How to promote my music?

[BLOODKRY]

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[Ahornberg]

What is your goal? Do you play live? Do you sell records or download? Do you make other kinds of arts?
What have you done so far? I searched the web and all I found were 6 tracks at soundcloud and one painting/graphics on http://www.basso.fi/noste/bloodkry/ ...:dunno:

[Ahornberg]

I can only speak from my personal experiences:

It took me years to get more than 100 plays a day on Soundcloud, and if I don't release one or two tracks per week, the plays are going down quickly. On Soundcloud there are groups like Disquiet Junto, Naviar Haiku or Extrospection that offer weekly or monthly cals to compose music for specific themes, pictures and so on.

On the other hand, I actually share 10 albums on bandcamp, all for free (but you can pay/donate if you want), and I just sold 3 copies in the last half year. bandcamp doesn't have that community features like Soundcloud, and getting played is much harder here.

And then I hang around in several forums like this here ... it's much about getting inspiration and helping others, sharing ideas and techniques.

Sobe patient and keep on working ;) I love to hear some new music made by you!

[withouth8]

Does it cost anything to sign up to Bandcamp?

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

[stargazer]

Music shouldnt cause you any problems, in the beginning there is joy and passion. And so should it be with promotion also.
You have an interesting approach to music and style, there are many independent netlabels out there that I could imagine for releasing your music.

Maybe this forum or a broader search on soundcloud or Bandcamp could help you to identify these labels.

[betadecay]

Soundcloud:

add your tracks to groups. There are zillions of groups on SC, many of them are ambient related - from elevator music through space ambient and dark ambient to drone, all subgenres. Look at the SC profiles of some AO members and check their groups. I prefer smaller but moderated groups - the moderation assures a certain quality level and stylistic coherence (there is an unmoderated dark ambient group which is flooded with hip hop and similar things - no one will notice you there. Although I like to share my tracks to that group, just to bother the hip-hoppers :biggrin. People will find your music there, eventually check your profile for more and may follow you.

Listen to other people's music and comment and "like" it (but only if you really like it). They will notice you and listen to your music.

But don't expect too much: I have ca. 450 followers, but a new track gets 10 or 20 plays in the first one or two weeks, not more. Not all follwers will listen to your music. But others will do: in the average, I have 10 plays per day. Plays, not "likes"... :frown: But over 4 or 5 years, I got more than 10.000 plays in total. Not bad. Did not expect that in the beginning.


Facebook:

I am not on FB (I constantly think of changing that...) but there must be ambient related groups that you can use to advertise your works.


Bandcamp:

nice idea. I have currently one album there - and no sales so far in more than 6 months. Zero. Null. Nada. Niente. Rien. I cannot even buy a single short cable from the revenue because there is no revenue. It is easier to be recognized on SC than on bandcamp SC is more a social network (and will hopefully remain so), BC is a more streaming and download platform. But: if you want to get rich (or if you are greedy for wild after show parties with lots of groupies) you should not make ambient music. A guy sitting behind his laptop producing a ten-minute long drone is not really sexy :hmmm:.


Netlabels:

there are many, and many of them are on SC, BC of FB. So check the kind of music they publish (space ambient? dark ambient?) and look for one that fits your style. Maybe they like your music and release it.


Forums:

you are already on AO, advertise your works here and look for more forums (e.g. synth forums) - perhaps you can advertise your works there or point to a track on SC to demonstrate some things (eg. someone asks in a synth forum for a certain technique, and you can say: look at this, I did that here, so it sounds).


YouTube/Vimeo:

some people make a video (even if it is only a still picture) for their music and upload that to YT or Vimeo - it seems, that this can also help to advertise your works.


In general: it will take a certain time to build a fan base, so be patient. And appreciate what others do, then they will appreciate what you do.

[artao]

As someone who has always hated doing self promotion, there's some good advice in this thread that I need to try out.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I'm building a fanbase over the last couple years. I just got over 60 followers recently on my Soundcloud. \o/ WOOT
Soon enough I'll be finishing up this EP I've got, and I'll certainly want to promote that more heavily.
Thanks

[Ambire Seiche]

I would say try hearthis.at if you're interested in netlabels, I had one contact me there recently inviting me to send demos. You can import your music directly from soundcloud so if you're on sc already it's not much extra effort.

If you do drawing/painting or design work, I'd say keep cross promoting it with that. Involvement with different communities and networks = more connections and opportunities. If you have opportunities to set up booths/tables at art shows locally and sell, for example, or promote your bandcamp link that way. Wearable art in the form of tshirts too, don't need large quantities for branding and advertising.

[betadecay]

If you present your music during exhibitions, you could print out a sheet of paper containing your artist name, link to your website and a QR code that points to this site and pin that paper somewhere, where it could be seen but does not interfere with your show (some photographers have a problem with the high contrast of a white power connector on a dark stage - so use black connectors if possible). There are QR converters on the web, just feed a URL to them and receive a JPEG with your code. Advantage: people can scan it with their smart phones and must not ask for names and websites (that they will forget in a few minutes anyway....).

[Altus]

IMO submitting to established netlabels is definitely worth your time. It can introduce your music to a lot of ears.

[betadecay]

This leads me to the question whether there is a list of netlabels (and their preferred ambient sub-genres) in this forum? This could be very helpful. Perhaps there are far more netlabels in the world than the few that I know...

[stargazer]

http://netlabels.org/ambient/

http://www.soundshiva.net/netlabels/ambient

http://relaxedmachinery.com/earthmantra/

http://music.earthmantra.com/

http://www.weareallghosts.co.uk/

http://rainnetlabel.blogspot.de/

http://www.darkwinter.com/

[betadecay]

https://synphaera.bandcamp.com/

https://petroglyphmusic.com/

https://blackmara.bandcamp.com/

[BLOODKRY]

Musicians from around the world have similar problems to sell their music and especially if you're doing ambient/experimental electronic music :/ but thanks for the advice and you encouraged me

[iainx]

I've always been a bit too scared of the rejection to send my music to a Netlabel. Maybe I should try to get over that fear.