11 Things Artists Need to Stop Doing Now!
It seems I’m always telling artists what to do. Well, I’ve got a nice long list of what not to do!
Making excuses - I was too tired to practice. I couldn’t get off work to make my appointment. I don’t have enough time. I don’t have enough money. All of these “excuses” may be truth. But the successful artists I have known over the years take on a “problem solving” mindset instead of an “I can’t, because…” mindset. Sometimes the “I can’t, because…” thoughts are called limiting beliefs. Our Empowered Indie Artist Course tackles these limiting beliefs in the first module because if we don’t rewrite the narrative in our heads first, before anything else, it will sabotage everything else we do! If you approach every stumbling block with the “how can I solve this problem” mindset, you will be surprised by what you can overcome!
Recording a song first then wondering how you are going to market it - Sigh. This is like my most commonly observed mistake artists make. If you’ve read any of my blogs you’ve probably already caught on to how sad this makes me. Because making the music should be closer to step 10 than step 1! Have you thought about who your target audience is? How will you follow up song #1? How will you follow up song #5?? Are you just crossing your fingers and hoping out of the 40,000-60,000 songs uploaded to Spotify EVERYDAY that your song will magically stumble on people's release radar or favorite playlists? There is too much to do to prep the space before the music comes. Download the free 12 to 14 week release checklist here for some help!
Rushing the release - for many of the same reasons as above, all of your ducks need to be in a row before that release comes out. Here's another common problem that happens. You announce a release date prematurely. Maybe you have a certain date in your mind that has meaning. But if that date is 3 weeks away and you are still waiting for the master and haven't submitted it to your distributor, it's time to be flexible with that release date. In order to get your song submitted to the Spotify curated playlists they need a few weeks! Is it worth adjusting your timeline to get on a Spotify curated playlist? Yes. Yes it is. You are the one driving the ship. If things took longer than estimated to come together for whatever reason, adjusting your timeline is critical. Already announced the release date? Do an Instagram live or a TikTok announcing the change in release date. Even better would be to do a giveaway as a token for "waiting a bit longer" or as a "sorry for the delay". Be creative and think outside the box.
Put every dime you have into the recording and production with nothing left over - Ah. Another sad one. The cost of recording and producing even just one song can give you sticker shock. For one, the process takes a lot more time than people realize. And two, the skill set required for commercial releases does not really come from a $20/hr newbie beat maker who just started 2 years ago (not dissing just seriously the reality) If the goal is to make music, start with your budget. If you look at your monthly income compared to your monthly expenses and have $200/month that you can allocate toward music, rather than throwing that at recording at the cheapest studio with the fastest recording session possible, stash that $200/month for a year while you write, improve skills, network, perform, build your brand, etc. Then in a year, look! You have $2400 to put toward music! Now make a budget for your music. Let's say one song recording, production, mixing and mastering is $1,000 (that is low end for good quality). But there's also:
Photography
Graphic design
Website
Lyric video
Music video
You can see that the numbers will add up quickly. How about we approach it this way; make a 12 month content creation and release plan but now we have the starting budget of $2400 PLUS we are adding $200 a month to it! Now you can really start strategizing! Imagine what you can do if you have a crowdfunding campaign or set up a Patreon account with monthly supporters. Having some “dough” to work with will help you make better decisions and ensure the quality you are releasing is in line with your brand.
5. Going cheap on everything - the knee-jerk reaction to all that money talk is to cut corners. Let's find the cheapest studio, cheapest photographer (your mom?) cheapest musicians, cheapest producer, etc. I'm sure you've seen this Venn Diagram.
It is true. What do you do then when money is really tight? See step #6 and BE PATIENT!! Building something takes time. If the goal is to put out quality music that makes you a real player, that will not happen by cutting corners at every turn, I promise.
6. Doing everything yourself to save money - Unless learning to record and produce is a goal because you love it, don’t just do it to save money. Because, for one, it is much more difficult to get things to sound good than you may realize. The amount of time invested in learning how to operate all of your new recording equipment is time spent on something that isn’t adding value to you and your brand, unless, again, you really want to learn it because you love it. Then there is administrative stuff. Graphic design. Website design. All of this takes valuable time. What if you could pass on some of these tasks to someone else who is better at it? Yes, you are paying someone else to do it but also removing that stress from your own load and giving you valuable time to do the things that only YOU can do (like write your songs, perform livestreams for your fans, etc) Include money for these things in your music budget.
7. Expecting people to become fans just because your music is good - first of all “good” is subjective. Not everyone is going to love your music! And that is toooootally ok. Even people who know you, including friends and family may not be in love with your music. Again….that’s ok!!! Your goal is to find those people who really do love your music and connect with them for real. The M.O. of this era is authenticity and transparency. Music fans want real. They want to know that YOU know who they are and appreciate them immensely. Find those peeps and then LOVE ON THEM!
8. Spamming Inboxes - Sending a “Friend request” or an invite to like a page or a link to spotify with no initial conversation is spam; plain and simple. No one likes spam so why do artists keep trying to do it? Does it actually work? If you are thinking it’s a numbers game, something like, “If I spam 1,000 people maybe one of them will listen to my song, like my page or follow me”, that is not a good return on effort. Perhaps try focusing on finding someone on social media who likes a similar artist as you who is also engaged on that artist's page and spark up a conversation with them. A “real” conversation that includes “real” engagement. It might actually take less time to make 100 real connections this way than copy/pasting 1,000 messages to random people and only getting “one” fan.
9. Not following submission requests - In the music business, you will find yourself emailing and submitting varous content for various opportunities. Sync agents, playlist curators, bloggers, press, radio stations, managers, music libraries, music publishers, booking agents and venues. For the people on the receiving end of song and artist submissions, it can be very time consuming to sit down and listen to music submissions. I didn’t realize how time consuming and how frustrating it can be until I was in that position myself. I was working with a young female artist artist who needed great power ballads along the lines of Celine Dion or Josh Groban. We were trying to write some power ballads ourselves but decided to put out a call to songwriters and publishers to see if we could find something better than what we could write ourselves. I was shocked, I mean….seriously shocked by how far off track the submissions we received were from what we were looking for. We heard polka, dance, country, R&B. Worse than that, we heard horrible songs. Hundreds of songs were submitted and after the first 10 horrible songs, if the intro told me the song was off target genre wise or didn’t have any care put into it, I just skipped it. I literally did not have the time to listen through crap after crap! Then, trying to formulate a response to these submissions over and over again in a kind yet professional way became time consuming and difficult. And after the first response to the rejection came with a “why not?” Or a “I guess you don’t recognize good music when you hear it.” I was done with responding at all unless I was interested in your song.
Other submission requirements that often get ignored might be “do not submit mp3’s, only links” or “song must be unreleased” or “you must own the underlying composition and master recording 100%”. If you don’t follow submission guidelines, don’t expect to make any progress this way. They may also ask you to please not email to follow up. If you do, they will definitely blacklist you. So please pay attention!
10. Paying for followers or streams - if you find yourself obsessed with numbers…stop. First of all, buying followers or streams goes against the Spotify terms of agreement. Also, these aren't real people listening to your music, they are bots. Spotify is proactively removing bots and artists who appear to have racked up their numbers with bots. Streaming numbers are not a reflection of true fan numbers. True fans are the people that will buy your hoodie or buy a ticket to your online show. Don’t you want “real” people listening and loving your music? As all indie artists know, income generated from streaming is nothing to write home about. The absolute foundation for your music business becoming profitable is by finding and engaging with your "true super fans". If you have 1000 super fans who on average spend $5/month on you, there is $5,000/month! Now go figure out how you can add value to your fans' lives that will make them want to throw $5, $10 or even $50 a month at you every month!
11. Expecting a "big break" to come along without working toward your goal - perhaps “working toward your goal” needs to be defined because you might think you ARE indeed working toward your goal but actually aren’t. If all you are doing is putting out a song now and then and shouting “hey listen to my new song!” And then going silent, that is not going to build momentum, reach people who love your music or build your brand. Releasing a song and then sitting back and expecting big things to happen is like deciding you are going to run a marathon and going to the gym the day before, expecting your body to be ready for a marathon in one workout. This “building a music business” is a marathon, not a sprint. A successful music career is never born out of one lucky event. Do “lucky” things happen to artists that launch their career? Yes. But it is never a simple strike-of-luck-happens and then bam, they are the picture of success! “Luck is when preparation and opportunity come together” is my husband’s favorite saying and it should be embroidered, framed and put on your wall so you can see it every day. Be sure to read this blog with more ideas about what you can be doing but perhaps aren’t.
