How to become a successful artist these days?

As in many activities, developing a music project on your own is never easy, it needs lots of efforts and determination. However, if you’re a quite talented artist, today’s world will provide you with all the tools you need to become successful with the help of no one but you only. Beside, the world is changing and the global economic situation is pushing each and everyone of us to adapt. In this context, we may question the role of record companies nowadays, especially major labels which are taking less and less risks when it comes to signing and developing new artists. Are record companies still useful these days? If you are ok to follow other people’s opinion about your music and let them shape your career the way they want, then yes perhaps you need them, but you’ll have to share your revenues and accept to get rid of a part of your freedom. However, if you are convinced about the power of your music and if you have a pretty clear idea of where you want to go with your career, then you don’t need anybody but you to reach your goals and become a true successful artist.

How can you become a full-time artist, make enough money to live decently and be totally independent?

Here are 3 steps to follow:

1. Be seen, get a faithful fan base
Just like any artist, you need to get fans. In order to do this, you need to be seen. There are multiple ways to do this. For example, you can just take part in a few contests in your local area or even at a national level. By this mean, people will talk about you more and more with word of mouth, and eventually you’ll see where you really stand.

At the same time, you’ll have to be active on the internet and especially on social networks. What you have to do is some sort of follow up with your fans after your actual live performance, and make yourself available to chat and answer questions. So, you definitely need to open a Facebook account (artist Like page), Twitter account and YouTube account to webcast your talent. You have to make people “like” your Facebook page, follow you on Twitter, subscribe to your YouTube channel and if you can, you should make people subscribe to your newsletter to keep them informed of your latest news.
By the way, many YouTube artists have received millions of hits on their videos by doing covers of famous songs. The reason is very simple, this is just because most search queries are for known artists and of course for their hit songs. So this is something you should do at the same time as performing your own original songs because your fan base will grow faster this way. Also, try to really get close to your fans by engaging with them, reply to their questions and comments. You can even organize Twitcam or Google HangOut events, so that your fans can see you live.

Once you have developed a strong fan base, you can go on and think about making your own album.

2. Raise funds to develop your projects
Many of you have probably heard about crowdfunding websites. Have you ever heard about Kickstarter? This is a fantastic way to raise funds for projects. Individuals (fans, friends, family…) who have invested in your project will receive special goods according to the amount they have pledged, such as your produced album for free, free t-shirts, free concert tickets… Have you ever heard about Amanda Palmer? She raised more than 1 million dollars through this website in 2013, not bad I guess…
Once you have raised enough money to produce your album, if you know some good producers, then you’re good to go: studio sessions, lots of recordings and you’ll eventually make it! However, if you didn’t raise enough money to have your album produced by this mean, be sure that there are cheaper ways with leased or exclusive instrumentals proposed by beats selling websites. Every day, new websites proposing instrumentals in different genres (Pop, Club, Hip-Hop…) are opening. You should check them out, you may find music that you like for your album. One popular site is called Beats Avenue, they have cheap instrumentals: Pop beats for sale, cool Rap beats, Club beats and even Bachata beats for sale.

Once you have your album ready, you now need to show other skills of yours and turn yourself into a so-called salesperson…

3. Promote your music and sell it
In this phase, your goal will be to reach your audience and spread the word to other potential fans. The easiest way would be to sell your music over the internet via iTunes and so on. Some good websites like Zimbalam will help you to achieve that. They will put your music on various online stores in exchange for a commission on your sales (generally 10% of the royalties). If you prefer to keep 100% of your royalties, then you should go for SongCast. They don’t take any commission on your sales but instead you’ll have to pay a monthly subscription ($5.99/month). So either way, SongCast or Zimbalam, it only depends on how much you think you’ll sell in the end.

To accompany your album launch, you need to promote it. The cheapest way is always internet promotion. If you have a video camera or even a good smartphone, then you can produce yourself a cool music video clip for one of your song. What’s important to collect more fans is to create quality content and to engage with your fans. So, what you can also do beside the classic music video clip is to create lyrics videos (videos with the lyrics of the song scrolling), real-life videos of yourself when you are not making music, backstage videos, Questions & Answers videos etc. Those videos will for sure make people subscribe to your (YouTube) channel and you’ll definitely collect faithful fans.
In this promotion phase, this is now time to activate all of your networks (social network fans, newsletter…), inform them that your new album is out, that you have cool video clips and that they should spread the word.

While doing all of this, are you aware that you can earn money from your YouTube videos? If not, this is high time to monetize them. Once you have activated this option on your channel, everytime someone will see your videos, you will get a share of what YouTube earns from the advertisers. On average, you should get around 1$ per 1,000 views. This is not a lot but you have to start somewhere and be sure that some YouTube artists are making millions of dollars from their videos. If you are more interested in monetization, there are also some special companies that can help you develop quality content for YouTube, such as Fullscreen.net.

See, to become a successful artist these days, you don’t necessarily need a big financial investment; you mostly need determination, efforts and patience. In today’s world, the do-it-yourself way is more and more popular and we know why. The investment costs are lower and the reward can be huge.

Also, we should never forget that being seen and having a big fan base is very important as many talent scouts from TV shows or any other music businesses are browsing the internet to look for the next big artist. And in 2013, one guy totally understood where the money was, that’s Russell Simmons who announced the launch of a new record label which aim is to develop and promote artists via YouTube “All Def Digital”… Now you know what you have to do…

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Author:
Steve C. has been in the music business as a manager for artists and music producers for more than 10 years. He is the founder of Beats Avenue website (www.beatsavenue.com).

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