How to Promote Yourself Part 5: Blogs & One Sheets

DON’T FORGET TO BRUSH... I MEAN BLOG.

It seems that keeping an interesting and regular blog is now a requirement for anyone who’s trying to build a fanbase. Fans now expect to be able to stay posted on events, and even comment back, and yes, even get a response from the artist at times. You’ve got to win people over with your story, your personality, your life. If you’re in the studio, document that process, and even post in the studio video. If you’re doing studio work, tell about your latest session, giving interesting little anecdotes. Or even just give a great cookie recipe or tips on where to get a free meal on your birthday. Anything that might be interesting. Put this on your to do list. Just keep in mind that it’s open to the public, so don’t start slamming people openly unless you want to potentially burn that bridge.

Also several sites allow you to bring your blog in from other sites via RSS feeds. So if you post a blog on MySpace, you can bring it into your iLike, Facebook, Reverb Nation, and Last.fm profiles among others. Once you get that set up, it’s nice to not have to post it in multiple places, it just shows up each time you post it to MySpace. If this seems to labor intensive, at least consider “micro-blogging” which I’ll write about more under the Twitter section.


ONE SHEET

This is not one sheet. It’s A one sheet. A one sheet is something you’ll need if you want to pitch your CD to any retail store. I learned about this just by reading articles online. It basically includes the following information: a photo of your CD, the title, the track list, the playing time, a paragraph or two about your project, airplay or performances in the area that might drive people to buy it, press quotes, UPC code, wholesale price, suggested retail price. When you approach a store’s buyer about carrying your CD, if you don’t know what a one sheet is, you’ll look like you don’t know what you’re doing. If you’ve got a decent one sheet, they will want it to help make their decision. ADD THESE PEOPLE TO YOUR DATABASE.

CDs are quickly becoming more scarce in the retail market, and it was predicted that last Christmas would be the last Christmas that CDs are sold. These are interesting times of change to be sure. It seems, though, that there are still boutiques that are image oriented that carry music if it fits their image. We got our CDs into a very upscale men’s clothing store in Belgium simply because the owner contacted us on MySpace just to say he liked our tracks. I noticed he had a posh clothing store and responded by asking if he’d like to carry our CD. He decided to order 10 copies and see how they moved. It’s the only title they carry. You just never know!

[Hi all,
Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I
created for my college students and break it down into a series of
blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and
your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released
artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are
manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking
it down into bite sized portions. ]