41: Use Eventful.com

Eventful is very powerful. The first time I knew I was going to be in Seattle I sent a message to 75 people who demanded me on Eventful and w/in 24 hours I had a show set up at a venue that held 75 people. That show sold out. This made me real- ize you can tour in an efficient way instead of driving up and down the east coast to cities where people don’t know you. It’s much better to wait till people know who you are and you know they want you there. http://eventful.com/

 - Jonathan Coulton

56: Tweet, Please

Twitter has been really big for me and it gives me direct contact w the people who want to listen to me – literally. When I released my new DVD I asked people to check it out and within a few minutes my tweet made it to 100, 000 people who were pre-disposed to care about it, which is a remarkable marketing message. I sold hundreds of them online just using my Twitter connections. I use Twitter as another entertainment channel to say interesting things and show people interesting things and share photos. To share photos with your Twitter friends use these easy sites: http://www.twitpic.com & http://www.yfrog.com Between these 2 things Twitter has become my main focus. I no longer am always thinking about updating my blog – I’m always thinking about Twitter.

- Jonathan Coulton

http://www.jonathancoulton.com

61: Get Played On Podcasts – Build a Rabid Loyal Audience

Even small podcasts with only 100- 200 listeners count if you get played on lots of them. The key to understand here is: Podcasters listen to others podcasters podcasts and they get ideas from each other and rebroadcast pieces of each others podcasts – it is a pre- selected audience and Podcasters will help you find your niche if you are not even sure what it is.

- Jonathan Coulton

http://www.jonathancoulton.com

Podcasters have two things that musicians need: an audience, and a medium to play music. And musicians have something podcasters are looking for: audio content. Since podcasts are “The Radio Of The Internet” musicians should reach out to them the same way they reach out to radio shows. Some musicians make the mistake to just try to get played in music podcasts, but there’s no need to limit yourself that way in this thriving medium. Instead, use podcast directories like Podcastalley.com or podcastpickle.com and find popular podcasts about topics that you enjoy. Become a fan, send an email, and offer your music. In return, they’ll usually link to your website, and talk about your band.

- Randy Chertkow

http://randycon.org

69: Tell Them It’s Okay To Share With Creative Commons Licensing

Copyright law is clear: Your songs are yours. But what if you want to tell people it’s okay to share your music, or use it for noncommercial purposes, as long as they at- tribute you? Enter creativecommons.org, a simple way to license your music to let people know what you want people to do with your music, while keeping the rights that you want to reserve. If you use the creativecommons.org website banners on your own site, your music can come up in searches for Creative Commons material, which can get your music used, and exposure in places you would never have dreamed about.

- Randy Chertkow

http://randycon.org

The derivative works clause of the Creative Commons license didn’t cost me a bit of time or money and I found niches I never knew about including the World of Warcraft Machinima Music Videos. A video artist named Spiff created 15 videos using my music and there is a huge online community of people who love Machinima videos. Some of them have been viewed millions of times which is VERY good for someone who has a marketing budget of zero dollars… It would never have happened if I had posted warnings about my content

- Jonathan Coulton

http://www.jonathancoulton.com

71: Activision’s “Guitar Hero” Not Calling You For A Synch Deal? Join The New Rock Band Network Yourself!

Rock Band is a multiple player video game. The game licenses music from famous artists (like the Police) and currently you can buy music from many named artists to compete with. The creators of Rock Band are opening up the platform for all musicians to submit songs in the game. Rock Band will sell your tracks for you using their powerful network but you must hire a programmer to program your music to synch with the game. I think the potential is there for an unknown artist to rocket to the top in this whole new median. I wouldn’t be surprised if people start writing songs that go with this game. It’s a brand new opportunity to put your music in a place where it can bounce around and find it’s feet and find your future fans – someone will be getting famous as the first rock band from Rock Band.

Watch the how to video here: http://creators.rockband.com/

 - Jonathan Coulton

www.jonathancoulton.com

78: Record a Cover For Coverville - One of iTunes’s Highest Rated Podcasts

I love Coverville – it’s a great podcast b/c it’s bands covering other bands and it has a devoted listener base. Brian (Coverville’s host and producer) has been very kind to me and helped me promote my cover of “Baby Got Back.” This is the kind of track that would never fly on radio…..

- Jonathan Coulton

http://www.jonathancoulton.com

I was a fan of Coverville, one of iTunes’s highest rated podcasts. When I submitted our version of “Mad About You,” I referenced other bands who had placed rougher, minor chord arrangements to sugary pop-songs; also noting this arrangement was in the minority of his submissions. A lot of what Brian gets seemed to be slower acoustic versions of popular songs, so I knew ours stood out. I think we formed a relationship because he sensed I knew a little about his job, and noted how my song would complement his programming. Ultimately, he featured our song as the title track in one of his podcasts. When the video was made, I thought, “Brian might like this” and brought it to his attention, he posted it on Coverville’s front page. We got tons of YouTube hits from his placement of that video on his site, which doubled the exposure “Mad About You” had gotten from the original podcast http://www.coverville.com

 - Derek Nicoletto

http://www.tellingontrixie.com/music