When is marketing your music a game? When you decide to integrate a game into your music marketing, of course.  The band Fall Out Boy are playing with their fans by integrating all kinds of references to their new album on an online game version of the old classic game...

Amazon is like the elephant in the room.  You may not want to acknowledge its presence, but it’s there. Don’t ignore it, use it to sell your music. Amazon has a feature called the “advantage program.” You will find it on their home page. When you click on the link,...

In case you haven’t noticed (or simply don’t care), Myspace has been losing ground to other social networking sites, especially Facebook. Several years ago, the thing that really pushed Myspace into the major leagues was that it was a great place for bands to show themselves off.  A couple of...

Do dogs howl when you open your mouth?  If you are one of those people with a limited vocal range, don’t let that stop you from recording your songs. When the music is good, nobody minds. Think of Bob Dylan. Think of Madonna. Madonna? That’s right Madonna. In case you...

The big news in the music industry these days is the upcoming merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster.  Seems they want to merge and control about 80% of the live music industry.  Those 2 companies control most of the major acts, many of the big venues, and the ticket distribution. ...

Everyday there is another story about the record labels losing their fight against piracy and file sharing.   Not so long ago, copyrights on music didn’t last that long.  A few years, and it was done.  Then, publishers got lawmakers to change the rules in their favor.  For almost the last...

Songwriter?  Then, get ready!  You are about to be sued. Did you notice my mention of the company Auditude in the post about Myspace a few days ago?  They index songs sort of like Google indexes web pages.  They grab them off websites, examine them, and then look to see...

Who would have thought that Muzak would ever file for bankruptcy protection! What a cruel world we live in. According to Bloomberg.com,  the company we love to hate, the company that takes songs we all know and makes them sound alike, the company that pumps music into stores, elevators and...

MySpace has started a pilot program that lets people buy songs while watching a music video. At this point, there are only two bands and two ways to buy the songs, but this will definitely grow if this new way to sell music truly catches on. YouTube is trying something...

Simply put, a rider is part of a contract, usually an addition to a standard agreement. Whenever you play live you have to sign one. They cover things like sound equipment, lights, security, and all the issues that make a live show run smoothly. Experienced bands put specific things in...