Web Marketing for the Music Business
Web Marketing for the Music Business
Interested in promoting, selling and distributing music online, got the website but not sure what to do next? is Web Marketing for the Music Business designed to help develop the essential internet presence they want and need.
Looking at how the web has developed, providing instructions on how to set up a web site as well as how to use the Internet to promote the artist and the web site. The book includes information on maximizing web sites to increase traffic, online grassroots marketing tactics that will advance an artists career and social networking sites such as MySpace. There is also a dedicated website with online resources for web support to give the information needed to confidently market music online.
* Provides instruction on promoting both music and the artist in the internet, showing how to develop maximum online exposure
* Offers guidance in web site development, to save money by getting the right site up and running first time
* Understand how the Internet is used by experts in the music business, benefit from their experience to make the internet work for you.
User Ratings and Reviews
2 Stars VERY basic and for absolute newbies only
I ordered this book because my brother is a musician and is perpetually looking for better ways to promote his music and his Web site, and as a Web marketing expert, I help him out here and there. I wish I’d seen the reviews first…this book is for absolute beginners who are not only new to promoting themselves online, but who are fairly new to working with Web sites as well. Advice such as “you should put 30-second clips of your music on your Web site” is almost laughable, because really, anyone with a clue would figure that out. The author goes on to mention several programs to create the files, but gives such a high-level overview that he shouldn’t have bothered trying to give any details at all.
If you are VERY new to the whole idea of promoting your band or your music online, this book will give you a good “big picture” view of WHAT you should be doing. But because it’s very short on details and practical (as opposed to theoretical) advice, you’re going to have to do a lot more research on your own to figure out HOW you should do it. There are numerous free articles online with that kind of advice, so save yourself the time and expense and Google away instead of buying this book.
3 Stars Lots of info on the music industry and the Web, but not what I hoped it would be
As the music industry has changed and artists are no longer dependent on the big record labels of yesteryear, musicians are much freer to work independently to sell their music on the Web. This book does a nice job of showing the history of the industry in the Cyber Age and the paths available for the independent music artists of today.
The book starts with how the industry developed and the current state of the market, and it continues with information on how artists can bring their music to the Internet. It’s full of information and tips from industry insiders, and each chapter includes a glossary of terms for easy reference. The author has thoroughly researched the topic and lists all his sources. Unfortunately, I found the book too overwhelming in its scope and would have preferred something more focused and easier to apply to what I want to achieve: creating a website that will best help me sell my work.
I have built simple websites in the past, but the idea of creating a professional, commercial site for my audio work seemed overwhelming, which is why I chose this book. The book does go into website design and much more. However, it does not give me enough information to give me the confidence to build such a site on my own, a site that may make or break my career. I am now more convinced than ever that this is something I will have to hire someone else to do. In that way, the book is a disappointment. Yet Hutchinson did open my eyes to the many forms of marketing and social media artists can use to sell their work.
Amazon has over 50 books on the music business, but very few appear to cover web marketing. While I’ve read another fascinating book on the evolution of the music industry (The Future of the Music Business: Music Pro Guides (Hal Leonard Music Pro Guides) by Steve Gordon) and several on social media and Internet marketing, this is the first book I’ve read that deals with both the music industry and Internet marketing. I was hoping for something more along the lines of one of the best–and simplest–social media marketing books that I’ve read (like Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day by Dave Evans) but specific to the music industry. This isn’t the book I hoped it would be. It gives me an overwhelming amount of information, but not enough of the tools that would let me take that information so that I can use it to sell my own work. Perhaps the book I’m looking for has yet to be written, or perhaps I set my expectations too high.
5 Stars Impressively Complete
This book is a comfortable, portable size, yet it includes all the essential information you need. Beginning with the history of the internet and of iTunes, it then moves on to examine current trends in music marketing and overall strategies.
Then comes the meat of the book: a really impressive overview of web site construction from choosing a domain name to installing e-commerce software, an up-to-date discussion of web marketing and social media, special concerns about mobile devices, and a terrific collection of resources.
A reasonably tech-savvy person will be able to read and understand everything here without suffering, and there are lots of suggestions for web resources when you want to learn more.
This book isn’t going to teach you CGI or turn you into an audio engineer. It is going to make it possible for a musician to do a lot of online promotion on a DIY basis. Just as importantly, it’ll give you all the know-how to distinguish between what you can do yourself and what you want to hire done, and to make good decisions on who you hire.
As a musician and a web marketer, I recommend this book wholeheartedly.
5 Stars Intelligent & Accessible, Spans the Breadth of Web Marketing for Musicians
Though I find many books on marketing to be annoyingly slick and thin on content, this professionally-written text covers exactly what a working musician needs to get started with web-based marketing or to add increased purposefulness and breadth to their approach. Befitting of an academic text, the author is rigorous in providing citations for trends and statistics in the industry, and yet this reads lucidly enough for an independent musician lacking the enforced discipline of a classroom setting.
Though the text covers topics at a fairly basic level, the breadth of coverage (trends and history of internet marketing, creating web sites and driving traffic to them, social networking, mobile marketing, etc.) over 15 short chapters ensures that this book can help most musicians address gaps in their internet marketing strategy. For example, most do-it-yourself musicians I know aren’t really emphasizing Search Engine Optimization and promotion to internet radio, though this book makes the case for why they should be. Most importantly, Hutchinson makes a real effort to put all marketing strategies in context. For example, the chapter on “Overall Music Marketing Strategy” highlights the advantages and disadvantages of a range of offline (radio, retail, touring, etc.) and internet media in order to place web marketing strategy in the context of all other available options.
I’d recommend this for all do-it-yourself musicians as well as those who want to better understand and communicate with a hired marketing specialist.
Given that this book covers rapidly emerging technologies, this book is relevant now but will probably need updating in a few years.
4 Stars Excellent
This is one of those rare finds in educational books. The author does not talk down to the reader and does not try to impress by using terms only those in the know would use. There are lots of ideas that had never occurred to me and I have been at this for a long time.
My only complaint is about the opening chapter. It goes into the history of the music business on the web. Personally I thought this space could have been put to better use. It would be like getting a reference for starting a restaurant and getting the history of how restaurants began.
Other than that I found this book well worth the time and effort to read. Highly recommend.
Filed under: Making Money on the Internet Book Reviews