I see a good deal of bands that have a review section on their website or on social media sites that always are from their backyard and never that far away. That Seattle band for example that only has reviews from Seattle proper and about a 25 mile radius does not come off like a band that is anything more than a band that plays Seattle.

How Do I Get My Music Heard?

When you ask the question, How do I get my music heard? You should also ask, where should I get my music heard?

Why not reach out to a wider audience and other states or even other countries when you are going after getting better indie music reviews? This can help make you look a little more worldly in a sense. It gives you the appearance of more traveled group that is being heard by a wider array of fans and music industry people.

This can be done in emails and basic research very easily and requiring a limited amount of time. Do the research of different reviewers, review sites, review bloggers and email five a day with a basic template review letter that is personalized to the person or company you are reaching out to.

Getting indie music reviews is easier than you think, and the more you can build up for a wider mileage, the more that will be out there about you! There will be negative or bad reviews too but no worries. As a music consultant, I get asked how to get rid of bad reviews and I always respond, asking why. It is not bad to have bad reviews out there. It is more marketing. Your name, your album, your song is now out on another page or another site that it wasn’t on before.

Try it. It’s five emails a day and some research. Tell them why they should check you out, what you are about and go in to some basic detail to make some one want to check you out and possibly review you. Think about the fact that these people receive hundreds of requests, so make sure you do not sound like the masses in your email.

And again, the best music consulting tip I can give regarding reviews is to research and email out to five a day. You could easily find thousands and you never know which ones will give you a review or help you, your music or your website reach a whole new audience you have not been able to reach before.

Loren Weisman is an accomplished music producer, author and music consultant. He is the author of “The Artist’s Guide to Success in the Music Business”, a book to help independent artists, musicians, bands, labels and managers achieve self sufficient and sustainable success.

Music is pervasive in society, appreciated by the young and old to the fashionable, religious and sporty. So it’s not surprising that labels license musician’s tracks to high profile programs and recognized brands as a near guarantee to boost the band’s profile in the mainstream eye. But more so, the importance for such deals are paramount for musicians. For example, Michael Grubbs, the face of Wakey!Wakey! has One Tree Hill to thank for launching his career and placing his name in front of the public eye and into the public ears.

But of course, unless you’re lucky to have met the right person at the right time, as Grubbs had done, or you’ve signed to a music licensing service that happened to catch a producer’s or company’s eye, you’re stuck in a waiting game.

What appears to be an in-house traditional music video typified by the collaborative effort of bands and friends, “Punk Kids,” the latest hip hop and rock single by Portland duo Shadows on Stars, is in fact a strategic partnership with L.A. based womenswear designer Hellz Bellz, and indie menswear label, Gentleman by Day. Philosopher by Night. Pervert by Choice. Rebel by Fate. A third collaborator, Crooked Engine, directed the music video. In doing so, SoS is able to leverage the collaboration in two ways.

• Resources

SoS’s decision to choose clothing labels to work with is based on the vision for “Punk Kids,” starring a rebellious teenage antagonist in his anticlimax. What best exemplified Crooked Engine’s artistry was Hellz Bellz and GPPR’s sassy and subversive personality, embodied in their collections, but what SoS had also gained was the styling expertise of these fashion inclined labels to hit the video’s message home.

• Cross-cultural marketing

More importantly, from a marketing perspective, short of having your music featured on high profiled outlets including Grey’s Anatomy and Apple’s commercials, the cross industry collaboration with the fashion labels provides Shadows on Stars with an opportunity to reach out to a non-music demographic in addition to those that have Spinner and Pigeons and Planes bookmarked. Shadows on Stars saw its brand cross promoted through Hellz Bellz and GPPR’s respective social networks and blogs, that typically sees a fashion-centric demographic, but one that, like music, tends to have dedicated fans.

Shadows on Stars’ Reach

The recently formed Shadows on Stars, with 358 likes and 477 Twitter followers indirectly encompassed a secondary circle through their collaborator’s promotion of “Punk Kids” on their respective social media accounts – Hellz Bellz’s 3.6K Facebook fans and 6.8K Twitter fans and blog readers, GPPR’s 1.3K Facebook fans, blog readers and its founder’s 832 Twitter followers. So when you haven’t yet had your music tacked to a Ford or Starbucks commercial, but are considering filming just another music video, think about how you can leverage your resources and expand your band’s reach, outside of your own closed circle of fans.

Special Editions Win Prizes

It’s significant that the prediction relates to physical sales (unless stockings have gone digital), especially when bearing in mind last month’s big news about record-breaking digital album sales in 2011.

So what is keeping the cumbersome physical CD from being consigned to last year’s Christmas stocking? What keeps it relevant?

The answer, according to the BPI, is to be found in Deluxe and Special Edition CDs, which now account for one in ten physical album sales.

Is the answer to the CD’s continued relevance truly found in its packaging?

Special editions, for the most part, are pricier and heavier than their standard release equivalents; surely the contemporary consumer, so prone to illegal downloading and carrying hundreds of kilograms worth of CDs on an iPod, is more tech savvy than to actually buy a special edition album.

But it can’t even be the bonus tracks that tempt the consumer into splashing out on a special edition CD. Okay, okay, maybe just a bit; but we all know that it’s easier just to pay a nominal fee for them on iTunes or Amazon. It would seem that we’re developing peculiar habits – hoarding silver, shiny toys, and special edition CDs.

That’s not to mock special editions – one of my prized possessions is a special edition of AFI’s Sing the Sorrow, almost ubiquitously known as Clandestine – which are the best way for fans to get value for money in buying an album. After all, does anybody really want to spend hard-earned money on a CD with packaging limited to a cardboard sleeve?

If you read too much into the BPI’s recent press releases you’ll be excused for thinking that the phenomenon of special edition CDs is a recent one.

Fortunately for music, the idea was pushed at the Grammy’s as early as 1995, with a Grammy being given for the best special edition album every year.

BPI Chief Executive, Geoff Taylor, commenting on music as a gift, said, “Music is a thoughtful and personal gift to give or receive.

“CDs gift-wrapped and delivered to your door by the retailer make an ideal gift for Christmas whilst Deluxe and Special Editions of albums make a perfect present for die-hard music fans who want to get their hands on superbly packaged albums with bonus audio and video content and a wealth of memorabilia.”

According to the BPI, in the 12 months ending September 2011, one in ten CD sales of the Top 200 best-selling artist album titles have been deluxe and special Editions.

Long may an upward trend continue.

Samuel Agini is the Editor of Andrew Apanov’s Dotted Music.

But now I have a “real job” and I’m producing and marketing an album from home in my “free time.” It’s really reinventing the wheel since a big record deal and mainstream radio play are a longshot and physical stores are disappearing. So I thought I’d share with Dotted Music readers what I have learned over the last year from my own experience and from leaders and pioneers of this new internet music scene such as John Oszajca, Tunecore, Jango radio, Reverbnation, and Indie Bible. Here are my current 10 Commandments to reach the goal: Getting Known and Being Paid through the Internet.

• X Thou shalt make of thyself a graven image
• IX Thou shalt love thy fan base as thyself
• VIII Thou shalt have thy songs mastered
• VII Thous shalt focus thine efforts on the few most powerful websites
• VI Thou shalt give away free stuff
• V Thou shalt make a video
• IV Thou shalt not put thy music on a streaming cloud without reading the fine silver print
• III Thou shalt not neglect thy copyright
• II Thou shalt not dishonour thy timetable
• I Thou shalt GET it in WRITING

X. Image

Image credit: eatshitmotherfucker on Tumblr

Create your band image and do all your bio, design and photos to emphasize that. Be consistent. As Vanessa Carlton said, “Be Not Nobody.” Not everyone will like you, will they. Let them go… But some will love you! So be what you are, and do it HARD!

Remember, the only way a journalist is going to want to do a story on you is if you HAVE a story, something unique. So define it and then play it up. And if you have snagged a radio interview, excellent! So have some predefined answers to work from, that cement your image to listeners.

Also, radio stations and record companies/distributors want a press kit. That will include a bio that is well-written and creates a mental image, 8×10 photo(s) and of course your CD with its album art and liner notes. Having all of this ready and shiny creates the image that you are professional and serious. Moreso, that you understand the industry you are entering and you want to help THEM do THEIR job. If they have your well-crafted 8×10 to pull out again later, then they’ll shudder each time (which is good), if you’re an evo death metal band, or if you were a fun-loving and upbeat dance band then look and be reminded “yeah, he was a riot.”

IX. Fan Base

Image credit: crsan on Flickr

Try to start dialogue with your fans on Twitter and Facebook. Ask them questions, demonstrate care about their lives. The most engaged fan will probably turn around and buy the interactive CD, buy the video boxed set, SHARE you, tell two friends. After all, they discovered you. On Jango internet radio, for example, if someone clicks to become a fan, the site lets you write individually to one fan, or do 2 mass emails a week. Make it personal and grateful, not just pushing your gigs or product. Reward them. Once I wrote some musical suggestions to singer on a big label. She didn’t write back. I would have liked that. I would have thought she was cool.

Speaking of Twitter, if someone follows you, you might want to follow them back. Check them out first of course. I tend not to follow anyone who tweets to their b*ches since that will be reflected on my page. If you follow back they say, hey she’s real, and maybe is even interested in me. You can always unfollow later.

VIII. Mastering

Image credit: bartku on Flickr

You’re good, youre studio’s good, your recordist is good. But you need to sound equivalent to what’s on the radio. A professional mastering engineer listens all day to new songs, shaving off the annoying peaks, increasing clarity, beefing up the bass, making your songs as loud as the world’s songs. No you don’t want to compromise or flatten your mix, but if each of your songs has the same deficiency, because of your speakers, the mastering engineer will pick it up. It doesn’t mean that anybody sucks. It just means that not all rectangular rooms and not all speakers and amps were created equal.

VII. Websites

VibeDeck

Commandment VII is probably the core commandment. Websites will help build your fan base. Twitter, Facebook, streaming radio, your videos on Youtube, Blogs. But choose maybe 3 or 4 to which you can commit to a schedule of adding content and interacting, while people’s attention is still intact. One writer commented that 4 times a day is too many tweets and one a month is too few. Have a good mix of promo and being personal with fans.

Yes, they’ll discover you on those public sites, but you need to SQUEEZE them to your PURCHASE page, perhaps to your band’s website. Consider that you got them there and they might lose interest quickly. So tell them “get my new single” or “share my player on your page” so that they’ll come to your money engine and act.

About your own personal band website: I was worried that I had to contact Moneris or somebody to give me credit processing on my page, and a web host that could set me up with adequate band width for viral downloads… and I was intimidated. Enter the WIDGET! No, not the Bruce Lee movie. The widget is enough computer code to paste into your html page so that the selling machine that someone else already created can be placed on your personal page AND handle downloads and payment! My band Max Jam is able to sell MP3s on Reverbnation, Bandcamp, Vibedeck, The Sixtyone, AmazonMP3, iTunes etc. etc.

Now, iTunes does reportedly 80% of internet music sales in the world. So you want to be there. To be there you must pay Tunecore to launch your music, and then they collectively keep 30% of your sales. Enter Vibedeck! They have decided that they will always host for free and will always pass 100%, of sales collected, straight to you through Paypal, without touching any money! When I regained consciousness…

I tried to embed just the player/selling engine on my page. Was only able so far to embed the whole Vibedeck artist page. In the interest of time, I instead embedded just my Reverbnation player (2 inches square) and created a link which opens Vibedeck/Max Jam into my own page’s lower frame when the visitor clicks “Buy MP3.” Here is my temporary website if you want to read the source code.

VI. Free Stuff!

Image credit: brendanmills on Flickr

Napster pioneered free stuff. Unfortunately. Now it’s expected. Yes, do give away a song, but I would do it as a reward for what you need: more fans, more exposure. I personally wouldn’t give away the song that I expect to gross the most money in sales, unless it’s to the hardcore fans that have true respect and have shown loyalty. You share stuff in order to reach more people, to foster gratitude, and once they know how cool you are, to attract them to the paid stuff and concerts. Saying “come and download my single for free” might bring lots of people to your page, so maybe make them earn the single by sharing your link or your player somewhere else.

Also, here’s a sort of Digital Copyright Management that I think I invented: If you’re giving away CDs to strangers, that you made from wave files, you’re basically giving away your master. No, no, no. Only for paying customers. Instead, use iTunes to convert to a 256 or 320 kbps MP3 file, then use iTunes AGAIN to convert that MP3 back to WAVE!! Now you can burn, basically, a 256 quality CD which sounds as good the net, probably quite good, but if they rip it to put it on torrents… ooo… what’s that nasty warbling? I heard of a DJ who lowers his mixes to about -50 dB on his CDs, so people can turn them up to hear them, but not enough to DJ with them! And if you now Normalize that, you’re going to be the proud heir of artifacts from heck.

V. Video

Image credit: sko11ie on Flickr

A music video is like a ribbon on a gift, or value-added packaging. It makes the music sound better than it is. Even if it’s just home-movie of your band playing the song through once, it’s more content to enjoy and to get to know the musicians and build your image (see commandment X). Yes, do a pro video if you can afford it, yes, submit it to MTV. But if you can’t, you can still do a great job with a high-end Nikon or Canon photo camera and a TRIPOD and free software. The critics are saying that even MTV is dying slowly.

When you put it on Youtube, make sure you fill out the tags, and make most of the tags for all of your videos identical, so that all of them come up together. There is another cool idea out there: do a cover and tag it to resemble the original hit singer. This could be your first big exposure on the coattails of someone who has guaranteed traffic.

As for editing programs, I have torn out more hair using Windows Movie Maker, but Cyberlink DVD PowerDirector rocks my world. It has effects, picture in picture, titles, the list goes on.

IV. Cloud

Soundcloud

I think “the cloud” is designed to steal revenue from CD sales and even iTunes. It’s more like “the smokescreen.” Apparently people want it. So you’ll consider putting your music there but: READ THE FINE PRINT. Do they say that they have the right to “copy, distribute, use your music in any medium existing now or in the future, without restriction, in perpetuity?” What do they mean? Is that what you want? You can’t remove it?

Should you click AGREE?? Maybe just not your hit, eh? And do read your options carefully, because you may be able to set your song as preview-only, or hidden except to invitees. This is the case on Soundcloud where technically you could create a private listening room to which you “invite” DJs or A&R reps but no one else can enter. Incidentally, those scary rights paraphrased above are from Soundcloud!

III. Copyright

Copyright

Learn what forms of copyright you will own. Performance Rights (to broadcast, perform, or stream the composition), Mechanical Rights (to reproduce and sell copies of the master recording), Synchronization Rights (to grant a licence and be paid if someone uses the song in a radio ad or a movie).

You will only have performance right if you wrote the song, and you will only have all of it for sure if you get it in writing with your band who wrote what, and how much. Lyrics are 50%, music is 50%. The owner of mechanical rights and sync rights will be the person who paid to record the album, who recorded it, who bought or licenced the rights. But only one of those people, and only the one who made it clear. You should deposit your recordings with the U.S. Library of Congress to prove your copyright in composition and prior use, and register your songs with a collector of performance royalties, such as SOCAN in Canada, BMI in the U.S.

Collectors of mechanical royalties such as the CMRRA (Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency) and AMRA (American Mechanical Rights Agency) will police your physical master use if you register your work with them. Then if someone wants to reproduce your song on an anthology, for eg., they will have to negotiate the licence with CMRRA/AMRA if you’re in N.A.

II. Timetable

Image credit: webbr on Flickr

Dude, if you’re going to create hype for your album, your album better be ready for paid download or shipping when you release it. If you’re going to get local radio play, your album better be on consignment in the local CD store the next day. If not, what did you just hype? Either leave yourself enough time for snags to occur, or scale back your goals when you realize that you’re behind. You are creating DEMAND, so you had better have the SUPPLY ready, or you just lost your chance.

You might find it easier to do one single at a time, therefore, which has the benefit of keeping the hype flowing. You might want to hold off on getting a review or interview until the 4th song of your 4-song EP is mastered (somewhat autobiographical :)

I. Get It In Writing

Image credit: mr.curtispope on Flickr

And the corrollary: get it in writing. Did I mention getting it in writing? This includes…

The Split: of what band member is responsible for what percentage of lyrics and what percentage of music composition.

The Deliverables: your manager or PR firm will do what for you, how often, for what total fee or percent of GROSS? or NET?

Usually you want it net, because you know the costs are going to come from your pocket.

Any licensing deal: where they’re going to use your song as a theme, or a background, make sure they’re going have the right to use it only for a defined period, only the length and number of times specified and only in that medium. Run like heck if the contract says they can use it “in any medium, existing now or in the future, and in perpetuity.”

I say get it in writing, but it should be proactive, so PUT IT in writing and get them to sign. Sure they might disagree, and sure you might renegotiate the split, but hey, at least you’re still TALKING, and you haven’t lost any money yet! If you feel guilty because you want to take the contract to a lawyer to have them read it over, then you must be Canadian. Take it to a lawyer. You can’t afford the $100 bucks visit, nor can you afford to give away the $100, 000 because you were sued for 50% copyright. But don’t take it to your cousin the labour lawyer, take it to an Entertainment Lawyer. Search online for one.

These ten commandments for independent music making were presented in a top-ten list format, not just to confuse the church, but moreso to focus attention on Commandment I, Get it in Writing. You can do all those things, but if it’s not in writing, all you have is 99% of the good will, while your bass player only has 1% of it :) In summary, if you know who you are, and what you are trying to sell, and when, then coordinate all of your media to support each other, you will have a reference point for fine tuning your plan, and you will maximize your success.

By Christopher Dicks, Recording engineer, Producer, Co-writer of Max Jam.

• Give your CD cool cover art. Make your album cover and liner notes so cool and amazing that they can’t not buy it! This doesn’t mean your CD has to look tacky or gimmicky – unless that’s your style – it just means that the imagery and print quality should both be really good. They say never judge a book by its cover but that’s precisely what we all do, and the same applies to albums get yours noticed, make it look so cool that they want to have it in their hot little hands to show off to all their friends.
• Individualize or personalize the albums – this can be done in multiple ways, it just depends how much time, money and effort you want to spend on them. Some ideas include numbering the albums by hand to show just how limited a run, and therefore how valuable the CD is, autograph or draw pictures or write jokes or whatever takes your fancy on each album – make them all so different that the die-hard fans will have to buy more than one copy just because of this.
• Give something extra with the CD, whether that be a special download code for hidden tracks or remixes, stickers, buttons or other small tokens, to full on prize packs or gift packs with tshirts, your CD, stickers and some kind of limited edition or novelty item like a keychain lanyard, or tour-specific item for example.


Image credit: CuteDrop on Facebook

• Do something really interesting with your CD packaging, such as offering it packaged in a digipak with a foldout poster to put on the wall, or get your actual CD stamped with an interesting image or in a certain color. Get creative with it.
• Make your own zine, featuring beautiful high quality printed photos of your band, a bio and some anecdotes or interviews with band members and such and package your disc on the front, attaching it like it’s a giveaway with a music magazine and sell it for a slightly higher price – people love unusual, limited edition or creative items and packaging, it makes things more special.
• Don’t use a CD at all – instead have a DVD with your regular CD tracks and creative content like an interactive game or video clips of your band, or sell the whole thing on a small custom USB stick. Get creative, thinking outside the box and adding a little value to your CD is a great way to up your CD sales and make your fans happy.

This is a guest post by Pandie Suicide of Mixonic, a CD duplication service based in San Francisco. Click to like Mixonic on Facebook.

Launching an album in a live setting is a fairly standard approach to things, but don’t misconstrue this as an argument for traditional promotional techniques: this is very much a launch moulded by new media.

While writing this post, the gig (sold-out) is streaming live on the London Guardian’s website for a fee of $6.38 (£3.99). We, at Dotted Music, are only too pleased to witness this sort of development in the music world (yes, we know it’s been done before), but for a band as ‘in’ as Florence and the Machine to do it is good news and can only help to establish what has been a trend as a precedent.

So, who is behind the stream (besides Florence and the Machine)?

1. The London Guardian, as most of you will know, is the left of centre newspaper in the UK, with a lively and efficacious music section that has been recognised by Dotted Music before now. The London Guardian provided the online medium where Florence and the Machine’s Ceremonials launch was broadcast worldwide;
2. LoveLive, founded by CEO Richard Cohen in 2008, is the self-styled, self-described “leading source of music content and associated services for brands, broadcasters, channels, digital platforms and labels” on the net. LoveLive was responsible for the HD audio and video of the London Guardian’s live stream;
3. CrowdSurge, founded in 2008, specialises in using both software and hardware to enable artists, brands, promoters and venues to sell tickets directly to fans worldwide. CrowdSurge managed the online payment for access to the London Guardian’s live stream;
4. Sky Arts, owned by BSkyB, sponsored the London Guardian’s live stream.

You have the traditional news outlet in the London Guardian, the mysterious new digital media companies who have been both been in existence for just three years, and the media heavyweight: BSkyB (News Corporation owns close to a 40 percent stake in the company).

It’s strange to think that after the London Guardian’s exposition of the phone hacking scandal that it might be so closely involved with Sky Arts, a brand with huge ties to News Corporation.

It is possible, of course, that such collaboration is one reason the London Guardian is so opposed to News Corporation’s proposed take over of BSkyB, but the fact that such a diverse cocktail of media groups could come to put on such an event is bizarre in itself.

Whatever you make of this unlikely collaboration, the real winner in all of this is Florence.

Samuel Agini is the Editor of Andrew Apanov’s Dotted Music.

“I’ve actually been doing stuff like that for a year,” Darren points out. “It began with me doing video blogs about making the record, and then I started using Morse code and sending out secret messages via Twitter. We then had a competition where there was a treasure hunt, and fans had to work out a code and find a password and enter a competition to be flown from anywhere in the world to London to hear the record for the first time ever. That happened, and we then put clues in bottles and hid them in Rome, New York, London and Sydney. Fans had to find them and they’d win a collector’s edition of the album, but when they combined the four clues it unlocked a part of the record – it’s a ten-minute video preview of all the music on the record. It’s been incredible, and it’s been a year-long journey to get to this point.”

Darren Hayes

Generally speaking, within the digital age it’s arguably more important to communicate with the fans and encourage their involvement. “I think it’s always been important,” the singer feels. “I just think it’s easier today with social media, but I’ve always embraced that. I used to go into IRC chatrooms and message on message boards back in the day, and 15-20 years on Twitter and Facebook are obviously the tools of today, and who knows what they’ll be next week. But yeah, it’s definitely important. I think it’s important to communicate really. I don’t come from a generation of performers where I feel like a celebrity, and I certainly don’t feel above my audience. I am a fan. I’m a fan of other artists, and I find it difficult to even refer to the people that buy my music as fans. I find it a bit degrading, except they know what I mean by that because I was the kid who waited outside Michael Jackson’s hotel for an autograph. I totally understand it, and I try to break down those walls a bit. That’s why I try to use social media to do that.”

Darren is the owner of a uStream account, a service whereby you can stream live videos to fans. “I’ve only just started video streaming actually – I enjoy it,” he admits. “To be honest nothing really beats the live show, but uStream’s great for people who live in places where you will probably never be able to get to. They get to see you live essentially, so I’m going to be doing more and more uStream stuff for sure.”

How effective has your foray into social media been Darren? “To be honest, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know. All I know is… to be honest, I’ve only just really focused on my Facebook page six months ago; we went from 2,000 followers to 110,000 followers, and it’s just slowly grown over time. Twitter has been a similar thing; I started with one follower, and I think I’ve got about 45,000 or something. To me it’s not necessarily about an immediate spike, or about something that a marketing person would tell you – to me it’s just about having a presence there. For me, when I think of an artist… If I wanna check out their latest release, I’ll probably go to Twitter and YouTube. I’ll go to a separate YouTube page and then I’ll check out what they’re like on Twitter, and that’s a lot different to the way that I used to check out music, which is I’d just go to a record store and flick through albums.”

The video, itself, is over two years old, but should still be considered very carefully as evidence for the long-standing bond between the fashion and music industries. I am, of course, talking about Vivienne Westwood. From her humble beginnings designing clothes that the Sex Pistols would wear, to her current status as world-famous fashion designer and Dame, Vivienne Westwood has stuck to her Do it Yourself principle from the very beginning.

In this interview on the Jonathan Ross show, Vivienne Westwood subtly alludes to the punk origins of her fashion career. Dotted Music has kindly chosen to start the video below from the relevant section (3.02), and we hope you continue to Tweet your opinions @Dotted Music. What is it about the music and fashion industries that enables one person to impact to such a degree?

Perhaps only Vivienne Westwood can tell us.

Samuel Agini is the Editor of Andrew Apanov’s Dotted Music.

With Rosie Huntington-Whiteley already selected as the face (and body) of Body, the fashion house’s campaign for Body promises more surprises along the way. The link between fashion and music has been strong for many years now, but what is it about the two industries that makes them look so great hand in hand? The million dollar question is this: what is it about music that helps to shift vast quantities of fragrance? Answers in a Tweet, please: @dottedmusic.

Founded in 1856, Burberry is Britain’s biggest fashion house. The Feeling is an English pop band that has been active since 1995. The band’s last album – Together We Were Made – reached #22 on the UK album charts.

Samuel Agini is the editor of Andrew Apanov’s Dotted Music.

Image credit: alittlenuclear-bomb on Tumblr

• CD’s – Having CDs at your shows is very important if you want to sell your music. Modern music fans will typically get their music online – legally or illegally – but at a live event like your show, they want something they can take home with them, a piece of the concert they just witnessed, a part of the experience they just had – a piece of you, and what better way to get that than with a CD. It’s an especially good idea to have a cover design that allows for lots of room in the booklet or boardstock CD packaging (which is lighter and easier to transport around on tour) for your band to autograph, should the fan desire it. You could also have a poster as one side of the CD insert where each band member can sign their name right by their picture. Doing this has been known to help boost sales in indie bands. You might also want to consider bringing DVD’s – all albums and EPs, ‘mixtapes’ and other CD/DVD products that your band has for sale, just for the diehard fan who has – and wants – everything. You can also sell download codes to buy your music, but those are of course, not as fun to sign or show off to friends for the fans. Great memento merchandise is found in a CD’s packaging, but while it’s a lot bigger, more fragile and harder to lug around, if your band has vinyl out you might want to consider taking some on tour with you – though you’re probably more likely to sell more CDs than anything else.
• Posters – If you want to sign and give away posters to fans that come to your merch booth or buy other items, and you don’t already have a poster inside your CD booklet as discussed above, finding a sponsor such as an energy drink company, alcohol company (if appropriate), or another outside-the-box sponsor who will print your posters with their logos on them, you can give them away free and get them into the hands of as many fans as possible. If you don’t want to give them away, can’t find a sponsor or want to do both, then choose a photo from your latest band photoshoot – be sure you have the photographer’s permission to use it as a poster and get a bulk amount printed to make the cost per poster extraordinarily cheap. Decide on your mark up – if you can get them cheap enough you may even be able to price them as low as $1-2 potentially resulting in many, many sales, or price them higher at $5-10 or more if you think your fans will buy them for that.
• Cups, shot glasses and the rest – Getting cups and shot glasses and other similar items printed with your logo is an idea that could work for your band, so long as you think your fans will buy such commodities. However, if you’re selling them at a show, consider this: would you want to buy something you have to carry around all night, like a mug with a band’s name printed on it? With a shirt it’s easy – you just slip it on to replace the sweaty one you wore to the show, or drape it over your shoulder; with a CD, you can probably slip it in your back pocket, or even fit it in a purse, but a big glass or ceramic item? Not as much. Should you want to go the printed cup route, these items make for good ‘order online’ merch items that you can ship out directly to fans’ homes. Shot glasses, however, assuming they are the durable plastic breed and more likely to be picked up than the aforementioned items, and if you’re lucky you might even find yourself a sponsor – such as Jagermeister (if appropriate) – who will make them for you, with the added bonus of the sponsor’s brand thrown in for free.


Image credit: keepitloose on Tumblr

• Stickers and buttons – stickers are an almost must-have item in your tour itinerary. They’re pretty cheap to make, meaning they’re pretty cheap for the fan to buy. Coupled with their portability – both for you and the fan – stickers can be stuck anywon schoolbooks, on walls, on bathroom mirrors, on laptops, on windows, on cars, on bodyparts, on guitars: on just about anything. Buttons or badges are also great little items to have available, but think about your audience before you have them made, are they really going to wear buttons? If your band is punk rock or thrash metal, you’re probably going to see a lot more people at your shows wearing buttons as opposed to if you’re in say a hip hop genre, but it’s really up to what you think your fans will like. But if it’s stickers vs buttons, definitely go with the stickers first.
• Novelty items – does your band have a certain theme or style or mascot of some kind that can be used as inspiration for a piece of merch that is unique to your band and will be loved by your fans? You don’t have to go all out Gene Simmons style and have everything from dolls to who knows what made with your faces on them, but you could take a cue from Kiss and think about creating a novelty item that represents your band and have a few made to try out on a test market, such as your next show. Keep the old faithful merch as well – t-shirts, CDs and the rest, but don’t be afraid to think outside the box and develop something novel and new, and all about you.

This is a guest post by Pandie Suicide of Mixonic, a CD duplication service based in San Francisco. Click to like Mixonic on Facebook.