The next opportunity I want to suggest to you is asking your fans to pay for your new album. From June 2010 to March 2011, I raised over $25,000 in fan donations to fund the production of my record ONE UP. It’s possible, people. But no one will give you a dime if your campaign is “I really really want to make a record- please give me money!”. You need to create an opportunity for your fans that will inspire them to participate.

I offered different levels of donation from $50 to $5,000, which meant bigger prizes for those who donated more. Play big! Never think no one will ever give little old you that much. You will be surprised. The prize for a $1,000 donation was singing with me on a song. This is an experience exchange. Someone did donate $1,000 to my record, and she told me the studio experience was worth it ten times over. A couple also donated $5,000 and I wrote a song for [read more]]]> The following is an excerpt from the e-course “In The Key Of Success: The Five Week Jump-Start Strategy”. You can get the rest of the course here to jump start your career today!

The next opportunity I want to suggest to you is asking your fans to pay for your new album. From June 2010 to March 2011, I raised over $25,000 in fan donations to fund the production of my record ONE UP. It’s possible, people. But no one will give you a dime if your campaign is “I really really want to make a record- please give me money!”. You need to create an opportunity for your fans that will inspire them to participate.

I offered different levels of donation from $50 to $5,000, which meant bigger prizes for those who donated more. Play big! Never think no one will ever give little old you that much. You will be surprised. The prize for a $1,000 donation was singing with me on a song. This is an experience exchange. Someone did donate $1,000 to my record, and she told me the studio experience was worth it ten times over. A couple also donated $5,000 and I wrote a song for their wedding anniversary (in addition to giving them the other levels’ benefits: a free mp3, credit in the album, a signed poster, a homemade brownie, etc.). Again, I gave them an experience, a memory, something unique for them to have forever. These are the things to offer your fans to make it personal.

The gist of my fan funding campaign:

• I set up a one-page landing site using basic HTML that users would see first before
  heading to my website. (Mine is still live so you can still see it even though it’s hidden.)
• I set up a PayPal account to accept donations on my own time table, on my own
  website.
• I sent out a monthly email to my fan list with the SPONSOR button and link in the
  email (the fewer clicks the better) telling people what I was up to and how they
  could be involved.
• Once people started giving, I gave them regular updates on the recording process-
  photos, sound clips and webisodes to keep them in the loop and to let them know their money was going to good use. You could even throw your donors a party!

It may also be a good idea to get some feedback from a handful of fans before you start the project. Ask them what they would want as incentive to give to your record. You will learn what is valuable to fans and then be able to offer them exactly what they want!

“What about a fan-funding site like Kickstarter?” you ask? The debate about sites like Kickstarter can go on for days. My biggest concern is that some sites challenge you to make a certain amount of money by a certain deadline, and if you don’t meet that goal, you don’t get ANY of the money. [For the full debate discussion, download the E-course at http://www.cbemusic.com/ecourse.]

9-Step Fan-Funding Campaign Checklist

You will now set up a fan funding system in less than a week!

1. Send an email to fans asking what they’d like to see as a reward for donating to your next project’s funding venture. Tell them you’d love an answer by the end of the week. If you haven’t yet set up a mass-mailing system for collecting and managing emails, I highly suggest using Constant Contact.

2. Use the answers plus some of your own creative ingenuity to develop a rewards scale from $5 to $5,000.

3. Create a one-page website to store all of the information on the project. If you don’t have any web design skills, request that a friend or fan help you make a simple site for this project. Also, post on Facebook and Twitter… someone will be able to help! Offer them one of the tiered prizes.

4. Set up a PayPal account and create a Sponsor button. (You will be creating a “donate” button, but be sure to name the button “Sponsor”. “Donate” implies money is going to a non profit, so unless you are a 501c, don’t be misleading.) Embed this button on your website.

5. Schedule a timeline for the production of your record, even if you are still in the songwriting stages.

6. Announce to the world via social networking and email blasts that you are launching a fan-funded project. Be sure to include a direct link to the PayPal page. Make a short video announcement as well, like Barnaby Bright’s. Remember to keep away from the “starving musician” victim voice, and be the inspiring opportunity- creator that you are!

7. Determine the length of the project to decide how many updates you will be sending. If the project is more than one month, send an update once a week. If it’s over a year, once a month. You don’t want people drowning in your project, but you want to communicate enough so they don’t wonder what you’re doing with their money.

8. Send updates about how the project is going. I liked to send an email with a quick 2-3 minute video of me talking about how it’s going, mixed in with some footage
of songwriting, recording, heading to the studio, etc. If you aren’t so hot with video editing or basic production, shoot another email out to fans and friends requesting assistance. Offer one of your rewards for said assistance!

9. BE ON TIME. Make sure to send everyone their rewards by the end of the project. Be up front about when you will be sending them their rewards. If you can’t be on time with what you initially said, then at least communicate it.

You now have the main tools to jump start your fan-funding campaign and make the most of your fans’ enthusiasm for you. Go rock it!

For tons more tools to get the results you want for your music career, go get yourself this valuable e-course. It’ll be the best money you’ve spent on your career. Yes, better than that new gig bag, and yes, better than that hair cut you got for you last big show, and yes, better than the money you spent on in-app add ons. I personally guarantee it.

xxoo,

Cheryl

Cheryl is a composer and singer/songwriter. Her website is www.CBEmusic.com and she writes a music industry blog called Living On Gigging. She just released “In The Key Of Success: The 5 Week Jump- Start Strategy,” an E-Course for musicians and artists on how to jump-start their careers through finding their true purpose and taking effective actions.

I’ve come up with a solution for RMS (restless musician syndrome) that allows me to be a part of the holiday season and spirit without abandoning my work-a-holic diligence. I want to share it with you. (This is my present to you, so don’t expect a fruitcake this year, mmm kay?)

1) Write or remix a song to have a holiday [read more]]]> While the corporate world and almost everyone else are out of the office for the holidays, I often struggle with this forced “downtime”; as a full-time musician, I’m never not working. I’m either plugging my next show, looking for the next film placement, writing a song, scheduling a band rehearsal, calling booking companies, or, at the very least, thinking about one of these things. This time around, I’m lucky to be releasing an e-course which is keeping me busy (shameless and important plug: if you are reading this article, you need to check out the Jump Start Strategy). But normally, most of the things we do as musicians are hard to do when the entire music industry is hibernating for a week, and an inbox full of “out of office” auto replies is simply useless to me.

I’ve come up with a solution for RMS (restless musician syndrome) that allows me to be a part of the holiday season and spirit without abandoning my work-a-holic diligence. I want to share it with you. (This is my present to you, so don’t expect a fruitcake this year, mmm kay?)

1) Write or remix a song to have a holiday feel and release it on iTunes (I like to go through TuneCore or ReverbNation – both have good single release plans that can get your song up on iTunes whenever you want) end of November. I took my song “I Luv U” from my new record and added sleigh bells, remixed the strings, raised the glockenspiel and tweaked the vocals and voila! a holiday single is born, and is available on iTunes as we speak (or read)!

2) Build contact lists for yourself. All you need is an internet connection and a little quiet time (read: sorry Aunt Greta! I can’t go to your holiday knitting party, I have to work on my career today). Start making lists of the contact info for companies you want to work with, whether management companies, licensing or publishing companies, booking agencies, or PR firms. When school is back in session, you’ll have a nice list of phone numbers and emails to reach out to, and all you have to do is press send.

3) Plan a live show for just after the holiday. With all of your family in town, happily reunited, you’ll be able to spread the word and get some more family butts in the seats than any other time of year. Promise a few favorite holiday tunes, and maybe even take requests at the dinner table so you can have a few days to prepare.

4) Let people know that you perform at holiday parties, whether a corporate party or a private house concert. Make announcements to your fan mailing list, Facebook fans and friends, and place an ad on Craigslist. If you’re going to be home for the holidays, put an ad out in your local newspaper, or, even better, try and schedule a short interview with a staff writer. They can take the angle that “singer songwriter So-And-So is coming home for the holidays and is bringing the music with them!” or something like that. I’m no newspaper writer. Once you get a few gigs, take the time to learn a few holiday favorites and you’ll be golden.

5) Share what you have going on…. With conviction! Talk like you have a plan (even better, actually have a plan!) for the upcoming months, and get the closest people in your life psyched with you. These people want to know you are doing okay and that you are happy. What better gift can you give than to say you are working on a new record, or planning your next tour, or setting up meetings with publishing companies! They’ll be inspired to see you’re following your dreams with confidence. Inspiration is priceless!

Happy holidays!

~Cheryl B. Engelhardt

Cheryl.... a looooong time ago

Cheryl B. Engelhardt is a composer and singer/songwriter based in New York City. You can follow her on Twitter (@CBE). Cheryl’s website is www.cbemusic.com. Sign up here for her monthly newsletter and to be notified when her E-course, “In The Key of Success: The 5- Week Jump Start Strategy”  is available.

The answer came to me recently while developing an E-course for independent musicians looking to make new strides in their careers. Through this process, I had to examine my own practices and habits. I learned that the moments of feeling stuck in my career were usually followed by moments of occupational breakthroughs. Seemingly insignificant opportunities, where I was dragging my feet to complete small tasks, opened up bigger doors. Just knowing that feeling stuck is my personal way of resisting the success that lies ahead has allowed me [read more]]]> Writing, for me, is like running. They are both good for me (and for those around me), yet they both take a marching band-sized cheering squad to get me started. The amount of debating, procrastinating, dodging, and fidgeting I do when I know it’s time to open a blank Pages document or put on my running shoes, is ridiculous. I’ve been on my own, making money and getting my own gigs, for YEARS. You’d think being a freelance composer and an independent artist (not to mention a personal trainer back in the day) would require mad discipline and skills to overcome the temptations of procrastination. So why have I been feeling so stuck lately??

The answer came to me recently while developing an E-course for independent musicians looking to make new strides in their careers. Through this process, I had to examine my own practices and habits. I learned that the moments of feeling stuck in my career were usually followed by moments of occupational breakthroughs. Seemingly insignificant opportunities, where I was dragging my feet to complete small tasks, opened up bigger doors. Just knowing that feeling stuck is my personal way of resisting the success that lies ahead has allowed me to ignore the calls of procrastination. Side note: “procrastinate” means “defer action”. Duh.  When we are up to something big, we have bigger inner-demons to vanquish. My E-course is just my latest and greatest endeavor that has lots of potential for success, which means lots of demons trying to keep me comfortable (read: SMALL) to fight off.

So now, whenever I feel stuck, overwhelmed, underwhelmed, and just plain uncertain of the future, instead of letting the demons win (and by the way, their names are: Spinning My Wheels, Doing Busy Work That Gets Me Nowhere, Feeling Lazy, Unmotivated, Hopeless, You Can’t REALLY Do That), I stick to the following steps:

1)  Jot down a couple of sentences that describe your big picture…. what you really want for your life, and what you are up to in your career.

2) Write down five things you’ve recently accomplished, no matter how big or small. Give yourself a moment to acknowledge all you’ve already achieved!

3) Write down at least five actions to take that will create opportunities…. no matter how much you’re not in the mood to do them.

4) Do those actions. Today! No matter what. Like your life depends on it.

5) Call up a friend and make an accountability buddy. Tell this person what your big picture is and how you plan to achieve it, starting with things to do this week. Ask your buddy to check in with you before the end of the week to make sure you are on track, to see if you need any motivation, and to keep you accountable for what you said you would do.

By reassessing what I want in life, having some clear things to do, and having someone standing by me while I do them gives me the juice I need to re-center my goals and my attitude. And when I can do this with my career, it’s much easier to put on those running shoes and hit the road.

Cheryl B. Engelhardt is a composer and singer/songwriter based in New York City. She recently got engaged to a mountain guide. They both rock. Her website is www.cbemusic.com. Sign up here for her monthly newsletter and to be notified when her E-course is available.

For the past year and a half I felt like I was at war. Or at least in a very intense wrestling match… With myself, with my bank account, with my loved ones, with my music, my lyrics, with everything. It felt dramatic, pressurized, urgent, as if this was IT, the last chance, the final statement. Very theatrical, I know. Really, what was happening, is that I was making an album. That’s all.

I’ll have another post soon about my exact process of raising $25,000 from fans and sponsors to fund the record, and the process of selling [read more]]]> It’s been a while since I’ve written. You’ve heard this before, right? From other artists whose mailing lists you are on. Maybe you’ve heard it from a friend over email. Or perhaps you’ve written it yourself. The cause of such a hiatus, I have observed, is usually due to the creation of something that takes all of one’s energy and attention. I’ve heard it from my friends who just had a baby. And I’ve heard it from friends who were looking, and then finally bought a house. And I’m writing it now, to you, because I released a record.

For the past year and a half I felt like I was at war. Or at least in a very intense wrestling match… With myself, with my bank account, with my loved ones, with my music, my lyrics, with everything. It felt dramatic, pressurized, urgent, as if this was IT, the last chance, the final statement. Very theatrical, I know. Really, what was happening, is that I was making an album. That’s all.

I’ll have another post soon about my exact process of raising $25,000 from fans and sponsors to fund the record, and the process of selling the demo versions on my site via a pay-what-you-want model prior to the record being released. For now, I’m writing to you to transition back into the world of touring, record-promotion, music supervisor-pitching, fan-gathering, and whatever it is this blog does for you.

I’m in San Francisco, staying with a friend and her baby. It’s funny. I’m not a big fan of babies, in general. (This one is particularly cute and chill, and doesn’t scream and cry, so I approve.) I’m not a fan, yet I’m constantly comparing my new records, songs and creative process to them. The analogy is sort of obvious, with all the preparation and care and love and nausea, then the post-birth nursing and tending and trying to get into the best nursery school / licensing library so it can flourish and be successful. But the sentiment is there for both: undying love and passion for the thing you created, tied up with attachment.

This is where the baby analogy and I part ways. I’ve learned that the word attachment is something to be wary of. Being attached to my record, and how “successful” it needs to be has, in the past, put blinders on me. I came up with what it’s supposed to look like, what I should be doing by now, who I should be touring with, how much money I should have made off of it by now, which cuts off any possibility that something else can come in and work. (By the way, should is the cousin of attachment. Caution: use with care, or not at all.) Just being committed to my record’s success keeps me moving forward and taking the appropriate actions, yet without the desperation, urgency, feeling of constant need, and pressure that being attached was producing.

To put this in reality: I am open to have my record’s success come from anywhere. I take on all opportunities, from providing a song to a blog’s video project and helping edit the video, to calling up my favorite clothing store and asking them if i can get my music in their store’s library. I visit friends in far away cities, and look up every licensing company and music-related company in the area. Today I have a meeting with 2 music supervision companies. Tomorrow I’m getting a private tour of Pandora Radio. I have no idea what will come out of any of it, but taking action, being open-minded, and just immersing myself in the industry, the companies that are making things happen, and in relationships that are positive, progressive and supportive will yield some sort of fruit, I’m sure. Whether it’s apples or oranges doesn’t matter. Like most parents-to-be say when asked “do you want a boy or a girl?” I just want it to be healthy.

The unseen artist yearns to be seen. The unheard musician needs to be heard, and the under budget company wants to under pay everyone. While this may be more of my more cynical points of view, I’d like to start off by saying that while promises of “exposure” in exchange for goods (in this article, for the sake of argument, we’ll use a track off your recent, self-released record) is usually a scam, that is not always the case. My tour mate Shaun Ruymen has a track in the new movie “You Again”, and he most certainly has a great chance of exposure. The opportunities for exchanging your music for real, mass exposure are out there, rare as they are.

That being said, I move on. MOST of the time, when promised exposure in exchange for use of your track, chances are it’s because there’s no chance of being paid. And in most areas of the music business where there is an audience (a real audience, where you will really get said exposure), there is usually money. The PROs (performing rights organizations like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC) are close behind, ready [read more]]]> exposure |ikˈspō zh ər|
noun
• an act or instance of being uncovered

The unseen artist yearns to be seen. The unheard musician needs to be heard, and the under budget company wants to under pay everyone. While this may be more of my more cynical points of view, I’d like to start off by saying that while promises of “exposure” in exchange for goods (in this article, for the sake of argument, we’ll use a track off your recent, self-released record) is usually a scam, that is not always the case. My tour mate Shaun Ruymen has a track in the new movie “You Again”, and he most certainly has a great chance of exposure. The opportunities for exchanging your music for real, mass exposure are out there, rare as they are.

That being said, I move on. MOST of the time, when promised exposure in exchange for use of your track, chances are it’s because there’s no chance of being paid. And in most areas of the music business where there is an audience (a real audience, where you will really get said exposure), there is usually money. The PROs (performing rights organizations like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC) are close behind, ready to collect your royalties. Rarely will you find an opportunity that gives you REAL exposure with no money attached. You have more chance of finding a gig that pays really well but doesn’t offer much of a new fan base, or exposure. (Like college cafeteria shows and ski resorts, for example. Paying the bills [and dues] but not necessarily getting your music heard the way you would like.)

The thing about the word exposure, is that it is just “an instant”. Extreme exposure can give you 15 minutes of fame, at best. What your music needs is to be steady, ubiquitous, available, and constantly pumped into listeners ears. You know how to do that. And if not, here are my 6 tips:

1) Tour. Hit the road and get new fans. Done and done.
2) Share. Give away recordings of new songs you did in your bedroom for free. Write a blog about what you’re up to. Let the world know you love what you’re doing, or when you’re struggling, or that you’re succeeding past your wildest dreams!
3) Co-write. Two heads are better than one. Two records are too.
4) Hire an intern. Have this person’s sole purpose to be to get you exposure- write articles about you and send press releases. Pay them a % of your CD sales and don’t take them for granted. Bring them with you when you make it big.
5) Get out of the house. Go to shows. Go to music conferences. Make friends with the panelists. Get on a panel next time. Your name gets in every brochure and website about the conference.
6) Go to the movies. Look on craigslist for recent auditions for movies. Get in touch with the directors/producers and offer your music. The more music you place in films, the more likely you get a film going to Sundance. Always make sure to get a little money for your music, even if it’s just $100. (I’m personally training the indie film industry to respect how important music is in films, thus to pay for it like they would an editor or director)

In the end, it’s about attaching value to your music, not letting “the industry” take advantage or undercut that value, and finding the balance between trading your value for something else of equal value. Often times, exposure is an unknown, unreliable empty promise that you cannot forward to your tax guy at the end of the year. Seller beware.

PS. Get it in writing. Before it goes to air on national television, before it gets sold on someone else’s compilation CD and before you lose an opportunity. Do not be afraid to take a stand for your music and its value.

When I got the email from Tina Shafer (New York Songwriter’s Circle founder) asking me to guest host the Circle at New York’s famous Bitter End, I was beyond honored. This is the thing… I’ve played the Bitter End a dozen times, and performed in both the New York and Philly Circles several times. What made this Circle so special to me was that I didn’t feel I did anything extraordinary to warrant such an invitation. For years, I was a fairly normal indie artist on one side of the fence. The people on the other side were those who choose contest winners, picked singers for publishing deals, got musicians on commercials.

Let me explain. It’s not that I don’t think I AM extraordinary. Clearly, I’m fabulous. But I didn’t win any contests, get any major record deal, or have anyone dance to a song of mine on So You Think You Can Dance. I was a finalist in the first year of the Songwriter’s Circle contest back in 2006, but I didn’t even get top three. Since then, I’ve just been a familiar [read more]]]> as written for Song Circle Music

When I got the email from Tina Shafer (New York Songwriter’s Circle founder) asking me to guest host the Circle at New York’s famous Bitter End, I was beyond honored. This is the thing… I’ve played the Bitter End a dozen times, and performed in both the New York and Philly Circles several times. What made this Circle so special to me was that I didn’t feel I did anything extraordinary to warrant such an invitation. For years, I was a fairly normal indie artist on one side of the fence. The people on the other side were those who choose contest winners, picked singers for publishing deals, got musicians on commercials.

Let me explain. It’s not that I don’t think I AM extraordinary. Clearly, I’m fabulous. But I didn’t win any contests, get any major record deal, or have anyone dance to a song of mine on So You Think You Can Dance. I was a finalist in the first year of the Songwriter’s Circle contest back in 2006, but I didn’t even get top three. Since then, I’ve just been a familiar face, popping up in a Circle every half year, stopping by the Bitter End on the occasional Monday night to say hi. Something about this led to being a part of the new version of the Songwriter’s Circle: Song Circle. I’ve been a very small part of helping the company in various ways, including sharing my thoughts on this crazy industry on their website’s blog. Now I can’t enter my tunes to their annual contest, but I am able to judge others’, if I want. Again, feeling mildly unworthy. Yeah, I write a lot of songs, I collaborate a fair amount, and I think I understand mainstream pop, acoustic and rock music more than the average Joe. Still, I doubt my extraordinariness… Maybe being on the other side of the fence is where I am supposed to be eventually, and transitioning there is tricky… I sometimes feel like I am just about to successfully climb over the top when my pants get caught up in the picket stakes making said fence. Awkward.

Before I arrived at the Bitter End to host my first Circle, I gave myself a pep talk…. Okay Cheryl, NO awkward. You’re here for a reason.

And this is what I realized- there is no fence. That’s what’s special about Song Circle. It’s made up of people like me, artists who tour and record and are passionate and working many angles of the industry, trying to “make it”, whatever that means to them. I am the fence. I’m an example of the Song Circle community as a whole- that without even winning a contest, by merely entering, I was given the opportunity to host a world-famous event. Extraordinary.

Cheryl (on left, standing, with other Song Circle artist 8/2/2010) graduated from Cornell University and is now a singer/songwriter and film and commercial composer. She’s recorded two records and is working on a third project, “One Up”, releasing monthly songs all year. Cheryl has been featured in Keyboard and Performer magazines, toured through America and Europe, performed on ABC, NBC and FOX news, spoken at SXSW, and has had her music placed on soap operas, PBS and MTV shows. More info at www.cbemusic.com.

Listen to Cheryl’s new music and click on 10 stars if you like it!!

The question is an ever-changing how? How do we use new technologies to gain exposure? How should we spend our money and time on reaching more people? How should we shuffle through the dozens of public relation and promotion companies to choose the right one to develop OUR relationship with the public? And is it worth it?

This is what I have learned: you need to know what you need before taking on a PR plan. It doesn’t matter if your plan is to put up posters all over town or hire the top PR firm in your area to make elite connections for you. You need to know what it is you and your music needs. I’ll tell you my story and my mistakes and hopefully help you figure out your PR direction.

After I produced my very first album, I had only done a few shows and had [read more]]]> As far as I know, every musician is looking for more exposure. To be heard by other people is to have our art honored, accepted and justified. It is a connection, a performance, an intimate relationship to have our words, melodies and creations shared with the world. And it is our livelihood.

The question is an ever-changing how? How do we use new technologies to gain exposure? How should we spend our money and time on reaching more people? How should we shuffle through the dozens of public relation and promotion companies to choose the right one to develop OUR relationship with the public? And is it worth it?

This is what I have learned: you need to know what you need before taking on a PR plan. It doesn’t matter if your plan is to put up posters all over town or hire the top PR firm in your area to make elite connections for you. You need to know what it is you and your music needs. I’ll tell you my story and my mistakes and hopefully help you figure out your PR direction.

After I produced my very first album, I had only done a few shows and had no press whatsoever. I had just made a simple website and had some friends email me some press-esque quotations about my music, just to have SOMEthing on my “press page”. I had zero street cred. That’s when I heard about a small PR company that sends new indie albums to the music niche world. I decided getting some real reviews for my album wasn’t a bad idea. I paid the flat fee of about $1500 and mailed out a bunch of records and waited around. For a few months, good reviews would slowly trickle in from publications I’d never heard of, and I added them to my website. But what I realized was that the people that were reading these reviews were also musicians, and I wasn’t gaining new fans. So I hired a radio PR company. I sent them a few hundred discs and they sent them out to the appropriate stations, sending me weekly reports of who was playing my records. Something I could list on my website and use to beef up my slowly growing press page. Still didn’t see too many cd sales or surges in fans.

After scolding my self for wasting my money, I spent the next year doing my own PR… emailing magazines, tv and radio stations, and newspapers, trying to get any mention of my next show, my album, or me in the public eye. My successes were that I could usually get my performances listed in magazines like Time Out NY. My favorite is when I researched the editors for about 100 big magazines and emailed every single one of them, personally, and received one reply. That reply was from Ernie Rideout, then the editor of Keyboard Magazine. He was going to be in town and though he couldn’t make my show, wanted to meet me. So we met, and a professional relationship was formed. I was featured in Keyboard Magazine twice, and later went on to write an article for them. Ernie and I remain friends. Suddenly, my no-name music magazine reviews seemed unimportant, and the one that counted and gave me real credibility was the one I got for myself. Lesson learned.

Or maybe not…. When I came out with my second record, I was ready to step it up in the PR department. I consulted with Keyboard staffers and asked them who their favorite PR companies were to work with. I was referred to a few and after interviewing with some, like the great Shorefire, realized that my little album was never going to compete with Bruce Springsteen’s latest and greatest. Yet I didn’t want to go back to a little company, only hitting the small music-niche publications. So I split the difference, I turned to a friend I had met at a big show a few years back. She worked a PR company that does PR for all sorts of clients, not just musicians. Their price was half of the bigger companies, yet a little more than the smaller. They had experience with the big network TV shows, but not with working with musicians directly. They were excited about a new kind of client. And I found my match.

After six months and several local TV performances on stations like Boston’s FOX 25 and Portland’s ABC, I thought I had spent my money well. I stepped up the PR ladder and gathered more evidence of my awesomeness (this time, instead of reviews from unknown publications, it was in the form of TV interviews and performances). As I headed to England for an acoustic tour with my drummer, I was excited to see what my PR company would come up with. Unfortunately, it was nothing except a 5am interview the day after we got back. My drummer and I spent our British days twiddling our thumbs. The low point was when he said “don’t we usually have stuff to do on tours? Like radio shows and interviews and stuff?” My answer was “yeah, when I’m running the show”.

I sent myself home, scolding myself yet again for wasting money, this time a whole lot more, on something I could have done myself. Same theme. Same problem. What’s the common denominator? Me. I CHOSE to hire these companies, for very specific reasons. When my reasons changed, I never notified the companies, and the result was disappointment.

Still holding a new album, I wanted to tour more. I thought I would try one last attempt at PR and hired Tinderbox to do a more intense radio campaign than the first company I used. Tinderbox not only tripled the amount of stations that spun my record, but they were diligent in followup. My work ethic was noted by the owner of the company, who personally took it upon himself to reach out to some of his friends in the music supervision world, and a few months later I found myself staying up to watch “The Real World” on MTV just to hear my music in the background. I guess things happen for a reason, work pays off, and there are interesting spiral staircases that I am climbing.

What I did learn was to give myself some slack and to realize that each of these companies did exactly what I needed at the time. As I started to outgrow them, it was my responsibility to reassess my music’s needs and find a new company that could address them.

So here’s the short of it: Ask yourself this: what press do you currently have? Is your answer a) My buddies wrote some reviews of my album for me. They read “This is awesome!” b) I’ve got some good reviews, nothing on-air or noteworthy enough that my mom would know the source. c) I’ve been on local TV, radio and been in some decent publications. I’ve also opened for some bigger acts.
Then ask: What do you need? a) Anything! b) To step it up and get press that can get me gigs and be recognized by the music community c) get press that my friends would be psyched about and that would get me more fans: national coverage.

If your answer is A, you maybe looking for a small PR company, like Rainmaker or PowderFinger.

If your answer is B, check out doing a radio tour- when you are thinking about touring, hire a company (I STRONGLY suggest Tinderbox- tell Jon that Cheryl sent you!!) about 2 months before your tour and use your report sheets to fill in your tour dates- you can map out where you are getting radio play and then call up those stations and do an on-air performance. I’ve learned that radio stations LOVE live acts, and you can give away your CDs to the first 3 callers, etc etc. It livens things up for them, and gets people to come out to your shows that night, and you’ve got something to do in the day besides dealing with your hangover from last night’s show.

If your answer above is C then it may be time to save up the big bucks and hit up a big-time player, the one that can make connections on a national level. If you’ve already done steps A and B, plus put in your own efforts, chances are you’ve developed a few good press relationships already that your new PR company can build on.

Last note: PR companies can’t polish turds. Make sure your music is ready to go, you’ve got the full package, and something worth talking about, whether it’s a tour or a new record. Be polished. That way whatever PR you do is really working for your music. The fans, credibility and sales will be worth the money and effort. Even if you’re like me and don’t realize it at the time. Every step you take for your career is a step in the right direction.

On my One Up webpage, there’s a big red button to donate to the project to help cover costs of producing the songs, in return for some fan perks like t-shirts, singing on a tune, a private house concert, etc etc. For the month of January, as my e-mail program dinged with alerts from PayPal that another fan had donated a few dollars, my heart would swell with gratitude. Last week, however, I thought it was going to explode when I got notification that a US Military Sergeant (with a mailing address that includes “Troop” and “Calvary”) nearly tripled the amount of money I had raised this year with a single donation. His note in the line labeled “Donation Purpose” read “Sh!ts and giggles.”

Luckily, PayPal gathered his email address for me and I was able to write him a sincere thank you. His light-hearted response to my thanks was that [read more]]]> Like many entrepreneurs, start-uppers, project initiators, and believers in the impossible, when launching my One Up project to write and release one inspiring song a month for 2010, I knew that the money to make it happen would come. I had no idea it was going to come from Iraq.

On my One Up webpage, there’s a big red button to donate to the project to help cover costs of producing the songs, in return for some fan perks like t-shirts, singing on a tune, a private house concert, etc etc. For the month of January, as my e-mail program dinged with alerts from PayPal that another fan had donated a few dollars, my heart would swell with gratitude. Last week, however, I thought it was going to explode when I got notification that a US Military Sergeant (with a mailing address that includes “Troop” and “Calvary”) nearly tripled the amount of money I had raised this year with a single donation. His note in the line labeled “Donation Purpose” read “Sh!ts and giggles.”

Luckily, PayPal gathered his email address for me and I was able to write him a sincere thank you. His light-hearted response to my thanks was that he was compensating “for all those high school days of downloading pirated songs on Napster”. Plus he said he can now call himself a “Patron of the Arts”. He politely declined the dinner certificate and free house concert that you get as part of the Thank You gifts, seeing as he will be in Iraq for the entire year. (Heart swell.) When I looked him up on Facebook, the status of this guy, who looks my age and is from a town not too far from me, read “needs a new job… another day, another incident, another buddy headed home.” (More swelling.)

I’m still trying to make sense of this, of war, of the disaster in Haiti, trying not to look at it as a tragedy though it is, and I’m trying to keep on giving. Make a donation to Haiti relief funds, then opt in at the grocery store to add a dollar to my bill to help a little more. The sympathy and the overwhelming heart swells, plus the guilt of living freely in a safe environment under my own command makes me do it. And I know it’s not nearly enough. Is it even helping?

That’s all I wanted to let my Sergeant friend know- that he is helping make things possible for a little musician back in the states that wouldn’t have been possible before. And yet he thanks me for giving fans an opportunity to interact, and for my music. Well, in that case, Sh!ts and Giggles work for me. My inspiration-meter is wonderfully in the red.

With each cent that rolls in for this project, I am more and more humbled, grateful, and motivated. I am so lucky that I am able to capture this generosity and encouragement and turn it into something audibly tangible. I hope you hear it in the next song, for it will most certainly be there for me.

The phrase “paying dues” is what I relate to as washing the bathrooms at a recording studio seven years ago, staying late [read more]]]> I just finished my 5th set of the evening of the 5th day in a row of restaurant/lounge/casino gigs in Switzerland. I took these gigs to fill in the time between “real shows”- ie, performing at real venues with stages and people to listen and buy CDs and to connect with. This week’s shows were what I considered time for rehearsing, refreshing, and refunding. I got to run all my new songs with out worries that anyone was really listening. I refreshed my memory on how to play a bunch of old tunes, and, I was being paid to do this. Really not that bad. If I can look past the angry French chef who literally said “your music is not good, play Beatles” and resist the temptation to blame language barriers (that wasn’t really he meant to say), and if I can look past the unusually low CD sales, perhaps I can say this week was a good thing. In the back of my head, though, I felt like I was paying dues.

The phrase “paying dues” is what I relate to as washing the bathrooms at a recording studio seven years ago, staying late at the editing house to run a Beta tape to the color correction studio four years ago, finding a waitressing job, or keeping my personal training clients. I was “paying my dues” as a novice in the music industry because I wasn’t doing music all the time, exactly how I wanted to. Now that I am touring and composing full time (I say this even though I haven’t quite cut the umbilicord with my personal training clients- that’s another article: being authentic about what’s so), I have assumed I’m “doing it”, fully in the music industry with my music on cds and commercials and documentaries, and a tour schedule that covers thousands of miles. But this week, I think I learned a few things, the most obvious being that “paying dues” is relative. Read on.

This week, I got to know the piano better. I trained my voice to last the entire 4 hour gig. I promised myself never to write another song using a chord progression that resembles iii-VI or switches back and forth with the relative minor + major (take one listen to almost any of my songs and you’ll know what I mean…. it’s embarrassing).

There were bigger things I learned too: that maybe I created the lack of CD sales, the people not listening; I had thought dinner and craps were more deserving of my audience’s attention and thus treated my audience accordingly… I walked in with the attitude that I was there to rehearse, refresh and refund, and nowhere in my energy was the possibility of being inspiring. I walked into these shows with a grain of salt, when I could have given, and left with, a beach. In the past, I was quite good at this; back in the day, the recording studio job was not cleaning toilets, it was learning about patch cables, analog editing, Pro Tools… and all I had to do was wash the bathroom, get tooth brushes for the Bahamen’s late night session and a t-shirt for Mos Def! Easy! Where is that Cheryl?

That Cheryl had no expectations back then. She had no idea what the music industry looked like. Now that I’ve worked in many areas of the biz, perhaps this knowledge has forced me to think that I know the difference between success and paying dues.

Really, what I learned this week, is that I am only paying dues if I say so.