Bob Baker's Indie Music Promotion Blog

News, notes and ideas on music marketing, self-promotion, artist empowerment and more

January 05, 2005

How to Do Your Own Music Publicity

Ariel Hyatt, of Ariel Publicity, has a number of good articles on music PR posted on her web site.

Be sure to check out How to Be Your Own Publicist, described as "a step-by-step guide to garnering maximum attention for your band."

And this article spells out the three PR components you should include on your web site.

Here's Ariel on persevere:
"It may take a few passes through in each market, but the more a writer sees you over time, the more likely he will write about you. And don't let voice mail discourage you. I have placed hundreds of articles, mentions and photos without ever speaking to the writer.

"Writers usually respond much better to e-mail -- it's free for them and does not take too long to respond to. If you are sending e-mail followups, put a link to your site, or the club's site if you don't have one."
Sage advice.

posted by Bob Baker @ 3:43 PM   2 comments

2 Comments:

At Jan 6, 2005 12:21:00 PM, Blogger Dave Cool/Stand Alone said...

Great articles once again. And if anyone wants to go into more depth about publicity and public relations, one of the best books out there is "Guerrilla P.R.: How You Can Wage an Effective Publicity Campaign...Without Going Broke" by Michael Levine.

It's an incredible book, and although it's not geared specifically towards musicians, guaranteed you'll brainstorm lots of ideas from it...

 
At Jan 11, 2005 7:31:00 PM, Blogger Stacey said...

I love the advice coming from Ariel, but am still stumped in this town, San Francisco, where the music writers seem to have all decided that a certain sound is cool, and if what you are promoting isn't part of "that sound" the dark, cynical, carnie--everything must be either so unvarnished or sound like Tom Waits to be cool--thing, then you can't get ink. I have even tried to hire Ariel and folks she recommended and there seems to be very few PR people covering this market cuz it's so hard to break through. I would love to read other's comments on how they broke through in difficult markets like SF Bay Area.

One thing a friend advised me is in the Bay Area, to send Hard COPY mailings of Press Releases with physical prints of promo shots to bypass the overloaded inboxes and fax machines. Any comments on that? It hasn't worked so far (neither has fax or email), for me, and I am eager to figure out what does. I have a successful monthly event that I am hoping to get ink for this year www.CAUSE-music.com

 

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