Do digital

Two major platforms are open to you here: the internet and mobile phones. Bear in mind that once the public gets to know your music they are going to look for it online. 

 

Don't be a piracy victim

 

As most people are fairly ignorant about the internet and how it works, as well as being ignorant about music rights and the mechanics of copyright, they are just going to search for your music and download it when they find it. If they do find your music online, most people are not going to pause and think about whether it is legal or not - they are simply going to download it. What this means is that if you don’t make legal downloads available across a few platforms, people are going to start posting and sharing your files illegally, making you a victim of piracy. However, if you enter into agreements with legal download sites to make clips available for free and to sell legal downloads of your music, you can then make sure legal versions of your music pop up first on search engines and actually stand to benefit from this trend.

 

 

Other online uses

 

But your online demo recording can be used in other ways. If you have created a dedicated website, you can make clips available for listening purposes on your site, or you can link up with a suitable service provider to sell downloads through your own site. You can also use these songs on your social media pages. In effect, your songs become digital calling cards for you on the internet, arriving ahead of you, making friends and spreading the word. In the case of a brand new band and your first three or so songs, it is often worth giving them away as much as you can to ensure they travel as fast and as far as possible, reaching many more people than you as an artist know personally via the viral spread pattern that the internet offers. Once again, make sure you unleash this yourself so that any queries, gig leads or business offers can come back to you, rather than discover it has been happening because an over-keen fan uploaded your songs into cyberspace. In that case, all sorts of weird things might be happening without you knowing.

 

SA's mobile music market

 

In South Africa, several companies are competing keenly in the mobile music market. Thankfully many of these companies understand that making a broad range of music available is imperative and they are very interested in talking to independent or new artists to add their music to their catalogues. Because carrying all this music is virtually cost-free to them, they can afford to do this where physical CD stores can’t. Once you have your music in their systems, you must also do your part to let people know they can buy your music from these guys. You will earn a percentage of each and every sale, so it’s in your interests to drive people to these systems. If they don’t do it for you, also create ringtones from your songs that can be added to their ringtone downloads. Ringtones are outselling CDs hand over fist globally, so you REALLY want to be a part of that action.

 

Next week: Radio

 

Originally published in David Chislett's One, Two, One, Two: A Step By Step Guide To The South African Music Industry. Download a free copy of the book at www.davidchislett.co.za.