| Do you create music and sell online? Maybe you sell | | | | head into the cPanel and do the easy installment of |
| on Spotify, Last.fm or some other online service. | | | | the Wordpress blog. After that, head into the |
| Maybe you have a band who tours small towns and | | | | Wordpress admin panel and choose a theme that fits |
| mostly play on bars and don't sell any CD:s. Well – | | | | your artist or label design. Now you have your own |
| either way, this article is for you. | | | | place on the 'net and now the real business starts. |
| I take examples from the Swedish electronic artist | | | | Use Twitter. Create an account if you don't have one, |
| Pingo® who recently released an album directly on | | | | and see to it that the Wordpress theme you are using |
| Spotify, through the online label SouthPole Radio. With | | | | also can handle a Twitter ”widget”. Installing such |
| no budget at all, the name is out there and sales and | | | | a widget in Wordpress makes your latest twitter end |
| streams are made. This is how you can copy that | | | | up directly on your website. |
| promotion plan and do the same thing yourself with | | | | In Last.fm link your feed (the rss-link from your |
| your band, your artist, your music. | | | | Wordpress site) to the site. You can add this in the |
| If you want to release your music on Spotify, please | | | | Music Manager on Last.fm. |
| read my article ”How to get your music on Spotify | | | | Now sign up for a YouTube account. Make a video. |
| – and earn money on it!”. Then head back to this | | | | You can make any video you like to one of your |
| text and find out how to start promoting! | | | | tunes using a regular video- or digital camera. Either |
| Last.fm is a great place for an artist to write more | | | | just film yourself singing, have a friend film you live or |
| about himself, push the music to friends and start a | | | | do a stop-motion animation (as Pingo® did) or |
| fan-base. MySpace is today also a very good artist | | | | anything else you can think of! There are lots free |
| platform. However, both of them lack a lot, specifically | | | | software out there that can help you with the editing |
| in technology, since both of the websites are a bit old | | | | and creation of your video. |
| fashioned and – especially MySpace – is a slow | | | | Upload the video to your YouTube account and use |
| and heavy site with too much scripts and bad design. | | | | the embedd link on your Wordpress blog. Write a |
| However, since the sites are used by so much people, | | | | news post about it, and see the news post end up on |
| they are still two sites that an artist should sign up on. | | | | Last.fm too! |
| After adding your artist page to MySpace and Last.fm | | | | Now use your own network to promote your website. |
| it's time to create your own website. If you don't | | | | The nice thing with all this is that you now can sell your |
| already have one (you should!), then find a good | | | | music as downloadable mp3's via Last.fm, get payed |
| webhost (I suggest HostGator, since it's cheap and | | | | for it, get payed for streams via Spotify – but only |
| have very good service in different languages) where | | | | have to take care of two things: your news posts on |
| you easily can install a Wordpress blog. Hostgator (and | | | | your website and your small twitters via Twitter. |
| many other hosts) have the cPanel. cPanel is an | | | | Everything else is updating itself! |
| add-on many hosts have where you easily can install | | | | So next time you are on tour – create a banner |
| several different scripts and functions for your | | | | that has your website's domain name on it. Spread the |
| website. Wordpress – the blogging script – is one | | | | word of your domain name to your friend. Make |
| of these. | | | | stickers and put on your car. Spread that domain |
| Before you buy hosting, however, you need a domain | | | | name any way you can! |
| name. You can buy that online on any domain | | | | The beauty in this is that you don't have to spread |
| registrating company (I usually use GoDaddy). Choose | | | | your Twitter (since that feed is visible on your website, |
| a name that is as close to your artist's or label's name | | | | people may sign up to your Twitter account when |
| as possible. Try to go for the .com domain, but if that is | | | | they have found your website), you don't have to |
| not accessable, you can go for anything – if you | | | | spread your MySpace, Last.fm or Spotify links (which |
| have your band residing in any other country than | | | | all can be a bit weird to send out to people anyway). |
| USA, you should of course go for that country's | | | | So with a little time, only a few bucks and some |
| localized top domain. | | | | tweaking – you can end up selling your tunes for |
| Hosting and domain name is the only costs in this. The | | | | your unknown band in no time, with just a single |
| hosting is around $5 per month, and the domain name | | | | domain name to spread and a lot of sites promoting |
| is approximalty $10 for a whole year. | | | | your music. |
| When you have linked your domain with your hosting, | | | | Good luck! |