Is Indie the Way to Go for a Small Bands?

The Digital Revolution means new rules and new opportunities for indie bands and artists are better than at any time in the history of the music industry.

There was a time when the music industry had a lot more pull when it came to breaking an artist or a band, getting them distributed, and everything else that affected a band’s ultimate success or failure. They even had control over music fans. Now, thanks to the Internet, MP3 technology and social networking sites like MySpace, we are in the midst of a revolution and the power has shifted.

The rules have changed.

Stop dreaming about getting signed, because the power is no longer in the hands of the industry establishment. Consumers, your fans, have the power, which means you have an unprecedented opportunity to leverage this power and use it to your advantage. You have all the partybets in your favour, in this day and age of internet and hi-tech. Whether it comes to music production, recording, Youtube videos or interacting with a fan base, there is nothing stopping independent bands these days. It is no longer about getting signed, it is about getting proactive!

Indie music distribution is the wave of the future, and that means that you are in total control. It no longer requires a big fat bank roll for an indie band to drop a CD. In today’s emerging DIY music industry model, there are tons of companies that will get you started for next to nothing. You only pay for what you sell. And the beautiful thing is they do all of the legwork for you.

Music promotion and distribution is much easier than you think.

There are websites available where you can upload your music and they will turn it into a professional CD. They handle all of the ecommerce and distribution from taking orders to shipping, printing and processing the orders. They will do just about everything except write your song and tie your shoes.

There are websites available where you can upload a song once and your song will be automatically listed on the top digital distribution sites in seconds.

Promoting your band is now cheap and simple.

Back in the day, band promotion was time consuming, complex, and expensive. It required a deep pocket record label to accomplish building a buzz to break your band. Not anymore.

Social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and the rest can produce amazing results inexpensively (almost free plus the cost of elbow grease and tenacity). Armed with a little knowledge, you can propel your band’s online presence within a matter of days or weeks and get tons of free publicity and traffic to your site to promote, sell, and distribute your music.

The Internet has begun to dominate the promotion of music, and MySpace is the number one music destination in the world.

Distributing your music is as mouse click away.

Now the Internet is also beginning to dominate music sales and music distribution. Online music downloads will surpass CD sales by 2010.

All of this means that now is a brilliant time to keep control of your destiny as an Indie band and spend more time focusing on the music than on getting signed. You should be more concerned with promoting directly to your fans than to record labels.

The Digital Economy makes the rules now.

As the music industry evolves into a new digital model, the old rulebook on making money with your music is flying out the window.

The one rule that will remain certain during this revolution is that the power is in the hands of the consumer- your fans. This means that whether you are Indie or Signed, you must create value for your fans. Managing and nurturing the relationship with your fans is what will lead to your bands success- label or no label.