Although I’m a publicist now, I started my career in the music industry as a blogger, and in the six years since I created that blog, I’ve seen my fair share of submissions from bands and publicists alike. Thousands of emails have landed in my inbox, but I’ve only covered a fraction of those stories on the website.
Why?
Touring overseas might seem like a dream, especially when you’re going to places you’ve never been to and doing what you love. However, it can be more complicated and risky than touring in your home country. If you’re thinking of booking an international tour, consider these three things:
More artists than ever before are finding huge audiences for their music with songs that were recorded from their home studios. Long gone are the days when creating and sharing great music meant having to record at a fancy music studio manned by professional recording engineers. But don’t be fooled. Home recording isn’t easy, and you shouldn’t confuse knowing how to write songs with the ability to record and produce music. Home recording is a skill just like anything else, and it takes time and practice to get better at it. If you’re new to recording from your home studio, here are five tips to help you get started:
Ever felt like no matter what you do, your music career isn’t taking off like you want it to?
Done everything from marketing to content creation and still not seeing serious results?
It can feel discouraging, I know. But trust me when I say, we’ve all been there. There is no breakthrough without the trials, experiments, and work that comes before it. Just know, you are not alone in feeling this way. And believe it or not, there are solutions.
An important thing to remember is: what works for me may not work for you and vice versa. Read on with an open mind and go with your gut. Does one of these feel more doable to you? Does it feel more aligned? Be ready to put in the work, and aim to find the path that makes the work feel worth it, exciting, and engaging.
That’s the key. And it’s also where we start.
Songwriters don’t have it easy. We’re writing songs during the most competitive time in music industry history. If you’re a professional songwriter, income sources that used to be reliable, like licensing, have become much less so in recent years. And with today’s playlist-centric listening culture, it’s a feast or famine situation for many professional songwriters. But even if you’re not writing songs for your main source of income, there are plenty of challenges you will likely face as a songwriter. If you love making music and want to do it seriously for the rest of your life, it’s helpful to know why so many songwriters call it quits.
Persistence is, without a doubt, one of the most vital character traits a musician can possess. You could even argue that there’s no hope of succeeding in music without it, whether you want to write songs for a living, perform in a touring band, or become a bonafide popstar.
When you’re involved in two sides of the industry like I am–being both a publicist and a writer, sometimes it feels like all you’re ever reading is artist bios.
Trust me, I’ve seen it all, and a lot of those bios I’ve read are not pretty.
A bio is a major reflection of the band or artist it’s about. This may seem like a big duh, but you’d be surprised at how many bios out there are poorly written or make the band look bad because they are poorly written.
And honestly, I think the truth is most of us don’t realize how important a bio really is, and we don’t know what to look out for when it comes to writing them.
Take a look at some of these don’ts to get a head start on what not to do in your next bio revision.
Trust is something we typically think about much more in relation to bandmates and collaborators than with ourselves as songwriters. If you regularly find yourself questioning your creative decisions or trying to bend your music in directions that don’t feel natural, you might have a problem with trusting yourself as a music-maker.
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