This is another question we often get asked, especially by new artists.

Here’s our answer with some wisdom from Andrew Dubber of New Music Strategies:

In most instances, the answer to this one is a firm YES. In fact, We struggle to think of an instance in which the online presence of a musician, band or music enterprise would not be enhanced by the addition of a blog.

The most common counter-argument against musicians blogging is the idea of the ‘aloof artist’ – the notion that the mystique of an inaccessible and ineffable artist adds to the value of the work itself. We disagree, though of course, there are exceptions. You pretty much have to go into hiding to make that strategy worthwhile.

But the main reason to blog is not, as you might expect, that it’s a great way to promote your music. It’s more that the blog is now part of the way in which you do what you do.

Let me put it another way. Just as copying simply happens online, so does communication.

Accessibility is the norm online

If I find it difficult to locate you, listen to your music, find out what you’re up to and where you’re at, then it’s far easier for me to find an alternative source for what you do than it is for me to go digging in order to find out what’s going on.

If you’re trying to get work, sell your music, gain clients, gather fans, promote a record or a gig, or connect with the online environment in any way, blogging is the first step towards that. It is, at the very least, evidence that you understand that your online presence should be a conversation and not a brochure.

So what actually is a blog?

Well, actually, allow me to broaden the standard definition a little. Generally speaking, the term comes from an abbreviation of ‘web log’ – a continually updating ‘diary’ of events and occurrences. But it really just needs to be some regular form of communication that can be easily updated by you.

In that respect, I’d put a ‘micro-blogging’ platform like Twitter on the list, and a voice-based message system like Utterz on the pile as well. Mostly though, it’s somewhere you can post the latest news, thoughts, events, and interesting things as they come to mind, so that visitors to your site can see the latest, go back through previous posts – perhaps respond, and spread the word.

And the best reason to blog?

A smart friend of mine once said that the best music in the world is the sound of someone’s insides on the outside (yes, he was an old punk – how did you know?). His point was one about self-expression. That music, at its best, is something we can identify with on a human level. And we tend to like music we can relate to, because it expresses something of ourselves.

And because music is self-expressive, we are more positively inclined towards music by people we know and like – because if we like them, we’re likely to appreciate expressions of their ’self’.

So by logical extension – removing the curtain, engaging with your audience and actually letting them in on your day to day life will allow people to feel that they are getting to know you (in a ‘managed’ way), and will therefore be increasingly inclined to appreciate your music on that basis.

To put it in narrative terms – you become a character they care about. Whether you’re a musician, a label manager, a promoter, a venue owner or a music teacher – starting and (more importantly) maintaining a blog creates a story (remember this idea — we’ll be coming back to it). People love stories — and want to know what happens next — and if it’s a story they like with characters they can identify with, it will start to become meaningful and important to them.

Everybody must blog! Why do you think Twitter is so popular and pretty much any company that matters is on it?

The idea that the world is divided into content creators and consumers is increasingly redundant. What’s important is the quality, frequency and ‘engageability’ of your content – and that’s no longer restricted to your musical output.

The fact that you make music is unremarkable. The quality of your communication — musical content included — is now the measure by which you will be judged. This is not a call to pick over the mundane minutiae of your life. This is a challenge to be interesting.

And really, this is not such a radical or transformative idea. Your music has always been communication. Your music business has always been a communication business. This is about using the online tools to enhance that communication.

Another more technical reason to blog is related to one of the more important but less important ’20 things you must know about music online’ which you should read if you haven’t already and that’s SEO: Search Engine Optimization.

Everything you blog about gets catalogued by the search engines. So that means a lot of ways for people to find you and hear your music. Often things totally unrelated to music which is fine – people love to stumble upon things accidentally and ‘discover’ them for themselves. Some of our artists greatest sources of traffic to their website have been related to playdough, hiking, religious oppression and video games!

So think of blogging as an indirect way for people to find out about your music.

Ok, So what should i write about?

We hear this one a lot from artists, what should I write to my fans and mailing list subscribers?

Well, since it’s essential you send a message out to your list at least once a month (you DO have a mailing list don’t you?) Here are some ideas of what you can write about:

- Details of the creation process of your latest musical works and otherwise

- Upcoming shows

- Recapping recent shows (telling funny stories if there are any)

- New music (either full CD releases or just new songs posted online)

- Info about upcoming releases

- New merchandise

- updates to your website, new blog posts, photos etc.

- great music, books, videos, foods and other things you’ve appreciated lately

- Funny/interesting stories and events that happen during your downtime

- Any other artist news

- Anything really. Fans signed up to YOUR list to hear what YOU want to say!

And you thought you had nothing to say!

It’s important to write something at least once a month, but no more than once a week.

But I really don’t like writing!

Ok, sure there are some of us who will just never get into or want to do this, fine, that doesn’t mean you don’t blog… Here’s a supplementary list for you:

- post photos you’ve taken or that you’ve found that you love [and credit the photographer]

- post your favourite videos you’ve found online

- post videos of your own, embedded from your youtube account [vblog]

- post some artwork you’ve created and mention the inspiration behind it or something

- post your own podcast [let us know if you want help setting one up]

We could go on… there are easy and quick ways to do this now using mobile technology and such, again, let us know if you need help.

Pushing the depths of the underground jazz scene, cutting edge New York City-based Out to Lunch will be releasing its third album, No One Left Behind, creating a sound that hits both the mind and feet. Out to Lunch has not only established itself as a mainstay on the New York scene, but has toured extensively through North America and Europe. Billboard magazine has called Out to Lunch, “a distinctive brand of funk…expanding the range of the listener’s experience,” while the Village Voice has hailed Out to Lunch as an, “ambitious and funky groove-prov octet.”

This five men band is made up by: trumpet, flute and guitar player Josiah Woodson; New York-based pianist & keyboard player Walter Fischbacher; bassist, composer and DJ Zack Lober; drummer Jason Kruk and founder and leader: Canadian-born multi-instrumentalist David Levy, who has released three albums with Out to Lunch, Excuse Me While I Do the Boogaloo, Melvin’s Rockpile and No One Left Behind. David plays bass clarinet, soprano saxophone, bansuri flute and Ableton Live.

We really enjoy working with Out to Lunch, Pro Soul is making their career better by creating a whole new website for them that allows the band members to update easily with no coding knowledge, and it interconnects with all their social networking and features a number of other cool things that help them connect with fans and sell music.

With over 20 million users, StumbleUpon.com is not only a very cool site to browse the internet more effectively, it is a great tool to get exposure for your music. Here is how StumbleUpon define themselves:

“StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great websites. As you click  Stumble!, we deliver high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by your friends or one of over 15 million other websurfers with interests similar to you. Rating these sites you like () automatically shares them with like-minded people – and helps you discover great sites your friends recommend.”

Once you install the StumbleUpon toolbar to your web browser, everytime you click on this “Stumble!” button, something new will come up. And the more you rate the sites StumbleUpon recommended, the more likely StumbleUpon will find the sites that fit your interests. So from now on, you won’t need to worry if you can’t think of new ideas to post on your Facebook, Twitter or blog. Simply set your preferences in StumbleUpon and start stumbling based on your taste in music or anything else, and you’ll have endless ideas to share with your fans.

Not only StumbleUpon is a great tool to find sharable content, it can also help YOU get discovered. You can submit your music, video, streaming tracks, blog post or anything else, then you get potential of thousands of people stumble across your content.
(on some browsers, the toolbar doesn’t allow you to submit content though, so you’ll be best off using a browser that allows you to install the full toolbar such as Firefox and Chrome)

Some users reported that hourse after stumbling her friend’s newly released music, the tracks got thousands of views. However, there is an art to using Stumbleupon effectively for music promotion. Stumbleupon works best when a page is shared that many others would want to share with their friends or contacts online. If you submit too many links from your own, or the same website, you could get blacklisted, or your account could be suspended. And those who want to promote their own websites may find it hard to keep track of who had linked to or shared their pages.

Let us know if you need any assistance using Stumbleupon as well as other important tools to promote your music.

Most artists make money with their music by selling downloads and CDs, however this is only one way to earn in the new music business. In a previous post we talked about the YouTube Partner Program which allows artists to generate revenue through uploading popular videos to YouTube. Licensing your own music however can be time-consuming as we discussed in a previous blog. We help get sync licensing by partnering with the pioneers in the world of music licensing, youtube.com. You’ll get paid every time somebody uses your music as part of their video project.
This is particularly exciting as Youtube has become one of the top ways people hear new music now.

Here’s how you earn money for your music on YouTube: once you become a Pro Soul artist, we’ll make your music available in YouTube’s growing catalog of licensable music. Your music will come up in the list of soundtrack options video creators have to bring their next project to life on youtube, it’s as simple as that.

In addition, your songs will be made available to be used in movies, TV programs and video game productions through other third party affiliates. Furthermore, we’ll give you the opportunity to livense your tracks to content creators for usage as background music in online videos, presentations, etc.

The best news is, as the author you get to keep 100% ownership of your compositions and recordings, and the license is not exclusive which means you can earn money from your music elsewhere as well. And if  you get an opportunity for exclusive license, you can cancel this license if required. We handle all the paperwork and legalities, you keep control of your music!

For more information about getting assistance from Pro Soul Alliance with your licensing or anything else, click here.

In our last blog we posted Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails‘ thoughts on the illegal downloading of music.

There are countless articles and comments on this topic, probably millions.
Here is one of the most recent from Forbes, by a young author that effectively captures some of the complicated and mostly misunderstood issues surrounding this debate:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/02/03/you-will-never-kill-piracy-and-piracy-will-never-kill-you

It’s great that these kinds of articles are coming out now sharing more detailed information and truth, it’s just sad that it took over 5 years for the media to start talking about this and investigating.
We feel it is important to reveal that the fundamental ideas behind this issue and the often overlooked REAL reasons behind it were first brought to light in Andrew Dubber in a blog written over 4 years ago called, “Should I Be Worried About Piracy?“, part of the 20 things you must know about music online eBook.

The overall conclusion of this article and those experts who really understand what is going on is that ‘piracy’ is common because entertainment companies refuse to give consumers what they want, or do business fairly or honestly.
If companies who create film, music, and TV provided consumers what they wanted, the way the want it for a fair price, then there would not only be very little piracy, but those companies would make far more income than they ever can now. But they won’t, even after over 10 years of fighting and losing over and over.
So people continue to pursue what they want the way they want it, and that happens to be in a way that prevents money from going to the content creators at their own choice, which they call ‘piracy’.

“OK. The record business is broken. The model is broken.” I’d go through periods of having to look in the mirror and say, “Let’s see. I just made an album I spent a year working on. I turned it over to the record label to get manufactured. It leaked, and I’m online, just boiling furious, at fans who’re talking about how much they love this new album, that they just stole.”
And then I’d think, “Wait a minute. They’re not standing outside my house, bootlegging copies out the back of their van, y’know, to make money. They’re sharing their excitement about songs I’ve written, and music I’ve done. And they’re excited about it. And I’m pissed off at ‘em, because what? They didn’t wait until a month from now, when they’d have to drive to a record shop (if they can find one,) to buy a piece of plastic they don’t want, then rip it back to their computers, to…man, this sucks. Ok, something’s not right.” Or they can buy it from iTunes at a lower bit quality, which at that time was also copy protected, which I was originally strongly against.

It becomes very clear, if you can remove the emotion from the equation, that, OK. The delivery system is broken. And the relationship between fans and artists and record labels is also broken. I thought I was smart enough to get that right. What I learned is it consumed… The following years coming up to the present, have been spent trying to experiment with different business models.

First and foremost, spending time paying attention to what consumers want. You know, it all sounds like market research and boring marketing-type crap, and it is, but it also became clear: nobody else has figured it out. And managers aren’t gonna tell us what to do, and record labels, it’s clear they don’t know what to do. And the internet at large, their proposition that everything should just be free? That’s great if you’re a kid at home, it’s not so great if you’re a content provider that’s thinking “OK, how am I supposed to keep doing this if everything is just free?” That’s not right, in my opinion.

…rethinking how one makes money. If I’m gonna go on tour, and here’s a concert ticket, I’m hoping you come see, you know what? I’’’ throw the record in with that, it’ll all come into the same pot. Rethinking different ways to get your message out to people, and also trying to be consumer friendly. What do people want? They want stuff that’s not copy protected. OK. They want to be able to share it with their friends? OK. They’d like higher quality digital files? OK. They’d like to feel like they’re getting some sort of value for their money? I understand that. OK.”

Read the full source of this quote here.