First of all, the music business really sucks - some of the time. Fortunately, once you get a taste of success, it’ll sustain you for years and keep you smiling - even if it’s only a prelude to getting your teeth kicked in. Why the hell am I telling you this? I want to illustrate today’s point - that our ability to overcome negative thought will keep us fresh and idealistic in a business that feeds on misery. Today I’m going to give you some ideas that will help you counter some of your typical frustrations and keep you not only thinking creatively, but thinking positively.

I can’t find a gig - no club will hire us!

Hold a house concert. Set up a small show in your house or the abode of a fan. Charge a small cover and really make an event out of it. It’s about the music, right? Having a house show in front of a captive audience puts the focus where it needs to be - with you and your music.

Who’s to say that you couldn’t do this anywhere across the country? A house tour would be pretty cozy…

Nobody is buying our CDs!

With so many listeners downloading music for free, it’s sometimes difficult for people to assign a value to something like a CD. Look - physical product is on its way out anyway and in most genres (any genre where the demographic consists of those under the age of 30), its already dead. Try offering your CD OR your MP3s on the shareware model. In a nutshell, this means giving your music away to whoever really wants it. Later on ask them if they liked the music, and if they did, if they wouldn’t mind contributing to the band for it. If you’re a little tech savvy, you could set up an autoresponder on your band’s website to take care of this for you.

We’re on iTunes but no one is going to find us!

Record a popular cover tune. This way when your future fans search for their favorite songs, yours will also pop up in a search. Ok, so this is a little sneaky - it’s tough out there!

Now there’s a pattern developing here. When you run into a problem - and there will be many - try to think AROUND the problem like this:

I have 10,000 Myspace friends but none of them are buying my CD!

Dissect the statement into its most important parts:

Myspace
10,000 friends
No CD sales

1. Myspace

Since the inception of Myspace, there has been a boom in ways to network socially online. Check out as many of these services as you can and use them all to get new fans. Don’t be married to Myspace.

2. 10,000 friends

Friends? Not exactly - as a matter of fact a good portion of these people are just there to promote their OWN thing. They’re as valuable to you as you are to them - not much. Try reaching out to your REAL friends and get them to turn other people on to you. Offer them an incentive. This is real buzz marketing. The Internet is cool, but don’t forget about the physical world - reality could work!

3. No CD sales

Physical media is almost toast anyway. Time to try something else. Oh wait - I already covered this above. Yeah, shareware - do THAT!

There’s an alternative to every problem. Just remember a few things:

1. Find the beauty in every problem.
2. Realize that you have something to learn from it.
3. There is no Music Industry manual. There are no rules.

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