Indie Band Survival Guide Blog

Here are a few of the latest additions to the Indie Band Survival Guide:

30 Day Challenge: Free lessons and advice on making profit online.

Band Letter: Mailing list service designed specifically for bands.

Artists House Music: A resource for career musicians and music entrepreneurs.

Indie on the Move: A database of venues with ratings and reviews by real touring bands.

Musician Wages: Blogs, forums, and classified ads to help find gigs and form long term careers in music.

Qik: A site that lets you broadcast videos taken on your phone over the web.

FanDoodle: A web presence that lets your fans become your publicists by advertising your songs with customized widgets that direct people to your music.

indieKazoo: Create your own merch storefront and keep 100% of your sales revenue.

Ning is a site that lets you create your own social network about your band for free. With this you can turn an average fan club into an interactive home for your fans.

Your network will have its own main page and every member has a profile, just like MySpace and other social sites. On your main page you can start discussions, send out notifications, and post your upcoming gigs. This is all free, but for a more professional look you can upgrade by removing advertisements and having your own domain name for a monthly fee.

If you give Ning a try we want to know if you and your fans like it. Leave a comment or site rating here.

If you want your songs available on iTunes and Amazon you usually have to submit your music to each of those distributors individually. RouteNote condenses this process into just one submission and gets your music on multiple music distribution catalogs.

Unlike some sites offering similar services, RouteNote does not charge a start up fee and they use a non-exclusive agreement so that you still control all song ownership. Currently their retail partners include eMusic, SNOCAP, LimeWire, iTunes, AmazonMP3 and more. They do charge 10% of your net revenue from download sales.

RouteNote launched just last June and has already worked with over 500 artists plus those top distributors. If you give this service a try, we want to know if it helped you sell music. Leave a comment and a site ranking here.

REMOTV is a new site that lets you publish and stream your media onto any device with an Internet connection. The site claims that it can stream any media, in any format, to any device.

This means you can publish your videos, songs, and pictures to REMOTV and let your fans access it from their computers or phones no matter where they are. It is a handy tool to expand your fanbase further into the mobile arena and stay connected.

Although it is still in beta, you can still sign up and try out all of the features. If you give REMOTV a try, let us know how it went by writing a comment or giving a quick rating here.

Creating an online store for your site can be expensive and a real pain. There are many sites where you can make a storefront, but you might feel that using those will weaken your brand by sending fans away from your site. thebizmo is a merch service that will solve both of those issues.

Through this site you get a widget featuring all of your products from music to ringtones, shirts to sheet music. This widget storefront can be embedded onto your main website, MySpace page, or wherever you like. The best part about this store is that your customers are never redirected to an outside site, and even payment transactions occur on your site.

If you give thebizmo’s branded microstore service a try, we want to hear about your experience. Leave us a comment or a site rating here.

Here are some of the latest links added to the site this past week:

ricall: A music licensing website.

TakeLessons: Find music lessons all over the United States.

Zvents: A site where fans can look up concert listings.

Band Booking Genius: A site that will help you get gigs.

INgrooves: A digital and mobile download sales place with marketing services.

PLORF: A music search engine.

EventOrb: A place to promote your live shows.

Booking consistent gigs is not easy, but the site Skoggins can help. This site lets you list dates and times when your band is available to play. Not only that, but you can put the locations where you are available as well. This will definitely help you fill in the empty days in between gigs when you are traveling on tour.

Your Skoggins profile functions as an electronic press kit that can be sent in email form to venues. Another handy feature: create a tour map with all your gig dates and embed that on your website or MySpace page, so fans have a visual of where you will be playing next.

If you give Skoggins a try, we want to know if you had any luck getting booked for a gig. Leave a comment or rank the site here.

Every band needs a strong website to connect with fans and promote their brand. Bandvista offers customizable site design templates and many useful features for creating your web presence.

Bandvista hosts your music with their built in MP3 Player feature. You can organize and post all of your videos and photos with them too. You will also be able to add your gigs to a calendar and then send reminder messages to your fans through the mailing list feature. Last but not least, fans can purchase your merch through your own storefront.

You can try Bandvista for free for 30 days to see if it’s right for you. If you give them a try please rank the site or post a comment here.

Since its release in August, many blogs and news sources have been kind enough to write about the Indie Band Survival Guide. Here is a quick list of some places that have given us a shout out:

Bowling Green News

Ariel Publicity

Future of Music Coalition Blog

Lincoln Journal Star

Publishers Weekly

boingboing

The Wire

Blogcritics Magazine

Underground 2 Mainstream

zed equals zee

Fun Anymore

A big thanks to everyone who has written about the guide and the site!

Aimoo is a place where you can create free forums and message boards. These can be customized anyway you want to have the familiar look of your band.

Having a message board is a great way to create a strong community of active online fans. They will feel like part of your band’s creative process and have a personal connection with your music. You can also use message boards to gather information about your fans and strengthen customer support. Start a discussion asking everyone if they have a favorite song and why. You might find some interesting and inspiring answers.

If you set up a free forum with Aimoo, we want to hear about your experience. Write a comment and rank the site here.