I got sucked into an informercial the other other for the yudu screen printing system.

It seems way cool (as all products do on and informercial) and I was really waiting and waiting to find out how much does the yudu cost?

Well I’m still wating. I sent an email to the comany (I haven’t heard anything yet), but as this advertisement shows you can use it for a month for $33 bucks. This is cool as you can create a lot of shirts ina month. My question is does anybody know how much this thing is to keep?

Obviously more and more people are expecting music to be free or $.99 a song, but nobody expects t-shirts, bags, hats, etc to be free. As a podcaster I would like to make some t-shirts for people who send in info to the podcast, or contests, etc.

If you know someone who actually has this system, please let me know.

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I just found out about a new FREE resource for musicians called Gig Donkey. Here are some of the features:

• gig calendars for your website
• band rehearsal scheduler with reminders
• track your pay (or lack of)
• create set lists and print them for gigs
• manage contacts
• manage inventory
• fan e-list signups for your website or mySpace
• upload song lyrics
• shall we go on??

I’ve got a video at the bottom of the post. If you try it out come back and let us know what you think of it?

Dave’s Birthday Kindle
Dave turns 45 this month and the old man’s eye sight isn’t what it used to be. Chip in at www.musicianscooler.com/birthday and help him get a kindle (so he can read music business books and share the information right here). Rumor has it there are surprises for those who donate..

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Today we have the return of “multi-link Monday” We are talking

www.artistdata.com is a great tool that allows you to put your schedule in one place and have it posted all over the Internet like myspace, facebook, sonicbids, fanbridge, and more. Check it out at www.artistdata.com (free with a more advance version for a small free).

www.musformation.com is a website that is basically 11 websites crammed into one site. It’s update aroudn 20 times a day. If you want recording tips, marketing tips, music news, its all there.

www.bandmetrics.com is a great tool to see how much people are talking about you on the Internet

musicscout.com is NOT a great site. when I tried it on my droid phone, I get an error. Great first impression.

Music “one two three” by Artificial Intelligence in Texas

Everything is going to the phone in the future. I think a phone number for texting is just as important if not more important than an email address (I never delete a text message before reading it – not so much for e-mail).

With this in mind, you don’t have to pay some programmer a ton of cash to have your own iPhone application for your band. A company called Mobbase makes it easy and affordable. It’s free to set up. You don’t even have to enter a credit card number until you’ve designed your app and decided that you want to launch it for your fans. Then it’s 20 bucks to launch and $15 a month. 

So what can you do with an iPhone app for your band? You can keep your schedule (along with directions) in their face, your music, add a store to sell your stuff, keep a blog, send your youtube clips right to their phone and more. 

MobBase app is highly customizable and can have your unique image, look, and feel — you pick and choose the content you offer to fans, arrange the features however you like, upload background and button images, and select color themes. And, because MobBase is built on an advanced content management system, it’s easy to add, manage and update content and design in real-time, whenever the mood strikes.

For more information and to start making your app, click here (www.mobbase.com )
MobBase app is highly customizable and can have your unique image, look, and feel — you pick and choose the content you offer to fans, arrange the features however you like, upload background and button images, and select color themes. And, because MobBase is built on an advanced content management system, it’s easy to add, manage and update content and design in real-time, whenever the mood strikes.

For more information and to start making your app, click here www.mobbase.com

I wish this video had audio, but it doesn’t. None the less Reverbnation continues to add more useful functionality to your music marketing arsenal. The great thing is you can add these tools to your website and the customer never knows its coming from Reverbnation. When Reverbnation came out I thought, “These are great tools to get your music in front of people, but there were no tools to allow them to buy it once they heard it.” Now you will be able to sell everything from downloads, CDs, merch, ringtones, etc.

It is slotted to be released in October.

Reverb Store Walkthrough from Ferol Vernon on Vimeo.

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Today we start a conversation about what to look for when you see a site that wants you to list your music at their site.

This show originates from www.musicianscooler.com

Tales From the Road – Stage Thud

Special tales from the road courtesy of Big Al and Mike at www.projectstudionetwork.com

Strategies for Listing Your Band  at Music Sites

There are so many sites that want you to list your music. They will give you music players, email, etc to just list your music on their site (and of course you’ll get “discovered”). Well here are some things to look into.

1. Are the “bonus” features a true bonus?

At www.gigleader.com they say you can use their classified website (www.bandmix.com which you can use for free), or their other service that helps you build your site (for $20 a month) which is completely over priced (check out www.marketingmusician.com for a site that shows you how to build your own site).

2. Who is it your dealing with?

At bandstock.com there  no “About Us,”  or contact information, and everything you do you needed to enter your e-mail address first.  Also if there is a forum, go check it out. Often disgruntled customers will go in and launch flaming posts warning potential customers not to join (and if this site leaves them there, you know they are not manning their forums). IF there is contact information, contact them and see what kind of response you get.

3. Get a Spam Email Address

I talk about this in my book, but you should have an email that you put on your business cards (that typically ends in your band’s websites).  Then you can get a free email from places like gmail, yahoo, or hotmail (I like gmail).  This should be your band’s name “@ blah blah blah” so if your band was the free toys you should get freetoys@gmail.com. Use this email for any website that you feel may potentially spam you. You still need to check this email (as you may occasionally get a gig from a stie).  Only give out the email from your website to a person. This way if something comes into that email you know its from someone you have personally met.

4. Can You Link Back To Your Website?

Look at the other band’s pages and see if you can link back to your band’s website.

5. Does the Technology Work?

Click on one of their players and make sure that the technology they are promoting actually works.

6. Can I export the email list?

Some websites will allow you to use a tool to build a mailing list . This is ok (I guess), but as your list is your most important tool, I would make sure you can export these contacts into your mater list (which should be hosted at your site).

7. Are there tons of Google Ads?

Many times these sites are not about discovering your music. Its about you getting your fans to come to the website so they website can earn cash on their advertising.

Music Promotion Websites

Our Stage
A few websites I have heard good things about is Our Stage which is a promotional site and a contest at the same time (and you will see where they have contact information at the bottom of the page).

Song Catalog

http://www.songcatalog.com/ is a place where you can list your music if it inTV shows, Movies, etc.

Stories Sell More Music

Jun 8th, 2009 | By David Jackson | Category: Podcast | Edit

Today’s music marketing lesson comes from the band Casting Crowns. I went to their concert (not knowing who they were), and ended up buying their latest (third) cd. I also received a free book written by the lead singer. Well its been a year, and today I cracked the book.

It has insanely personal stories about the singer’s life and how and where these songs came from. After reading story number one, I went to the CD to hear the song. The problem is the song isn’t on their latest CD, it’s on their first. “Brilliant,” I thought to myself as I fired up the Internet to purchase the CD from the Amazon MP3 store.

The stories were intimate, and fueled my NEED to hear the song. Then once I did hear the song, they moved me that much more knowing the behind the scenes look at the song.

Your band can do the same and release the “book” as an ebook, or use them as blog posts. At any rate, when done properly, stories can truly help sell more CDs.

Sponsors

Save on renewals and new domains at www.godaddy.com using the coupon code cooler7

Budget Rental car – www.budget.com/musician Get 30% off a weekly rental or $10 off any rental at Budget Rental Car

WaTunes  has announced that it will no longer charge artists for digital distribution to iTunes and other online retailers. The company hopes to generate revenue from ads on a new music social networking site.

I’m not sure why company after company keeps going back to the free business model. Eventually if you don’t make money, you go out of business, and while advertising revnue is up for online advertising, it is still a tough road to go.

For more informattion go to http://www.watunes.com/

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Today we are talking with Matthew Ebel about his strategy to launch a Membership site to bring in revenue between CD releases.  I had originally talked about this strategy back in April of 2007 and Matthew has been doing this for a while now.

He has multiple packages set up from everything from a new live concert every month to attending a party at his house (in the same philosophy of Willie Nelson). The point is – it’s working. While not paying all of Matthew’s bills, it is paying his rent (not to shabby).

Matthew talks about how many people to expect to sign up when you fist launch a membership site. The statistics are not exactly encouraging. He also gives his opinion on Amember which is the software he is using to manage the membership functionality of his website. You can see the membership site at www.matthewebel.net

For the record, I use Amember at the School of Podcasting and I didn’t have that much problem with it (I also don’t get quite as fancy with it either). If you are looking for other membership script check out the membership software section at Weekly Web Tools.

Music

“Lost on Block Island” by Matthew Ebel from the Podsafe Music Network. For more of Matthews Music check out www.matthewebel.com or putchase the CDs and downloads from CDBaby.com

Other Sites Mentioned

CDBaby Podcast at www.cdbabypodcast.com

Sponsors

www.godaddy.com Get your domain name (or renew old domains ) and use the coupon cooler7 to get your .com domain for $7.49

www.budget.com/musician Get 30% off a weekly rental or $10 off any rental at Budget Rental Car.

Dave’s Book

Get Your Band Out of the Basement and Keep them Out of the Asylum at www.musicianlibrary.com

If you are looking for a way to grab your visitor’s attention this is THE tool.

You can have it prompt them to sign up for your newsletter. (Never a bad idea to give them something for free for signing up).

You can also have it point to a page on your website (take them straight to the CD page, or the next gig).

If you can’t decide which one to use, you don’t ave to decide. You have it rotate through all the different ads, and it keeps stats.

I’m telling you this thing just rocks, and you can install it on your website in about 5 – 10 minutes. Best of all there is a 365 day money back guarantee, and free upgrades for life. The cost? $47  Order your Ultimate Footer Ad today