Posted: Mar 11, 2019

Category: Giving Back

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**Guest post written by Jamie Wyman, singer-songwriter and Executive Director of The Great Blue Song Project.

"How many times have you heard people say, “I always wanted to learn to play the guitar” or, “I wish my parents made me practice the piano when I was a kid”? You are one of the few who followed through. And now that you have nurtured your musical superpower, you must use it for good. Here are five ways you can use your musical powers for good..."

Posted: Feb 19, 2019

Category: The Musician Business

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**Guest post written by Donna Maurer, a contributor on multiple music blogs and lover of creating helpful articles for her fellow musicians and music lovers.

"If you want to be successful as a musician today, you must learn to diversify your income streams. That way, when the live gigs and album sales slow down, you’ll still have money coming in from other areas to keep you going until things pick up...Here are some unique and creative ways to make money when your career hits a lull."

Posted: Dec 3, 2018

Category: The Musician Business

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**Guest post written by Matt Santry, independent musician and founder of the Well Paid Musicians Club.

"There’s a character named James [in the Netflix series "Westside"] who works construction by day. In the first episode, he asks his boss to cut his hours down to 3 days a week so he can have time to practice for an upcoming show. They show James digging ditches, tearing down walls and doing backbreaking manual labor...This is insanity to me! He's a talented guy. So why couldn't he do 1 cover gig at a private event and make that same amount [of money]?"

Posted: Jul 24, 2017

Category: Marketing

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**Guest post written by Allison Stafford, lead singer and acoustic rhythm guitarist for the Southern Country band No Deceit.

"We all know as musicians that the Merch Sales and Tips can be the saving grace of a show! You may not make a lot of money from the venue that you’re playing, or anything for that matter, but sometimes, you can make more in a tip jar or in merch sales than you would from the venue anyway! How do you get people directed toward your mech and tip bucket?"

Posted: May 22, 2017

Category: Licensing

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**Guest post written by Donna Kay of Donna Kay & The Carousers.

"After the time and expense of recording, mixing, designing the cover artwork, and launching the CD, I had two tasks: Copyright the CD, and obtain the licenses to release (for sale) and perform our version of “Minor Swing”...I had to obtain two permissions to use the song: One from the owner of the publishing rights, and after submitting their permission in writing, the Easy Song standard licensing fee to record and perform our version of the song. This took a full month of digging, e-mailing, getting responses and finally finding two brothers in NYC who run a publishing company and own the rights the song."

Posted: Mar 27, 2017

Category: Promotion

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**Guest post written by Carlos Castillo of Schwilly Family Musicians - music marketing strategist, web designer, live performance recordist, international road-tripper, lap steel player, and Captain of the Schwilly Family.

"A lot of music biz teachers will tell you that you should commit time to releasing cover songs on YouTube because you’ll get all kinds of organic growth and attention. This is a proven strategy that has been working for several years. But, especially now that so many musicians are applying it, I’m not sure it’s all that it’s cracked up to be anymore. And it’s not as simple as picking songs you like and recording your own versions..."

Posted: Nov 2, 2015

Category: Marketing

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**Guest post written by Matt Bacon, Senior Campaign Manager at Independent Music Promotions.

You look out on the crowd after a high powered set opening up for one of your favorite bands – and then instead of playing another song off your latest release you instead pull off a killer cover of Just Like Heaven...People love artists who pay tribute to their influences.

Posted: Mar 24, 2014

Category: Online Presence

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**Guest post written by Brandon Seymour, musician, SEO analyst, web designer, and social media marketer.

Independent bands and musicians in particular stand to gain a great deal of exposure if they put the time and effort into creating quality, engaging videos and marketing themselves on popular video platforms like YouTube, Vimeo and others of the like...Plain and simple, videos work. It's just a matter of figuring out how they can work for you...

Posted: Jan 20, 2014

Category: Licensing

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**Guest post written by Chris "Seth" Jackson, a bass guitarist and composer and founder of HowToRunABand.com.

"My band is recording a cover song, Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-A-Lot. Since it’s a cover song, I need to get the rights to use it. I found a really easy and affordable way to license the music! But, I also found a giant and annoying snag in regards to YouTube. A snag so big it makes me a bit resentful of the music industry’s antiquated ways."