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

70: Get in a Podsafe Collective - Let Podcasters Find You

Podcasts are “the radio of the internet” and they are hungry for new music to play thanks to very strict copyright rules about using major-label music. Consequently, they are always looking for the right songs to play during their podcast, and they turn to podsafe collectives because all of the music on them has been branded safe for them to play. Read the agreements carefully on these websites, and if you’re comfortable with them, post your music. In return for using your songs, they’ll attribute your band, and even link to your website, exposing your music to new potential fans. Examples are http://www.podsafeaudio.com/ and http://www.musicalley.com/

- Randy Chertkow

www.randycon.org/

85: Join the Remix Culture at CCMixter

Letting people remix your songs is an exciting way to get exposure for your music. Go to sites like ccmixter.org, put up your tracks, and see where your music can go. The tracks will be released under Creative Commons licenses, which allow people to re- mix your music, although you’ll keep the original rights, and they’ll have to attribute if they use your music. Some bands have been so successful at this that they released entire albums of remixes of their music. And the remixers of course promoted it to their fans.

- Randy Chertkow

http://randycon.org/

87: Use Indieguide to Find What You Need

Keeping track of all of these sites, tools, and resources seems like a full time job. Fortunately, IndieGuide.com does exactly that by organizing all of the links into easy- to-use categories. You can read the blog (blog.indieguide.com) to see suggestions for resources and tools, or use IndieGuide.com to locate the website you need, whether it’s print-on-demand CD stores, copyright resources, merchandise manufacturers, or places to get your music played, this is a site worth exploring.

- Randy Chertkow

http://randycon.org/

95: Make Merchandise for $0

Sell merch for free, and make money on every sale With sites like Cafepress.com, Spreadshirt.com, and Zazzle.com, you can upload pictures that can be printed on all sorts of merch. The stores are available for free, and you’ll make money each time a fan makes a purchase. You can use sites like this to find out what designs are the most popular in case you want to do a mass printing to have an inventory of your own to bring to shows.

- Randy Chertkow

http://randycon.org/