Q&A: I need music promotion advice?
Question by Ego: I need music promotion advice?
I am a singer in the alternative genre and I am working on my E.P. It will be complete by the new year and I am very confident that it will be received well. I am not sure how to go about releasing the music.
I know that Adam Young from Owl City/Sky Sailing released his album on Myspace and that led him to get signed.
Should I release my e.p. on myspace and other sites?
Should I send my demo to record labels?
Should I gig around my town?
I want to get considerable exposure within a year. Any advice?
Best answer:
Answer by AyHyperbole
You should definitely maximize your Internet exposure. Put your music up on Myspace, Reverbnation, Soundclick, Ourstage, and everywhere else that will take it. You also need to get it up on YouTube. Make a music video and put your song to it. The better the video, the more hits, but some people use YouTube basically as a radio, so even if the “video” were just a still photo of you, that’s better than nothing.
Your Facebook fan page is critical to people listening to you. If you don’t have one, make one. Gig around town, and when you play a show, have some business cards or flyers out that have the URL of your Facebook fan page on them.
When you gig around town, make sure you pick acts to play with whose fan base you can steal a slice of. Find the most popular (not necessarily best) alt-rock acts in town and ask if you can open for them.
I don’t think sending an unsolicited demo to record labels will get you very far. It’s probably better to go to cdbaby.com and pay the few bucks it costs for them to sell your EP. They’ll also give you some kind of bar code which make it possible to get your music onto sites like iTunes and Amazon.
Also, in my opinion, for your first release, exposure is more important than protecting your copyright, so it probably wouldn’t be a terrible idea to upload a torrent of your EP to some music piracy sites, like Monova and The Pirate Bay.
What do you think? Answer below!