Indie Artist- A Lone Performer.
You are an indie artist, just like thousands of others in the business. You write songs, record those songs and play them whenever you can. No other artist is better or worse than you. But if they are more successful than you are, or their songs are played more than yours, you need to do better. I am not saying this to make someone look better than you or to belittle you. Instead, I say this because I respect the hard work that you are putting in. Just that you probably need to do more.
As discussed in my article It is Your Business, you have chosen to do what you are doing, so complaining is not an option. Get to work. If you think that you have the capability to become the world’s biggest rock star, hit the road! Compile a list of all the labels, venues or bands that you are interested in working with and start doing shows in their local area. You can also send out your press kit and demo to these venues. We all want to make money playing music. If you want to make money too, treat your work like a business. This being said, no one cares how you get that money. Be sure that people do not want to see or hear about your band drama. If you treat your business as a joke, the only thing you will get is a good laugh.
An indie artist does not have a major label, a publicist or a manager behind him for support. All of us are lone rangers. You put in a lot of effort in making a good song (which is excellent), you spend so much money in recording it, you even book shows to sing the song, or sometimes agree to perform for free, just so people know your song. All of this is great. But my friend, who will do the promotions? You cannot wait for luck to knock at your door. This is your business and if it is not bringing returns, know that you are missing something.
I want to bring your attention to a few important things here. Do people know when you are playing a song and where? Is your website updated? If nobody knows your schedule and your website or social media account has not been updated in months, what door are you waiting for luck to knock at? Do you even have a door? You spend a good part of a month preparing for a show, and then no one turns up and you end up throwing your fists in the air or getting bitter at the venue for not having a committed audience. Do you ask yourself what you might be missing?
Be it a successful indie artist or a not-so-successful indie artist. You are responsible for your success and for the failures as well. You say you don’t want to pay a producer and would rather save that money to buy a new instrument to be set-up in your home studio. You want to do your own production. Did you ever wonder why (most) superstars are not doing their own production? Why are they still paying the producers? Read my post How to Become a Better Indie Artist? to know why. Producers make sure you are connected to someone who knows more than you about making records. It is always good to know the experts. You get to learn by absorbing all the knowledge and become better at art. You would rather make great records than collect musical instruments.
While I understand that all you want to do is to make good music, you cannot just make good music and hope to become successful one day. This is a wild world that we are living in. Even for talent hunters to find you and come to get you to become a star, you need to make sure that they know that you exist. You spend months writing a song, then you spend weeks and all your savings recording it, but you fail to promote it.
In my next post, I am going to discuss further details about this subject. If you need help in creating and maintaining a website, get in touch with HyperEffects. They are your answer for all your website, marketing and cyber development requirements.
