You are an independent musician and you have produced a fine Audio CD you want to share with the world? Then you have to realize that promotion, especially online promotion, is absolutely necessary in order to call the public’s attention to your music. But how can you do that in an efficient and furthermore affordable way? Below I’ll give you some helpful hints including online promotion, distribution of your new CD and other easy to realize things that will push your musical career.

Personal Website
The most important thing for an indie musician or band to begin with is launching a personal website including newsletters, online press kit, biography, picture gallery, concert dates, personal blog, audio samples of your songs etc. People will then find you easily in the web and get all the information they need.

Social Networks
Indie bands should benefit from numerous opportunities of so called social networks like Myspace, Facebook, last.fm and many others. Creating accounts there will help you to build fans, keep in touch with other musicians and increase traffic on your personal website. Don’t forget to hyper link each of these sites together on your profiles so that visitors can easily check out all your profiles on different websites.

Press Release
Releasing a press statement of your indie music production written by a publicist or at least by a semiprofessional writer generates free publicity and is many times more valuable than many advertisements you could buy. Don’t forget to target your press release personally to the specific reporter of the concerned newspaper, magazine, radio station or whatever! It’s also clever to contact each journalist personally, and ask how they want to receive press releases (mail, fax, or e-mail).

CD Release Party
Throw a CD Release Party. Find an appropriate location (a local club should do) and play live ’cause there’s no better way to get people enthusiastic for your music. A thrilling concert can be your breakthrough. Invite people who could push your career and don’t forget to put up your new CD and other promotion items for sale.

Distribution
Chose a reliable distribution company for your new CD! There are several distributors specializing in the distribution of independent music. noMainstream-Music.com, for example, is one of them. A webpage for the sale of your CD will be created including soundclips, album info, link to your personal website, picture gallery and you can even announce your tour dates there.

All you have to do is send them your CDs and they will put your CD into their database and provide storage. In addition they undertake the whole sales procedure and offer all current methods of payment.

Musicians set the price for their CD. noMainstream-Music keeps $4,- of the net sales for each CD sold, you keep the rest. They will immediately advise you as soon as they need fresh supplies. Very important detail: Musicians retain all legal rights on their songs and can cancel the distribution at any time. In a conventional record deal or distribution contract, musicians only get $1-$2 per CD sold. Selling your CDs via noMainstream-Music, you can make $4-$12 per CD.
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