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The poster created in the tutorial can be found below. FYI: I don’t claim to be a designer  

The Songwriter Online’s Matthew Moran will be presenting a FREE seminar titled:
Music 2 Money: Business Strategies & Technologies for the Professionally-minded Musician.

Here is the event page on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=160350834019036

Additional details:
Where: GC Studios, 6400 Owensmouth Ave, Woodland Hills, CA  91367
When: 2:00PM to 3:00PM
What: Matt will cover a basic business plan, merchandising, gigging strategy, and tools to help you both organize your business and create a stronger online presence.

Please help spread the word. Share on Facebook and pass along to your friends.

I typically want my band’s videos to have a more professional appearance. Rather than have the video just start, I wanted to add an image with the band and logo at the start of the video. I, however, am not really a graphic designer. Rather than use a complicated graphics program, I found that using Powerpoint provides a very rapid method for doing exactly what I wanted.

If you find this helpful, please pass it along and leave us a comment. Have a question? Leave that here too.

Here is an example from one of my band’s videos:

This survey created for free using Google Docs.
Want to know more, just ask.

We have some exciting programs and services we can offer but also want to ensure our educational material is focused on YOU and what YOU need. We will be emailing all participants the results of the survey with some expert insight into each topic of interest.

Help us spread the word and pass the survey to your friends and websites you frequent.

Thanks,
  Matt

I will representing TheSongwriterOnline.com and taking part in a panel discussing Music, Marketing, and Artist Development this Thursday at:

The House of Blues, Los Angeles (West Hollywood)

8430 Sunset Blvd.

West Hollywood, CA 90069 (Google map)

(323) 848–5100

The panel is schedule to run from 7:00pm – 9:00pm with plenty of time for Q & A.

The Panel and discussion is being sponsored by Cosmo Coalition and Moderated by Toni Koch.

Panel Members:

Harvey Cooper – A&R/Development, Little Hartley Music
John Scott G – G-Man Marketing
Kat Ellis – El Ey Promo / Video Webcasting
David McLane – 3D Video Producer
Matt Moran – The Songwriter Online & The Matt Moran Band

One of the major challenges many musicians face is this perceived contradiction between being professional (taking an analytic, project, and execution based approach to building their music career) and the art (the creative act of writing, performing, and perfecting their craft). There is, what seems to be, an unspoken disdain for those who enact a plan that progressively grows their music career in the same way a business might grow it’s customer base and product or service distribution. As though those who approach their music this way and succeed are somehow cheating; sacrificing or compromising their art in a greedy pursuit of success.

If this is you, get over it! And quickly!

A Reasonable Plan

I want to provide insight and ideas to help you start and develop a reasonable business plan.  By reasonable I mean that you won’t need to create a 50 or 100 page business plan with analytics, charts, demographics, and detailed execution list. You will need to do a little thinking and a little writing. But the mode of operation here is to start simple and build.

Starting Points

When I wrote my first business plan for music it was probably 3 or 4 pages of general ideas. Almost no paragraphs, just bulleted list with some explanations. I identified 9 initial goals. I looked at my list and determined that I could not do all of them. Time did not permit me to. So I greatly reduced my list of "right now" items. My first 3 were the following:

• Mailing List
• Merchandise
• Venues

Mailing List

This was my first for a simple reason. I had people coming to see me play. They wanted to know when I was playing again.  Some quick thoughts on this.. start immediately. Make it simple to sign up. Use a professional service so you can quickly/easily manage the list, capture the email addresses on your website, and so that it adheres to spamming laws. I use Mailchimp these days. It isn’t the simplest but it is free until your list exceeds 1,000 fans/sign-ups.

Merchandise

If people connect with your music, they will want to take you home with them – figuratively (and I suppose literally in some cases). Bumper stickers, postcards, a demo CD with 4 songs, t-shirts, etc. There are some great inexpensive ways to create or get merchandise.

Venues

I wanted to keep track of the venues I played and what I thought about them.  There are different types and reasons for playing certain venues. I play original music and that has its own challenges. For instance, most bars want classic rock and country covers or dance music. People come to hear what they know. You can earn some money doing these but if you are playing original music, this is not your venue.

I would classify whether a venue paid (and how much), how long the set had to be, whether I was "background atmosphere" or whether it was a "listening venue" – where people came to hear original music.

Here is why. There are times I wanted to know I was being directly paid for the time I spent – restaurants and background venues. Other times, I was more interested in playing for new listeners – even if only 5 of them.

First Steps

While I listed those items first, I already had a prior web presence due to some articles and a book I’d written. You may or may not have a website. If you DO NOT have your own domain and website, that step supersedes the 3 above.

In fact, here is a quick list of steps I recommend. Each is or will be expanded upon in future posts.

1. Register and host your domain. I recommend and use BlueHost. If you sign up using our affiliate link, it cost you no more than going direct but does help support TheSongwriterOnline.com.
    
   Why bluehost? $100 per year gets you the ability to host multiple domains and they have auto-installs for many free website publishing platforms and utilities. Including WordPress (see #2).
    
2. Use WordPress for your website. WordPress is a free blogging/podcasting and content management system. I use it for my music site and for TheSongwriterOnline.com. It has a huge community of developers who build free and low-cost add-ons to add functionality to your site. It integrates with all social media platforms and has search engine benefits.

Once you have those two first steps in place then look at the 3 items above. Or build your own list and figure out what items you can actually get done well right away. Exclude the others until you have mastered the first few.

Important considerations

• Myspace is not a website: neither is Facebook, Reverbnation, SonicBids, etc. Own your piece of the Internet.
• Posting on Twitter/Facebook is not marketing. Don’t be a blip on a timeline.
• Even when playing just for tips, a CD of you sitting down at your PC is better than nothing and will help increase your tips. Let people take you home with them.

Once again, we turn to Google for an amazing tool. I’ve done several surveys for both general business and music business interested folks. I’ve used Google forms to create the surveys and when doing so, have asked if people want to learn how to create and use a form similar to what they are filling out. And surprise, it remains one of the most popular topics.

Here is a video showing how to setup your first Google Form. Of course, you will need a gmail or google apps account. But that takes no time and is one of the most valuable tools you will use.

Watch the video and then, if you wish, go to test the form out.

If you have questions or comments, leave them here on the website or send an email to one of the email addresses listed in the video.

This FREE Workshop is taking place at GC Studios (http://www.gcstudios.com)

November 2nd, 7:00PM-9:00PM

Some of what you will learn:

• Business & Marketing Plan Basics
• The true purpose of social media:
• The 7 point roadmap to online success
• Google Tools for collaborating with your team, productivity, and website analytics
• Why you MUST have a mailing list and how go grow and manage it
• Using WordPress to build your website, blogging, search engine optimization, and sharing your music
• How and when Social Media matters (how to Twitter without losing your mind or your time)
• Merchandise Basics and Ideas

There will be time for Q & A.

More information at:
http://1102gcstudios.eventbrite.com/

This video shows how the Google Tasks and Google Calendar work together.