Connect with 
Link Love
Jason and I were talking to someone yesterday answering a question of how to get bloggers, podcasters, and the like interested in your music. The answer is not hard to come by, once you frame it right. The conversation went something like this:
Q: What do bloggers want?
A: An audience.Q: What do podcasters want?
A: An audience.Q: And what do you, as a band want?
A: New fans.
The currency of the internet is sometimes called attribution, and is more affectionately called link love. Bloggers that talk about a post in another blog usually add a link back to their own blog in the comments to show them that they are talking about the same topics. What this does is introduces each readership to each other’s audiences. The same is true for podcasts, or between podcasts and bloggers, for that matter. Or between podcasters, musicians, and…you get the idea.
This is just one reason why musicians should always have a blog. If a podcast plays your music, or a blog writes about your song, you should call it out to your own fans. This gives the blogger a reason to write about you again, since it could increase their audience.
So, in that tradition, we want to call out all of the blog entries, podcasts, and websites that have written about the Indie Band Survival Guide. We took an extra step after the book came out to send every website, service, blog, or podcast that was talked about in the book a copy, so that they can see where they are talked about. Some of them gave us personal thanks, and others gratefully wrote blog posts about it, which we call out here, thanking them in return.
There’s another benefit to you based on this. Those of you that like to reasearch the books that you buy thoroughly can find out what other people have been saying about it, and even hear author interviews.
- Mogulus – A wonderful online video service that we not only talk about in the book, but that we use as a band blogged about the IBSG here.
- Jamendo – A music sharing site blogged about us as well.
- Brad Sucks – Brad Sucks is an artist that we hold up as an excellent example of an independent musician. He just released an album, and also talked about us in his blog.
- ccMixter – ccMixter is an active community of musicians that allows you to remix other musician’s work, or post your own tracks. Victor Stone from ccMixter reviewed the book, and asked that Jason and I do a followup interview of Brad Sucks which we were happy to do.
- We Heart Music – The We Heart Music podcast covered the Indie Band Survival Guide in two separate episodes. (WHM019 and WHM022) The second episode has an extended segment on it.
- The Command Line – The Command Line is a fascinating podcast which explores where the rough edges of technology, society, and public policy meet. Not only did Thomas Gideon run the copyright panel at Dragon*Con, where he invited us to appear the second time in a row, he also interviewed us for 40-some minutes the next day. It’s the second interview that he’s done of us and, like last time, Thomas had pertinent questions and comments for us that really got to the heart of many issues that are of importance to musicians. Here’s the 2007 Interview, the 2008 Interview, the 2007 copyright panel, and the 2008 copyright panel. All four were engaging discussions.
- CreativeCommons.org – We talk about the Creative Commons in the book, and Cameron Parkins from the CC wrote a insightful blog entry about it. They have an upcoming Q&A of us as well.
- Groklaw – Groklaw is a blog about legal matters related to open source software, copyright, and related issues. Pamela Jones published an article about the Indie Band Survival Guide, for which we are very grateful, especially because Randy is a long time contributor to the discussions there, and admires PJs work.
- Recording Industry vs. The People – Ray Beckerman, a blogger and an attorney that has taken on the misguided legal campaign of the RIAA against their own customers, wrote a blog entry about the Indie Band Survival Guide. He also showed up for the book release party. We could have spent the entire party with him. He’s a fascinating person.
- Carlos Killpack, a musician? – Thought that, most likely the website, is the most awesome thing he’s ever found. Of course, we can’t agree more. We like the tagline of his blog: “It’s so indie it makes indie look…not indie.”
- Blogcritics Magazine – Eric Whelchel had a very cynical, on-target review of the IBSG. We salute him for not only coming up with a great example of a niche that we never would have thought of, but also for catching some the subler jokes that we scattered through the book.
- Coverville – Brian Ibbott has been running this entertaining music podcast for years that features cover songs only. Our band has been on it, and I can tell you that being on his podcast makes a difference in the sales of your songs, and gives your band some solid exposure. He’s, er, covered in the book, and he blogged about it here.
- Sonicbids – Sonicbids is a site with a multitude of useful services for musicians, including Electronic Press Kits, booking tools, and much more. The Sonicbids founder Panos Panay gave us a must-read post about us here.
- Julian Hill Tech – This blogger noticed the Groklaw article, and mentioned the Indie Band Survival Guide.
Wow. I feel like I should be out of breath after posting all of these. A big thanks to all of you!