Hey music people of the forum, I would like some advice about self promotion…
I was thinking that once I finish this record or album whatever you want to call it…
I would make my own CDs (burn them) and leave them on people cars or houses or something, but would that be something illegal to do?
I would also like to promote my music online but I don’t want to seem like an attention whore or anything.
I’m very conflicted with how to go about this it makes me a little nervous I just want to share my music with the world and see if people like it
I’m not much of a musician but I would think if you want to get your music out there you would need to move somewhere with a music industry or a music scene. A lot of aspiring musicians around here end up moving to Nashville to make a go of it
seriously I think its a networking thing. giving your music to normal people wont do much for you
I think independent is the way to go. Not familiar enough with how to promote, but posting your new stuff on youtube is always good. Also, check out reverbnation.com, it’s free and it’s fun. Soundcloud is cool too. There are probably many options to get your music heard on the internet. Maybe selling your stuff on iTunes?
I’m old and out of touch with a lot of the current stuff with music, so maybe you can find better options just talking to other musicians.
Don’t be afraid about promoting your stuff, it doesn’t make you a whore if you just want your stuff to be heard.
I wouldn’t leave CD’s on cars, most of them will be thrown out and doing that will just waste your time and money and could possibly get you in trouble.
Local college radio used to be a way to get things rolling, maybe you can find out who is spinning tunes locally.
I think you should put it out and let the people who are interested find it. You will find an audience if you do a little work.
Maybe put a project together to play live at local venues. If that’s not what you want to do, just keep recording on your own. Or, like @ThePickinSkunk said, busking could be helpful.
Good luck, I liked your stuff I saw on youtube.
This is spoken from a composer, songwriter, music producer and promoter of three online musical albums: Get yourself a website from which to promote your albums. It will cost you about $400 a year for hosting of the website if it is a good, attractive and user friendly website. Then, when you have all your music on your website, promote your website on all the different search engines from Google to Edge to Bing and more, there are oodles of them. This will cost you about $99 a month. Next, promote your website on Adwords Express. The lowest cost promotion is $50 a month. If you want, you can promote your website on Facebook too. They are kinda expensive though and the return is not great. This should get you going.
@ZanyNotStoopid, I should warn you. Be prepared to not get any notice or make any money. The indie music business is extremely crowded and extremely competitive and it’s very hard to stand out in the crowd. You can’t be merely good. You have to be absolutely “knock your socks off awesome” to be noticed in the music world. Nothing less than that will suffice anymore. Just warning you.
I forgot to mention bandcamp.com. That’s a really good one for the stuff I think you want to do. It’s free and a lot of bands have stuff on there.
If you release a CD, there are many fanzines that still do reviews of independent releases. My old bassist has a band called the Thingz (Long Beach garage/indie rock) and they get pretty good reviews for their vinyl/CD releases, some of them from zines in other countries.