Browse through the latest mini guides and articles we've published below. We'll be adding one new comprehensive resource each month, so you might like to subscribe to make sure you receive the latest updates as they're published.
If you’ve seen the movie “Film of Dreams” – based on the novel “Shoeless Joe by WP Kinsella – you’ll probably remember the phrase “If you build it, he will come”. The protagonist – played by Kevin Costa – faces financial ruin but still refuses to give up on his vision. Like all good Hollywood…
I first came across Rosebrook Classical via a contact on Twitter over a year ago, perused a few thought provoking articles on their blog and immediately became hooked! Eagerly awaiting new posts and tweeting with their very personable Digital Media Manager – David Weuste – quickly became one of the highlights of my week so…
Here’s an unordered list of creative ideas to help spread the word about your music, book personal performances and get paid to play: Perform at weddings Perform at funerals Perform at elegant dinner parties Perform at young children’s birthday parties Perform at christenings Perform at Christmas or other religious parties Perform at holistic health/meditation retreats…
With the increasing popularity of Internet based social media, it’s easy to forget the importance of face to face contact on the classical music scene and lose the social skills necessary to be successful at this. In days of yore i.e., when I was younger pre-Internet, it was the only way for musicians to connect…
It's a small but important thing: your email address. Too many professional musicians still use hotmail, yahoo or other free email account addresses which, while it may be generally accepted, looks unprofessional to many businesses and people you may be contacting for professional purposes.>
It's far better to use your own domain name as your email address (which matches your portfolio website) - and to do this but still retain the full features of Gmail, you can use Google Apps.
Having worked with multiple hosting accounts, we've always come back to Bluehost as the best of an ok bunch! We run all our websites from a Bluehost account - all 20+ of them on the one account which is great value if you have more than one site.
For domain name registration (you get 1 free domain with a Bluehost hosting account), you can't go too far wrong with GoDaddy. The control panel gives you access to all the basic and advanced domain controls you need and it's highly recommended that you keep all your domains in one place for ease of management. Another similar, solid option is Mighty Domain Names.
It's no secret that we love the Headway theme for Wordpress and that we use it for all of our sites and our clients' sites. There's a reason for that - it's not like any other Wordpress theme because it can look completely different for every single site which means you can design the site the way you want it and then build it using Headway without having to know any complex CSS or HTML.
However, if you'd rather use a theme "out of the box" with less flexibility but easier to get started with, then we would recommend other premium themes from sites like Woothemes or Themeforest.
There are a number of useful tools and applications online, aimed specifically at independent artists and musicians looking to share and promote their music.
SoundCloud (good for sharing), BandCamp (a sales platform) & TuneCore (a sales & distribution platform) are all services which enable you to easily share, promote and distribute your own music online - each has decent tracking and analytics options to track how popular your music is online.
You might wonder why, as a classical musician, you need a mailing list...but if you'll be creating your own loyal audience, then it makes sense to give yourself a way to keep in touch with them. That's what you use a mailing list for - to keep in touch with customers and prospective customers.
We first started using aweber about 4 years ago but then switched to iContact which, at the time, had a far simpler & more friendly interface.
Since then however, aweber have greatly improved their interface and offer a few more options for managing your lists/subscribers/sign up boxes which aren't yet available in iContact. Mailchimp is for real bootstrapping businesses who need a free service - but the interface isn't the simplest to use.
Social Media is a must for the savvy Classical Musician who knows that online tools can really help promote their music. It can get pretty confusing and furstrating however, not knowing which tools to use, what works & what doesn't, and whether what you are doing is actually working.
Fortunately tools like HootSuite and SocialOomph can take the guess work out of it and allow you to manage your profiles in one place and track the effect your social media activities are having.
You may already have a home telephone line but if you're working with international clients then a Skype account is a very cost-effective way to call overseas clients and provide them with an easy and/or free way to contact you.
With a SkypeIn number, you can even own a phone number for a different country so if most of your clients are based in the US but you're based in the UK, you could own a US SkypeIn number and provide your clients with a lower cost way to communicate with you.
An added benefit of using Skype for your primary phone solution is that it doesn't matter where you work from in the world, as long as you have an internet connection, you're always contact-able by clients.
If you work digitally and you keep digital copies of your music - and you've ever lost any files in a great computer crash (yes, that's an official phrase!), you'll know why it pays to be obsessive about backing up your computer.
The best solution we've found is to use a combination of Backblaze and Dropbox to backup everything! Backblaze backs up your entire system - which means it's absolutely vital in the event of a major hard drive crash.
Dropbox backs up key files and then enables you to access them from anywhere - which means it's great for collaboration, sharing files and backing up vital files you select.
We've dabbled with a number of online invoicing systems over the past few years - some more complex, some very simple - but we keep returning to Freshbooks.
It integrates with Paypal nicely - which means clients and customers can pay you via Paypal if they choose - and enables you to track your time, send branded invoices online (or by mail) and helps you keep do basic bookkeeping.
If you need multi-currency then consider Xero which is similar to Freshbooks but offers even more integration and functionality.
Giving customers and clients a way to pay online or via credit card isn't something many musicians and creative professionals provide. While it may not be your preferred method of payment, it's always good to have as a back-up option, especially if you're working with overseas and international clients.
The fees are often cheaper than paying international transfer banking fees and you'll find that by offering different payment options for clients, you'll probably make your life easier too.
While there are other options available (e.g. Google Checkout), none are currently as comprehensive and widely available as Paypal.
If you plan to sell any of your own music as digital downloads online, then you'll be very likely to need a shopping cart, to process payments.
Many online entrepreneurs will tell you that 1sC is the standard system of all "online professionals" but it depends what your needs are. For most people who sell only a few items (even physical products rather than digital products), ejunkie is more than enough and it's also much more cost effective than 1SC.
I'd only recommend 1SC if your plan is a fully functioning, online store which requires more complex functionality and with more advanced features (such as follow-up emails to customers, upsells etc.).
If you need to work collaboratively on files and documents or share multiple resources across a project with other musicians and/or creative teams, then an online collaboration/project platform is a great tool to have.
There are plenty of options in this area but our top recommendation would be Google sites & Google docs - especially if you're already using Google as your main email platform for your online business.
It's not only free, it's also very flexible and allows you to collaborate easily with whoever you want in a secure, online environment.
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