5 Tips on Long Term Success As An Indie Artist

• Never stop networking. Always seek to meet new people and develop and maintain relationships. This includes all people from all walks of life. You never know who they know or will meet. You can’t know who is going to move into a decision-making position that can influence your career. Plus, the more connections you have, the more people you can turn to if times get tough.
• Don’t take yourself too seriously. You don’t need to be perfect all of the time. Many people don’t like or wants to be around someone who can’t take a joke or laugh at himself. Know that you are going to make mistakes, and so will everyone around you. Do your best to avoid mistakes, but learn from them when it happens. Don’t let success go to your head! For the most part, keep it light.
• Establish and dominate your brand. Make it obvious what you want to be known for or known as. Understand that if you ignore this completely, the public will inevitably create the brand for you. Wouldn’t it be better for your reputation to be something that you designed and are proud to live with? You might want to come up with a tag line that sums up what you are all about. You may want to create your own genre of music. Once you have established your brand, work hard to dominate it. Keep in mind that your brand can be anything at all. For example, if your band plays a variety of genres and takes a wide variety of gigs, your brand might be wrapped around your versatility and adaptability.
• Be and stay easy to find. Make it easy for everyone to find you, listen to your music, buy your music and contact you. Once you’ve established your contact info, don’t change it. This is vital! You may do something to create a huge ‘buzz’, but if.people can’t find you, it will all be wasted. If someone wants to book you but can’t find your contact information, you will lose out. If they want to buy your music but can’t find it where they normally buy their music (iTunes, Amazon etc.), you will lose the sale. The easiest way to make it easy for people to find you is to have a good website with the name of your act as the domain name. Reserve your domain name for 10 years at a time so you don’t risk losing it. Make your email easy to remember as well by using ‘yourname@yourwebsite.com’. Then direct everyone on your social networks, on your videos, on your CDs etc. back to the site.
• Choose your team wisely. Your team consists of everyone from your band members to your booking agent, manager, attorney, business manager, sound and lighting techs or anyone else involved in your business. Remember that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Be sure that everyone on your team has your best interests at heart. Find people who are smarter than you and learn from them. Find people who are better musicians and/or singers and work to reach their levels.

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