Music and Social Media Networking Events

Yes, they can help out a struggling INDIE artist as long as they realize most of these events are attending by establish social networking gurus.  Most of these gurus are there to 'protect' their turf against outsiders.  By this I mean, there are groups of well know music folks around America that do the 'scratch' my back and I'll 'scratch' your back routine.  Any new person or group with as good or better ideas is shunned on and talked about in 'negative' ways.  Many of these successful ones, forget at one time they needed help and were given help.  Yet, instead of being mentors, they choose to be obstructiveness.  

These so-called gurus, in the music industry, continue to try and impede anyone that encroaches on their so-call rights-of-passage turf.  Which, they will soon learn, as the major labels do, their obstructiveness will be steam rolled by the new and ever-growing music independents around the world.  INDIES that realize they and they alone are in charge of their success.  INDIES that by doing a lot of research can learn and do anything anyone can teach them, albeit taking longer, but, it can be done.

The last point  "thinking outside a music box."  Music industry networking events are all the same people with the same information, which can become rather boring and may even make you think: I am making no progress and these events are hardly worth my time. Finding a lack of respect and a lot of clatters in those music events, you decided to start going to non-music-related events, such as general social media networking events. Of course, you talked about your music to people there and ended up getting a great deal of attention from them. Getting peoples attention is the first step into acquiring True Blue Fans.  And, we all know, True Blue Fans, are the bottom line to have a successful and lasting music career. 

SUMMARY:  Looking back at those experiences, you point out a great advantage that you learned about how to effectively use social media "early." Also, you realized that all industries were related anyway. Your current goal is still to find things "early."  Early will help reduce your road's length to success!

--end

Attracting Fans Means Getting Over Your Self

There are a lot of musicians and groups that artistically want to stretch people’s minds and make people think, figure out and really dive deep in to the meanings of their songs, their name, their image, different elements of their marketing and other underlining elements that many artists think will add that hip or cool edge to them. The problem that can occur though is flat out confusion or actually deterring more people away from your music and you than helping bringing them to listen to you and want to find out more about you.

Don’t get me wrong, adding elements of stretching the mind and being creative is a great thing, but think about it as a later step or being placed a little deeper in your marketing rather than right there where people get their first impressions. Make it something that fans will have to dig in to as opposed to overly confusing the new listener or first time visitor to one of your social networking sites or website.

Wild stories, confusing bios, songs that make no sense or tie in to the more experimental side of you can be red lights for many people to not want to dig deeper. For example, if you are a grunge/industrial type band with fast loops, dirty guitars and in your face samples with brash harmonies and powerful hooks, having song sample number one on your site be one of the tunes that is least like your sound or one of your more experimental and say softer and more trancesque tune that you use right in between two powerhouse tracks, you may loose the interest right off the bat of the listener that happens to pop on to your website for a minute.

Get over yourself.

The reality is that when new people are visiting your website, your networking site or one of your song sample sites, most are only going to be there for a few seconds unless they are drawn in. There are 40 million Myspace music pages and that number continues to grow even as Myspace continues to go down in the rankings in the social networking world. People are being tossed links from spam emails, from friends, from strangers and from third parties everyday.

While every musician wants to think that people are spending a number of minutes listening to every sample, looking at every picture and reading every piece of text, the truth is the majority are only spending seconds and moving on very quickly. We are a nation of ADD, ADHD and every other acronym that points to the bulk of us having less and less of an attention span everyday.

These people have so many choices and so many options so it is up to you to grab them, wow them, explain and showcase to them and pull them in to want more. It is crucial just like having a fast pitch for industry professionals to also have that same fast pitch and grab for the fans and the masses.

Good Ideas vs Bad Ideas

A couple strong examples are the bands that have very fast loading webpages that immediately showcase the logo, the tagline, the image and information easily. Now on the other coin, there is a website for a band that actually has a small animal that walks around the page for some 10 seconds before the page opens and you cant skip it. This may be creative and cute for the band and for fans that know something about the reason behind the path and the creature but for a browsing new person, it just comes off as stupid. Another site has a band bio that is so small and so long with so many applications that have been added to their page that you are not sure who’s information is what, not to mention the slow load from having so much on the page.

Some of these websites or social networking sites where you are forced to scroll down or wait to find or fish out information is not helping you capture the new fans that are coming across your site. On the same side with the music samples. Instead of putting up total songs why not put up samples and a lot more of them?

Think about it, just as you should put together a small demo sample for any industry person so they can listen to the bulk of your songs with out the bulk of time it takes to listen to every song, you can do the same for your fans. Supply 20 to 30 seconds fade in and fade out samples that are clearly marked as samples with the time in the title. This way when a new fan sees the player or what ever you are using to present your music, they know right off the bat, they are getting samples and may just listen to them all.

This also gives you a chance to choose what they listen to and what you want to highlight in the song, instead of them flipping through and potentially just listening to the beginnings of all your tunes if they listen that far. Think of it like giving them a sample of everything and at that point making them want to dig deeper.

Conclusion

It is fine to go deep and make people think, make people have to search and challenge your fans but first get those fans through the door, interested in you and wanting to be challenged. Make sure you have created a crystal clear image that will demonstrate you, sell you and entice them to want more. It is a hard thing to sometimes separate what how you see something against how the bulk of the public will. Remember just cause you get it or it makes sense to you, it doesn’t mean it will to most people. You are the artist, you are right smack in the middle of it all and a big part of pulling in and creating the fan base is working on creating the right appearance and marketing to pull them in the audiences that are sifting through thousands of sites and turning them in to interested fans.

Also remember, with all the other bands on all the other sites and the over saturation of music and artists that are out there, it is crucial to pull them in to want to see more first. Make the first presentation easy, fast and simple so that people can get a clear idea of the overview of you, your music and what you are about, then you can start playing with the intricacies and extra details.

Getting More Fans

This has to be said at the start. In order to be approachable, you have to be modest in character. In order to deal with building a fan base one person at a time, you have to be able to mentally absorb the fact that it takes a bit of time. A huge ego will kill your chances at gaining real fans.

Do unto others…
I am going to keep this simple. The Ethic of Reciprocity is a universal thing. People do not like commercials like they once did. I am sure you are no exception, so cut with the “buy my stuff” approach.

Work on your handshake
This goes with the concept of being a friend first, artist last. You can do this by just taking the time to get to know a person. Introducing yourself, getting their name and offering your hand to solidify the connection is a great start.

Ask “What can I do for you?”
John F. Kennedy’s famous quote from his speech can be used here, but instead of country use fans. Set yourself up to be able to help. I have suggested to a few of my artist friends that they will find more opportunities by giving back to the community than taking from it. We are bombarded with people making requests of our time. Sometimes it is the best feeling just to be asked, “Can I help?”

Be a friend
Once you have established a relationship with your new pals, keep up with them! Make sure you know what is going on in their lives. As a musician, this is a great opportunity to get inspiration for your work. Everyone has stories, so seek out some from the very people you hope will support you. At the same time, fortifying your relationship with a few good people is the most important thing about all this.

In summary, do not be “that guy.” Set yourself apart by being genuine and kind. While this approach is a bit slower than pumping a ton of money into juicing use your sexy attributes, it is the most rewarding and the payoff is bound to be more fulfilling than anything plastic surgery could ever provide.

Showcase Gig

Definition:

A showcase gig, or just a showcase, is an introduction to an audience for a new act. Sometimes, labels use showcase gigs to get their new signees in front of the press, while other times, unsigned acts play showcase shows in the hopes of impressing someone in the industry enough to get a deal.

Showcases can be handy for labels or others who have enough pull to get the right people out to see musicians, but beware showcases that charge unsigned musicians a fee to pay. Some of these showcases charge thousands of dollars for minutes on stage, and there is absolutely no guarantee that anyone who can do your music career any good will be in the audience. In fact, chances are, they won't be. If you are tempted by a paid showcase opportunity, do your homework and find out who attended past events and whether anyone has ever had success finding a deal at that particular event. Most worthwhile showcases, like showcases at music industry trade shows, do not charge musicians to play.

THE MAGIC Bullet

The music business is about relationships. And now it’s the artist’s turn to have one. Success in the music business once hinged on only a handful of relationships: a publicist and a magazine, a salesman and a bookstore, a radio promoter and a radio station, a booking guy and a promoter, an artist and a manager, a writer and a publisher. If all these relationships were working, if all parties’ interests were respected and pursued, if no personalities collided to the point of impeding progress, then the project or artist they were tied to would succeed (from a business standpoint.) Relationship is still king. Starting a blog, hopping on Twitter, launching a Facebook fan page - these are not cure-alls because they aren’t a relationship. These technologies can foster relationships. But not without a lot of personal investment and intentionality from an artist. This is a big shift in thinking for artists, especially at the top levels of this industry. Artists aren’t accustomed to being so accessible, accountable and out of control. Artists are accustomed to being in front of audiences that care about what they do, audiences they know are fans and they keep in the seats for a couple hours by charging a ticket price. But on-line, where spending time with an artist is free, anybody can wander into the crowd, boo, change the subject, or walk out. And they will. Also, artists are used to hiring people to handle their relationships for them. That’s at least 90% of what a manager does. Labels congratulate and critique through a manager, for instance, who adds his own diplomatic spin to every word so the artist’s feelings aren’t hurt and the relationship is preserved. Not so on-line. Someone can be hired to hit the “publish” button on a blog post that gets e-mailed over, invite people to a Facebook event and even write to people for an artist and signed their name (it happens), but no one can convincingly be the artist every day in post after post or interact with commenters regularly. Artists can’t hire anyone to be them 24/7 and the internet demands those kind of hours. Lastly, labels are used to creating and maintaining the image of an artist: focusing and filtering, controlling who can and can’t have access, and how much, when and where. There’s one official bio and one fact sheet carefully crafted in a record company office and then parroted by every media outlet. That’s not possible on-line. And that’s distressing, fatal even, if an artist has nothing to say or, worse, has lots to say about things that don’t matter to anyone but them. Hair products, high priced jeans and guitar pedals aren’t all that interesting to folks with real jobs. The public is now discovering through an artist’s blog what publicists have known for quite some time and expertly covered up: This guy’s just a singer. And that’s no basis for a relationship. If the music industry dies it won’t be because everything changed. It will be because artists didn’t. Artists today have to - no, we get to - do what the rest of the industry and human race has been doing for eons: We get to be real human beings spending time with other real human beings. There’s no shortcut for that. Labels was afraid to tell us artists this before: It was never about our music. And it’s not about new technology now. It’s always been about people/true blue fans.

FUTURE OF MUSIC (Part 1)

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON:

* Illegal Downloading
* Illegal File Sharing
* Music World 1.0 (MW1)
* Music World 2.0 (MW2)
* Fans
* Marketing
* Recommendations


From artist, every where, we hear: People are stealing my music; people are sharing my music, they are not paying me for it. This is one of the few things I agree with, because it is totally true.

Yes, most artist have worked hard, investing a lot of time, their money, in recording and delivering their music to the market place. My question: Did you not know about illegal downloading & illegal file sharing, before you invested a lot of time and money in your music project? Why do some artist believe their music will be treated differently from all the other artist? And WHY on this earth, would any artist believe their music will not be downloaded & share, illegal?

Dr. Wayne Dyer, In his latest book, Excuses Begone challenges us to turn all negatives in our lives into positives with positive affirmations. Quoting from his book:

1. Never underestimate your power to change yourself; never overestimate your power to change others.

2. When you correct your mind, everything else falls into place.

3. We do not attract into our lives that which we want; we attract into our lives what we are.

Music World 1.0 continues to believe authoritarian ways will stop the majority population from illegal downloading and file sharing. Nothing is farther from the truth, because consumers know the RIAA could never sue the masses that do this. Many artist, lawyers, record labels, etc, have not fully recognized Music World 1.0 is dying or has died. It's gone/going to that music hall-of-fame, which is where it should be & should have been years ago. As the renowned Gerd Leonhard states and I summarize: Music World 2.0 is arriving/has arrived in many corners of the world. As sun rises each day, so is Music World 2.0 arriving, globally. Today is just the tipping of this new MW2 iceberg.

Artist have choices to make about how they are going to handle these kind of illegalities, in MW2. Sure, you can be mad, upset, etc., OR , you can choose to accept MW2, be positive, and embrace it. Instead of trusting MW1, how about, doing some MW2 like the following:

1. Write blogs, thanking everyone for stealing your music! After all you are getting free distribution and you are getting noticed.
2. Send tweets thanking them
3. Write everyone on you mailing list thanking them
4. Or, how about printing tees WITH THIS MESSAGE ON THEM; ALL MY FANS STEAL MY MUSIC....WON'T YOU BE MY FAN???? SHARE IT WITH EVERYONE. If you want a tee, like the one I am wearing, you can buy it for half price at: WWW OR IF YOU COME TO MY GIGS, EVERY TEE YOU PURCHASE, NOT ONLY DO YOU GET ONE FREE, BUT, YOU GET A FREE AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF MY CD.
5. Or, make up boxes with your CD in them and drop them off at stores and radio stations to give away for free.
6. Hold a contest in each city/town you want to tour. See how many people will download your music and how many people they can recruit to download your music as well as come to your shows.
7. Give a great prize to the winners that recruit the most fans.
8. Then ask each winner if they would like to become your street team leader/organizer in each city. If they, accept, give them a pass allowing them to come to any of your concerts
9. Allow them to hang with you and your band in the so called green room.
10. Or ask them if they would take pics or run your merchandise table. Note artist/bands: In case you don't know it, fans love to hang out with you....it makes them feel very special. And during your shows, never fail to recognize these folks for all they do to help you out.
11. Sat up an area on your website, where you post their pics and names. Rank them in order of most fans recruited, monthly. Give monthly prize(s) to the TOP 3.

These are but 11 suggestions on how to continually build your fan base and following, but, enough, that will hopefully help all artist to have a better understanding how positive illegally downloading your music can be to your career. If you need help with this, hire someone that knows what to do, when to do it, and how to build your fan base and increase your following.

What is most important, especially for Independent Artist in MW2? Fans, fans, fans and building a loyal following.
All artist need to accept the music world for what it is or get out of the business. Work with people that understand MW2. People that come up with creative ways to grow your fan base, and build a loyal following.

Turn these thief's into fans (which is what I would do), because their thievery will be recouped many times over in the coming years. Resist or fight them and the news about how you, the artist, treat potential customers/fans/users will circle the globe in a few nano seconds. How can this happen? Through technology and social media. Loose your fans; loose your career.

Successfully turning illegal users into fans, or as we like to say: True Blue Fan, will be the best ROI ever made. Why? Each TBF will turn your petty loss into a minimum gain of $100 annually per fan. Laugh, but, just 5K TBF means 500K/yr. in gross sales. Can any independent artist afford to loose 500K/yr. in gross sales? A large percentage of independent artist would love to have this amount of annual sales any year. So, how about, today, getting started.

Successful music careers are about being different, because, being different gets you noticed. When you are noticed your Brand grows as does your fan base as well as your following.

NOTE TO ARTISTS: You must do these sort of things each and every waking moment of every day.

GOALS:

Goal number 1: steadily grow your fan base

Goal number 2: gig, gig, gig, tour, tour, tour.

Goal number 3: Practice, Practice, Practice. And I don't mean just learning all the songs and making them tight with your band. Yes that is very important, but, it is not nearly as important as learning the art of breaking down each song and creating memorable moments, that connect with fans. Regardless of how great you sing, if you don't learn how to connect through creating memorable moments, your stage road will never arrive and please believe: All Roads Do Lead To The Stage!!

Goal number 4: Try to purchase a $225 HD cameras at WalMart. Video your most high energy song and one of your best ballads. Video the crowd; your recruiters. Why, because when folks are on any camera, especially a video camera, they will tell everyone they know, which, equals more fans and more brand building. And be sure to post your vids on YouTube and all your social media sites. Posting different vids on different sites will drive more traffic to those sites.

Goal Number 5: Make each gig an event; an experience. Do this with your show, your music andyour FANS. And, don't forget, people love FREE.

These are but a few ways to build your brand; increase you fan base; increase your following; which will build your core music business. Core is crucial to success, financial freedom in your happiness in music. Become an accomplished fun fill artist that illuminates warmth onto all eyes.

And, NO I AM NOT DONE WITH THIS POST...READ ON.

I would encourage all artist to rid their minds of that "poor me" attitude. It's of no use to you or your career. Quit your whining; instead seek positive solutions.

Illegal Whatevers...Start today to change your way of thinking about this. Do it now; Do it later; or find another career.

Forget lawsuits because an amusing part is, winners will never collect money; your lawyers will....so, where does that leave you? Gerd Leonhard has it right. Everyone needs to get a grasp on reality. Become informed about what is coming in MW2. Listen to those outside the mainstream, i.e, Trent Reznor of NIN.

I am not advocating folks not get paid for "WHATEVER" they do, produce, or create. I am advocating replacement of our MW1 for MW2. Actually it has or is being replaced; most do know it or they don't want to accept it. Just a few short years ago, artist were complaining about how small their piece of the label/publishing pie was and how labels were screwing them out of their hard earned money??? Dixie Chick??? As well as several others.

I have discovered hundreds of indie artist that I enjoy more than main stream label artist. There are so many great global artist. Most of these artist will send me/you their MP3 for free. Furthermore, they encourage me to give away as many copies as I can for free. I continually look for those unknowns in the far corners of the world. Some have done a lot; most have done little because they are not committed or they don't have the funds to.

There are many things that need addressing in music. My Top 8 are:

1. Monetizing Music to fairly compensate everyone.

2. Establishing Trust with fans/users/consumers (The days of the "Good Ole Boys" are dead and gone). Hey, good name for a new song. The PLUG needs to be pulled on MW1, soon, with a transition plan into MW2 for the good of everyone involved in music.

3. Finding out what fans/users needs/wants are.

4. Allow everyone to download all the music they want.

5. Set up filters so everyone can customize their music their way.

6. Everyone drop their suing BS. It won't work because 80-90% of the connected global population is, today, illegally downloading; sharing illegally. (This applies to global populations with internet access).

7. Have a reasonable and fair system that for 3 years allows everyone to pay a reasonable annual license fee to have unlimited access to all the music they want to download and share. After 3 years if this system is not working, then implement a mandatory collection system requiring everyone to pay an annual license fee on their income tax or through a honest government or commercial agency . These collections would be distributed by someone like the HFA or a department within governments around the world. If we can collect taxes, I see no reason why we cannot collect license fees.

8. Form an oversight board that meets regularly to address problems, flaws, etc. The board would be 100% transparent to everyone.

First system will be totally voluntary lasting for 3 years allows everyone to pay a reasonable annual license fee to have unlimited access to all the
music they want. Payments would be sent to an oversight committee for recording and distribution.

After 3 years if this system is not working, then, implement a mandatory collection system requiring everyone to pay an annual license fee when filing their income tax or through each country's tax collecting system. These collections would be distributed oversight agency.

USA population is currently 306,000,000, which is about 3% of the global population which is 6,700,000,000.

2008 global music sales were just over 18 billion dollars

If each person in the USA has a license, those licenses sales would amount to around 16 trillion dollars in annually. A reasonable fee of $1 per week (recommended by Gerd Lehonhard) would generate gross sales, just in the USA, many times greater than what is now being collected globally. I don't really see that many folks opposing or protesting a $52 / year annual license fee per person. The family dollar amount would be $52 x the number of dependents in each household. 4 dependents equals $2o8 for a household of 4. Can anyone not handle this? Each license would have an identifier number that would follow each person for a lifetime. There were be an automated systems of checks and balances to prevent counterfeiting.

AM I MISSING SOMETHING HERE? Let me know if I am. This system would eliminate so much of the non productive BS and most importantly get everyone paid, more money for their creativity and their music.

Commercial business would pay $1,000 / year for their license which would cover all genres of music. They now pay licenses fees, in USA, based on annual sales.

Now we have annual license fee amounting to trillions to distribute amongst everyone involved based on their percentage of the USA or Global Market, which can be determined by the number of downloads of each song for all artist. Properly implemented this system would be a Win Win for all.

If an independent artist sells 5oK of CD's, at shows, they keep all that money or they divide it according to any legal contract.

I would recommend copyrights stay with the original writers/publishers, but, in terms of monetary value, they have none in MW2. So, does it really make sense to have copyrights?

All songs would have a unique identifier that would show if it is an original or a cover. Any time a song is downloaded the identifier would be pick up and reported to the oversight agency. A running total of every identifier would be maintained, so each party could be sent reimbursement checks monthly or quarterly.

Yes, this system would take a lot of planning as well as test runs to work out any bugs. I know we currently have both software & hardware, in systems, doing much more complicated tracking and data generation than MW2 would require.



GLOBAL POPULARTION

306,000,000 USA

6,700,000,000 World

MUSIC SALES GLOBALLY

$18.42 Billion

Tags: arts, branding, concert, file sharing, gerd leonhard, illegal downloads, music, music industry, wayne dyer

INNOVATIVE ADVERTISING

Oh advertising! Is it really worth it as a musician? Well, it depends. Where are you advertings? What are you advertising? And do you have money? Of course you want to try to get as much free publicity as possible. If you can do it for free, definitely go for that option!

When you do get the funds, check into these ideas. The great thing about the following options is that you can advertise at whatever price is affordable for you.

And in continuation to Monday’s blog, Finding Your Niche, the below suggestions allow you to advertise directly to your niche.

StumbleUpon
Its a great source for people who wanna find good things online. StumbleUpon doesn’t just focus on music. It exposes surfers to every type of website in the world. How does it work? Lets say you wanna get your myspace out to a unique type of listener (See yesterday’s post: Finding Your Niche). Click on StumbleUpon Advertising and create a campaign. As you create your campaign, you’ll see that you can choose what types of people you want to visit your website – everything from people who are history buffs to people who are vegetarian, to people who like kayaking. Tons of random categories.

So what if your music appeals most to men, maybe you’d want to pick people who fall into the following categories: home improvement, mens issues, video games. Or if you think your music has ambience that best fits the spiritual guru/yoga type crowd; you might want to pick people who fall in the following categories: yoga, self improvement, ambient music.

You’re also given the option of choosing age range, geographic location and other demographics. StumbleUpon only costs .05 cents per view. So you could spend $20 on advertising and that would expose your website to 400 people. Check out their short video tutorial.

Facebook (and Myspace)
Its much the same concept as Stumble Upon: i.e. target audiences, demographics and all that jazz. One thing I’ve noticed and like about Facebook ads is that it allows you to pay for impressions by the thousands. So that means, if you set your ad price as 20 cents per 1000 impressions, your ad will show up on the side panel of 1000 facebook pages. Whether 5 people or 500 people click the impression, you still only pay 20 cents per 1000. I’ve found that Facebook isn’t as straighforward as StumbleUpon and takes a little time to understand.

I haven’t tried Myspace advertising, so if you have experience, please comment below.

The Pizza Boy (ya, for real!)
During the week of his CD Release, Pittsburgh artist T. Mitchell Bell stopped into his local pizza store, and asked them if they would be able to distribute flyers for his CD release everytime they had to make a delivery. AWESOME idea! They let him do it for free b/c he was a very regular customer!

Stop into your local restaurant, whether it be a pizza store, or something else. Ask them if they’d be willing to do the same. You might have to pay a little something but its a great idea ( they’ll treat you better if they know you). It’s one of the best ideas I’ve heard lately and I think its probably effective.

Press Releases

You know how important a press release is to get the word out about whatever your band or label has going on, be it a new album, a tour, or some other piece of news. But sending that press release a the right time is another key piece of the puzzle to getting media coverage. How do you get the timing right?

As you might imagine, the answer to this question depends very much on the media you are contacting. Radio has a different lead time than a national print magazine which has different timing requirements from a website, and so on and so forth. There are ways you can take some of the guess work out of the equation, however. Do a little research and create a database:

* Contact all of the music media outlets to which you hope to promote your music, and ask them about their deadlines. Start a database on your computer tracking this information, so you always have it on hand. You should do this far enough in advance that you haven't missed deadlines by the time you get around to making your calls. For instance, if you know that you will be releasing an album in 6 months, make those calls now.
* Contact any freelance writers you know and ask them how far in advance they need news from you to be able to run with it. Add this information to your database as well.
* Your database will probably primarily include national outlets, plus local outlets in your area. However, don't forget to contact local outlets in towns that the band plays often, or if you have a tour planned, local papers/magazine/radio in the towns on the tour. You might not be able to plan for these contacts as far in advance as you might like, but do it as soon as the shows are booked.

Beyond taking these steps, there are some general guidelines to keep in mind:

* For a new album or single, sending out press releases and promos 2 - 3 months in advance is ideal (national publications have very long lead times - smaller mags, local papers and websites may have shorter lead times, but it is better to be early than late!).
* For a tour, 6 weeks or so ideal, though 4 weeks can sometimes be ok. How early you send your press release for a tour depends on the kind of coverage you are trying to secure. If you just want to get in the show listings, then you can afford to cut it a little closer (though many national magazines will have specific deadlines for show listings pages that you need to follow). If you're hoping to get a piece written about the show or the band, earlier is better.

If this all sounds a little confusing, don't fret. Press release timing is an art, not a science. The best thing you can do is gather all of the information about deadlines that you can and stick to those guidelines as much as possible. Follow up after you send a press release, especially as your release date/show date nears to make sure you release has not gotten lost in the shuffle and to encourage them to give you some coverage. Last but not least, you should never skip the press release because you think it is too late. You never know what can be pulled off at the last minute, plus, even if it IS too late, you're still getting your name out there, which can only help you next time you send out a press release.