, when I have it has yielded extremely helpful advice (not to sound like the Dos Equis guy). I learned even more searching through old posts, so here I am now. My band's album is in its final stages, and although its date has not been officially released, we are 90% certain that by our show on July 20th, we will have 100 fully mastered 10 song discs in cases. Obviously, the goal is to spread the word to as many people as possible, but what I would like to know is what outlets should I formally email or send press packs to? I live the Dallas, TX area, and my ideas so far are fairly simple: The promotions and radio organizations we are already associated with, other radio station possibilities, local weekly arts paper(s), indie labels...then I start drawing a blank. I know there are more opportunities, probably so obvious they could bite me on the nose, but my mind has been so flustered with mixing, arranging tracks for the mastering engineer, artwork, and disc pressing that it has been tough trying to work in any promotional aspects at all on the record. I don't want to set myself up for an absolutely disappointing release, but I also do not want to push it back any further. We did most of the tracking in December, some earlier! Anyone have any tips?

Uneasy Pilgrim | Garland, TX 75043

 

[Chili]

Promotion is always the most difficult part of making and selling music. That's the one element of producing music the record companies have over the individual artist. We can emulate most every other step of music-production, but we can't promote like the big boys can.

Your gigs, friends, fans and far-removed relatives are your best bet. You can buy a book called the Songwriter's Market and look for labels or other venues to submit your music to. This book is published every year and is pretty comprehensive.

There are local music magazines you can try. I've met the editor of Texas Music Monthly a few years back, they like to highlight up and coming bands.

Facebook is suppose to be a great medium for promoting, but I wouldn't know how to use it. I think you have to start your own band page then Like everything on facebook.

Hopefully others might have better ideas.
Good luck.

 

[mjbphotos]

As far as sending CDs/press packs to radio stations: even the college stations get inundated with new submissions. Unless you've got a contact (not just a name!) at a station, your CD - if you're lucky and you've given them correct info on the genre, etc - will end up in a drawer/on a shelf where maybe - big maybe - one day someone will actually take a look at it and give a listen.
I did a half-hour show at a college station Sunday night, and didn't bother leaving my CD in the shelves of 'local music' (which I was told rarely gets looked at by anyone) - the cabinets of drawers had literally 1000s of discs in them and the few with labels (indicating last play date/time) were rare finds.

Face it - you are never going to get rich selling CDs, but you can make sure your fans know they can get them from you. Bring them to shows, let folks know on your facebook page, etc.

 

[dudernut]

Thanks for the replies.

Face it - you are never going to get rich selling CDs, but you can make sure your fans know they can get them from you. Bring them to shows, let folks know on your facebook page, etc.

Trust me, I am far past the days of expecting (but not dreaming about) commercial success; I'm nearly 30 and have been in gigging bands since I was 15 (wow! literally half my life...lol). However, this is my first attempt at a logistically marketable album, meaning its technical capabilities of going on iTunes, Spotify, and other places will be intact. Do I expect people to give a shit about the album? Nope. Do I hope they do? Sure. I am also not under the illusion that our tunes are better than anyone else's in town, but so far in the promotion of the upcoming project, we have been able to perform live Internet Radio sets along with song rotation on the same station. It's not much, but I enjoy knowing that others have the opportunity to hear it and hopefully they enjoy the songs and want to look into us. All I am really looking for is some ideas of places to look that focus on independent artists that I may not be thinking of. Perhaps, I simply need to explore every local music blog, paper, and broadcast that I come along. I realize that networking is the name of the game, but if anyone has any tips, don't hesitate to throw them my way.

 

[Steenamaroo]

(wow! literally half my life...lol).

I was feeling pretty good about my musical endeavours until I read that line.

We've had some success with getting music to, and played by, local radio stations.
They key word there is local. I spoke to a chap at Radio 2 and got plenty of listens through radio one's introducing scheme (they are the big stations here), but never got any plays or responses other than "No, sorry."

The local stations were a fairly easy hit in fairness.
Most often I just do a hand written letter addressed to the host or producer and just clearly and concisely put across the 'local emerging artist' vibe.
The second you hear your name mentioned, text a load of friends and tell them to text the show. 5 or 6 texts asking for or acknowledging a local artist is probably enough to get another play later in the week. Get's you started, right?

The six track EP we put out last year got played on maybe 6 or 7 shows and totalled maybe a few hundred plays.
The one track that was favoured got on a local playlist. It was the only white label track on there; The rest was Robbie Williams and other commercial chart tracks.
I say local. That station has a reach of 285,000/week, whatever that means in the real world.
The other 5/6 shows have maybe double that.

Hardly 'success', I know, but it all came from hand written letters.