Female Entrepreneur Musician with Bree Noble

I talk with talented soulful Country artist Morgan Myles about her budding career, her decision to move to Nashville and how she cultivated her songwriting and performing as well as important musical relationships along the way. She also talked about how to tour with a band: the joys, the pitfalls, and the strength it takes to lead. Living in Nashville How To Tour With A Band Using Cover Songs to Attract New Fans Touring Strategy Book Recommendation The Magic Connect With Morgan Myles Morganmyleslive.com @morganmyleslive on all social media Resources

I talk with Jennie DeVoe about why she turned down a record deal contract near the beginning of her career, deciding to remain fiercely independent. We discuss what makes an artist unique and how to always put forth your very best.  She touches on the importance of growing a fan base and what an honor it is to have fans who continue to support you.  Finally she explains how tenacity and guts helped her land a steady stream of music licensing deals.  Jennie is fun, angaging and full of amazing stories that will help you in your music career journey. How to Differentiate Yourself from Other Artists Growing and Keeping a Loyal Fanbase Without A Record Deal Contract Making the Choice to Turn Down a Record Deal Contract & Stay an Independent Artist Music Licensing Connect With Jennie Jennie’s Website On Facebook On Twitter Resources

I talk with Nancy Ruth about her desire from a very young age to learn how to make it as a musician. She emphasizes how important a good music education is. She explains what drew her to move to Spain and how her love of travel and other cultures fits into her music and her career.  We also discuss what you can do to appeal to corporate and International gigging opportunities. How To Make It As A Musician by Getting A Strong Music Education How To Make It As A Musician in Other Cultures Around the World How To Make It As A Musician by Booking Corporate & Travel Industry Gigs Resources Effortless Mastery by Kenny Warner Connect With Nancy Ruth Nancyruth.com Twitter Facebook ABOUT HOST BREE NOBLE

Pinterest For Musicians: Why Have A Presence On Pinterest What are the benefits of using Pinterest for musicians? Pinterest is actually a search engine, although it is well know as a social media site. It is more for images as opposed to videos. In fact, it is the third most popular search engine, after Google and Youtube. It has a definite appeal to and is most popular with women over 25, but my daughter, who is 13, loves Pinterest. Since most of us have a big female audience, it only makes sense that it would be a  great place to showcase your talents. Because users of Pinterest are generally very engaged, they spend long periods of time searching out items of interest and will take the initiative to find what they are looking for. One of the great things about this site is that you don’t necessarily have to constantly create new content. You are there to find other people’s content that you think is cool and Pin it in one place, on a Pin Board, as your favorites. This allows people to see many related things at one time that they may be particularly attracted to. It allows you to leverage the popularity of other people’s stuff to help boost your stuff. If you offer really interesting videos or announcements of free stuff, and then put your news among the others, people will be drawn to it. Pinterest for Musicians: Setting Up Your Account So how do you set up a Pinterest account? First of all, you want it to be a business account. Business.pinterest.com. It doesn’t cost you to have a business account, but a business account will give you access to valuable analytics so you can tell which of your Pins are the most popular and which subjects resonate with people so you can display more of the same types of Pins.  Pinterest For Musicians: 15 Pinterest Board Theme Ideas Download the FREE Pinterest Board Theme Ideas Cheat Sheet Pinterest For Musicians Strategy: Getting Them From Pinterest To Your Music Website Pinterest is not a music-centric media site but it can really help you to drive people to your own website by offering attractive, common interests. This is the most important thing to remember: you are using this site to drive people to your website to be introduced to your music. It doesn’t really help you to have a lot of people visiting your Pin Boards but never connecting with you on your website; so work towards that goal. At the top of your Pinterest page in your bio. There you can place a link to your website. You need to grab their attention and let them know what they will get out of your website. Can they expect free download of your music? Will you be coming to their town soon and doing a free concert? You already know that they have similar interest to yours so offer things that they would be interested in. If you love creative endeavors and have a passion for this type of media community, and you enjoy learning what’s new in lots of categories, this is definitely the place for you to leverage something you already enjoy to make more fans for your music. RESOURCES  

I talk to Audrey Callahan, musician and entrepreneur, about releasing Message Music and how it connected with her fans. She talks about how she followed her passion in music and how she started seeing loyal fans and income follow. Audrey emphasizes giving life to music and songs by sharing meaningful messages. She is also the creator of the Ultimate Entertainer Workshop. Strategy for Releasing Individual Songs v. EP Building a Loyal Fanbase Treating Music as a Business Creating The Ultimate Entertainer Workshop Connect With Audrey Callahan Audreymusic.com Get Audrey’s New Single: Write Your Own Story The Ultimate Entertainer Workshop: Dancingsinger.com Clothing Line: Spiritwarriorshop.com Book Recommendations: The Four Agreements Seven Habits of Highly Effective People RESOURCES  

I talk with Lisa Brigantino about how to become a full time musician, the perseverance it takes, and how she diversified what she’s doing so she can do music day in and day out. She’s a solo singer/songwriter, runs a music production and rights-clearing company, and does musical comedy shows with her sister too! Lisa’s Experience in Lez Zeppelin Lessons Learned in the Music Business as A Full Time Musician Hidden Pond Productions Lisa’s Advice to Musicians   Recommendations This Business of Music (10th Edition) On Music Licensing by Al and Bob Kohn Big Magic – Elizabeth Gilbert Connect with Lisa Brigantino Hidden Pond Productions Website Lisa Brigantino Website RESOURCES

Why I Built a Fan Base Over the past 2 lessons, we’ve worked through some pretty heavy stuff in relation to building a fan base. I told you about my epic failure with selling my first album. I explained that it was only when I started analyzing the strategies of successful Indie artists that I was able to launch myself out of total obscurity and start building a fan base that would allow me to sell my album, both offline and online. Once I did, I was able to sell out of my first 1,000 CDs, order more, make more albums, sell out of those, order more, and so on. Even though I’m not actively touring and selling my music right now, to this day I still receive continuous payments for online sales. The Crippling Mistakes to Avoid When Building A Fan Base In lesson #2 I told you about the 5 crippling mistakes and gave you strategies to avoid them. Let’s review those really quickly: Mistake 1: Not clearly articulating your “why”. Mistake 2: Asking people what they think about your dream of a music career. Mistake 3: Using the right strategies, but in the wrong order. Mistake 4: Trying to do everything by yourself. Mistake 5: Not setting an easily trackable #1 goal. If you missed that lesson on Episode #49 you definitely want to go back and listen to that so you won’t get caught up in those snares that can have a domino effect on your motivation, your focus, your confidence and your ability to move forward toward achieving your dream of a self-sustaining music career. Can I Really Build A Fan Base? After hearing from many of you over the past 2 lessons, I’ve found that most people believe they have to get lucky or get the attention of Industry “decision makers” in order to create a successful music career that brings in a steady income. We create all these justifications: Maybe I just don’t have what it takes. Maybe I’m too young. Maybe I’m too old. Maybe I don’t have the right look, the right sound, the right pedigree. Maybe Bree is just smarter than me… All wrong. Those are all limiting beliefs. Instead, I’ve discovered that building a platform to attract and engage an email list of fans who love your music and are eager to support your projects is the key to reaching your #1 goal. Keep in mind – if I can do this, anyone can do this! When I started I was just a middle-aged woman from California with small children and a part-time job. Although I had a business degree, it was in accounting. I had no marketing background; I had no online experience; I had no manager, no booking agent, no record label and no connections. And I made a LOT of mistakes along the way. I started with all the misconceptions you may have: I assumed I needed a record deal, I thought I needed a manager, I was sure I needed a booking agent, and I certainly needed to be part of a band that was already established, and I couldn’t succeed without press…… I was crippled by those myths for 10 years. And I paid the price. By the time I started down the right path, I had small kids which made it hard to tour. Why couldn’t I have figured this out in my 20s? The great news was, it didn’t matter that I was middle-aged and had small kids. I made it part of my story, my identify, and I attracted fans who loved me for that. The thing is, there is a perfect audience for YOU out there too. It doesn’t matter if you’re 16 and still in high school, a middle-aged mom with a baby on one arm and spit-up on your blouse, or over 50 and just getting back into music after putting it on hold to raise a family or develop a different career (remember 50 is the new 30 and 60 is the new 40). In fact, some of my very BEST students are over 50 and extremely passionate about building their music career. Let Your Fan Base Be Your Guide Now that you have your #1 goal laid out and you know why you’re doing it, and you know what to avoid doing, I want to introduce the new framework. In today’s lesson, I’m going to give you the framework, the step-by-step blueprint, to move you from point A, (I’m overwhelmed, I function in relative obscurity, I have a high level of frustration, my sales are few and I have little money) wherever you are today, to Point B – a confident artist with a well-established platform, a growing email list, a fanbase who are engaging with you to become super fans, attending your shows, buying your music and supporting your projects. Going back to our first lesson, all those boxes full of CDs stored in your garage.You created that CD, and then you tried to find an audience to buy it. Instead, what you need to do is build your fanbase first, find out what they want from you, and then create that. After I built my fan base, I found that one thing my fans loved was when I sang Broadway and Classical tunes. So I created a CD of many of the songs they requested plus my favorites. That thing sold like hot cakes. Even if I wasn’t doing a specifically themed program, my audience just loved buying it. Now this isn’t to say that if all your fan base wants is cover tunes you have to give up on your original music. It just means giving them what they want and they will be more excited to support your original projects. 7 Step Process To Building And Monetizing A Fan Base First you have to build a fan base to find out what they want. So the steps in the framework go like this: Determine where you’re going in your career in detail. You don’t want to skip over this step. It’s vital, just like the blueprints for a house that tell you to build the foundation first, you need to build your career on a solid foundation before you jump to the next step. In this step you’ll also get a firm hold of your schedule, your priorities and your time-management so you know that everything you’re doing in your music career has purpose and forward motion. Setup your platform. Decide on your “branding” or the way you’re going to portray yourself as an artist. Create your website, your social media presence and your email “plan of attack.” Setup your “ethical bribe” or value exchange to attract new fans. This should be in the form of a free download. It’s important to set it up right so you get real fans and not just freebie-seekers. Build your email list. This includes getting your first 100 email subscribers. There are several strategies for getting new fans for free online, tactics for getting tons of new signups at shows, and many other great ways to get new fans onto your email list. Engage with your fans. This includes specially crafted welcome emails, automatic emails designed to sell your music, what to write about and when to send them, and more. On the social media side, you need to know what to post and how often to post specific kinds of content. You also want to use tools that help you find great stuff to post that your fans will love and that make your life easier so you don’t have to spend all your time online. Make some money. Here’s where you start to drill down on optimization strategies for getting quality bookings, selling out your inventory at the merch table, and creating subscription plans that will bring in steady income. Finally, you want to explore the world of crowdfunding. This will allow you to finance future projects instead of using your savings to create an album you’re not sure if anyone will buy. Getting Your First 100 True Fans I want to give you a head start on this. I realize that you may not have a finished website, or you haven’t signed onto social media yet, or, you don’t have any way to collect email subscribers. That’s OK. You’ll get there. But here’s something you can do right now. Reach out to 10 of your friends. Tell them that you’re creating an easy way for fans of your music to find out what’s going on with you, when and where you’re playing a show, when you’re releasing new music, when you come out with a new video. And, tell them that you’ll also be giving away some cool prizes to your fans. Then ask them if it would be OK to include them on the list and could they provide their best email address. Reassure them this is only for purposes of fan updates and that you won’t share their information with anyone. Collect those emails in a document or even on a piece of paper (at least for now, until you’ve setup an email service provider like MailChimp, BandZoogle or ConvertKit. Go through your email contacts, Facebook messages, Twitter, your texts, anywhere you interface with friends on a regular basis. Send the request to 10 at a time until you’ve reached 100. And if you finish the exercise and get to your first 100 true fans…Congratulations! You now have a bigger email list than over 50% of Indie Artists! From 100 True Fans to a Self-Sustaining Music Career 100 fans is a huge milestone. Once you do that, you’re going to be excited, and you’re going to have a lot more questions: How do I set up my email service provider so my emails get delivered and are in compliance with the spam laws? What do I do with them once I have them on my list? How do I get them to invite their friends? How do I attract people I don’t know and get them on my list? How to I lead my new fans down a path, in the most effective and non-sales-y way possible, to buy my music? What other ways are there for me to increase my revenue through my fans? How can I get them to get excited about supporting my new projects? And that’s why I created the Indie Music Profit Plan. If you’re ready for answers to these questions, if you’re ready to be taken by the hand and shown the exact process, I can help. I’m just about to release a new, 12 week course that will walk you through the proven, step-by-step system for building a powerful and profitable fan base. It’s called The Indie Music Profit Plan. We open up enrollment to the course twice a year, just like a college class. The next enrollment is coming up in a few days. And if you’d like to get on the VIP list to be the first to have a chance to enroll and receive special VIP bonuses, I want you to go to www.IndieMusicProfitPlan.com right now to sign up as a VIP. On Friday May 13, we’ll send you special links to enroll before anyone else so you can grab the VIP only bonuses. If you’re reading this after the official launch on Monday May 16, simply go to www.IndieMusicProfitPlan.com to enroll and get the action-takers bonuses before they expire. I promise, these are going to be amazing! For now, keep working on getting your first 100 true fans. I know the achievement will not only encourage you and build momentum, but it will put you on the path to building an engaged, raving fan base that will help you create a self-sustaining music career. RESOURCES Email your questions for Bree to answer on the show: Bree@FEMusician.com Leave your audio questions for Bree to play on the air and answer (you can promote yourself too): SpeakPipe Subscribe to the show on iTunes Give us a review on iTunes to be entered to win a month of Female Musician Academy. Listen onSoundcloud Show Editing by Jen Edds at 317 Sound Design Music by Stella Ronson ABOUT HOST BREE NOBLE Bree Noble is an entrepreneur, musician and speaker. She founded Women of Substance Radio, an online radio station that promotes quality female artists in all genres, in 2007.  She launched the Women of Substance Music Podcast in November 2014, a 5 day per week show which promotes Independent female artists. Her podcast has hit #1 in New & Noteworthy for the Music, Arts and Society & Culture categories and #4 Audio Podcast on all of iTunes. She draws on her extensive experience running her own music business, both as a solo musician and as an Industry professional, to train and mentor other female musicians. Learn more about the station, the show and the artists atwww.wosradio.com. Connect with Bree on Twitter @BreeNoble or on Facebook or on Instagram @breenoblemusic

How To Become A Successful Artist By Defining Your #1 Goal This may seem like a silly question… Would you ever build a house without a set of blueprints? Hopefully not! Listen to the last lesson in this series: How to Build A Fan Base Starting With 100 True Fans Yet the #1 mistake you are making is not clearly articulating WHAT you want to achieve and WHY you want to achieve it BEFORE you start. Once you decide what you want to achieve, you can discover how to become a successful artist by working backwards to come up with a plan to get there – how to become a successful artist. You know, reverse engineering. I told you my “why” in our last lesson: How To Sell Songs & Albums Without A Record Label – Listen to that first so you have the proper context. Do you think clarifying my why increased or decreased the likelihood of reaching my goal? Huge increase, right! Once I knew WHAT I was working towards, I was able to plot out the shortest path to get there. If you feel like I did, don’t worry. We’re going to work together to create a plan to fix that. How to Become a Successful Artist And Reach Your Goals Now you’re super clear on what you want… The big question now is how can you get there? How can you achieve the goal that you’ve set? One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received on reaching massive life-changing goals is “Don’t beat yourself up if you make a mistake. Just don’t make a crippling mistake.” The reason you haven’t achieved your #1 goal yet is because it’s super hard to do. If it were easy you’d have done it already, and everyone would be doing it. It’s going to take time. Sweat. Tears. And a lot of mistakes. Mistakes are great. They tell you what not to do next time. But there are some big mistakes that can cripple the whole process, tearing down your progress. You know, the domino effect Mistake #1 Not Clearly Articulating Your “Why” The first as I mentioned in the last lesson is not clearly articulating your “why”. Now I’m going to tell you about 4 more crippling mistakes that I’ve made along the way and how to avoid them. Thankfully, I recognized these mistakes in time and eradicated them before all the dominos fell and I completely gave up on my music career. So if you are familiar with these mistakes, or living them right now, never fear! There’s still time to do away with them and put them to bed forever. Mistake #2: Asking people what they THINK about your desire for a music career. This is how it typically goes… You’re feeling alone and isolated in your pursuit of a music career. You share your desires and dreams with family members or your BFF. You ask them “Well, what do you THINK?” They respond half-heartedly (or worse, they say it’s ridiculous or call it a pipe dream) and you become dejected. Then you lose motivation, your dream dies and it takes you months (or years) to recover. I can’t tell you how many of my students have been discouraged by friends and family, so they sweep their dreams under the rug, only to wake up at 50 and wonder why they feel empty. It’s because they’ve tried to ignore an important part of themselves – their passion, talents, their important contribution to the world. STOP ASKING PEOPLE WHAT THEY THINK!! What they THINK doesn’t matter. The only questions that matter are… “Is there an audience for your music?” Are there people out there who want to buy your music and support your projects? Instead of asking your friends what they think, do this… Ask them to give to your next crowdfunding campaign and get some cool rewards. Ask them to share your music with their friends, come to a concert or buy your CD. Every friend who gives you a “vote of confidence” with their wallet will boost your motivation, increase your resolve and get you one step closer to living your dream. Mistake #3: Using the right strategies but in the wrong order. One of the hardest parts of the process when you’re starting out is knowing what to do and when to do it. It’s typical to read a blog post, listen to a podcast or watch a free class and then get really excited about the strategies you hear and jump in and try to do them. It’s great to have that initiative, but it can cripple you. If you want to grow your audience, there’s a specific order in which you need to do things. If you try to use advanced strategies when you’re a beginner, they won’t work. You’ll become dejected and you’ll quit because you’ll get bogged down in the details of that specific thing. Let me give you an example. Facebook ads. Facebook ads work great. They’re a great way to grow your audience and to grow your email list. But if you use Facebook ads when you’re just getting started, your chances of success are very low. And your chances of losing a lot of money are very high. Setting up Facebook ads, managing ads and scaling ads is hard and it’s time consuming. It isn’t a strategy you should use in the beginning. In fact, I’ve had students ask me to teach it to them and I tell them they’re not ready. That’s why in this series, I’m going to share with you a framework that shows you the order in which you should do things. You don’t need to do Facebook ads when you first start. You don’t need to be advertising when you don’t yet have a website. You shouldn’t try to get email subscribers until you have something to offer them – a freebie – to draw them in. If you use the right strategies in the right order, the speed at which your audience grows increases greatly. Mistake #4: Trying to do everything by yourself I know from experience. Reading blog posts… Listening to podcasts… Reverse-engineering what other people are doing… That is very time-consuming. And it will only take you so far. You need more. You need accountability and direction from someone who has been where you are trying to go. When I finally got serious about my music career, I had a group of ladies that I talked with almost daily who gave me encouragement, helped me when I got stuck, and kept me on task. Many of them were further along in their careers than I was so they were able to give me very timely advice. Who is helping you? Who is holding you accountable? If your answer is “no one”, then stop and go get someone right now. Before I found that group of ladies, I spent 10 years trying to figure it out on my own. Think of how much time and frustration I could have saved myself! And I see the same thing with my students. I watch them encourage each other, push each other and teach each other everyday. So go get involved in a mastermind group. If you’re looking for one, I’ve got some info on that in the next class. And what about hiring a coach? I played really small for several years…until I hired my first coach. And boy was it a leap of faith for me. I wondered if it made sense to spend money on a coach when I wasn’t making much money at that point. Boy, did I discover it was WELL worth it. Once I hired my first coach, I doubled my income in the first month. And every time I’ve scaled up my coaching experience, I’ve scaled up my income. So I encourage you to hire a coach. Get a mentor. It’s VITAL to you reaching your goal. Mistake #5: Not setting an easily tracked #1 goal Most of us aren’t very good at setting goals. We set vague and unmeasurable goals like… “I wanna make enough money so I can quit my job” or “I want to finance my new album.” The problem with goals like that is you never know if you achieve them because they are so broad and impossible to track. And you wind up with this pit in your stomach that makes you work more and more and more to get more. You never know if you ever actually achieve the thing you set out to achieve in the first place. Let’s cure your crappy goal-setting problem right now. I want you to click below and get the free SMART Goals Workbook I’ve created for you. This will help you determine your 5 goals for the next 90 days and decide if your goals are “SMART” or just vague desires. I want that #1 goal you came up with on the checklist to be the homing beacon for everything that you do. Every time you see it, every time you sit down, every time you get up, every time you go to the bathroom, every time you open up Twitter or Facebook, that goal is going to be staring you in the face. You’re going to have to answer this question: “Is what I’m about to do the quickest way to get to that goal? Is it the most efficient and effective way to get to that goal?” If not, then stop doing it. If so, then you need to do more it. How To Become A Successful Artist by Avoiding These 5 Crippling Mistakes (Recap) Let’s review the 5 crippling mistakes you have to avoid if you’re going to grow your music business . Mistake 1: Not clearly articulating your “why”. Mistake 2: Asking people what they think about your dream of a music career. Mistake 3: Using the right strategies, but in the wrong order. Mistake 4: Trying to do everything by yourself. Mistake 5: Not setting an easily trackable #1 goal. Avoid these crippling mistakes and do this instead. Most people believe they have to get lucky or get the attention of Industry “decision makers” in order to create a successful music career that brings in a steady income. Instead, I’ve discovered that building a platform to attract and engage an email list of fans who love your music and are eager to support your projects is far more important. A solid fan base gives you the ability to get booking referrals instead of you constantly having to do cold calls. A fan base allows you to launch a crowdfunding campaign to a group of people who will support your next project. Having an email list of fans gives you the ability to generate income by simply sending an email. Coming Up In Lesson #3 In our final class I’m going to give you the steps, from building your platform, to attracting new fans, to engaging your fans to finally monetizing those fans. It’s called the Indie Music Profit Plan and I’ll explain it all in a few days. Your action item for today: Download the Smart Goal Checklist for this lesson. Determine your #1 goal and be sure to consider everything you do for the next few days through the lens of your #1 goal. RESOURCES Email your questions for Bree to answer on the show: Bree@FEMusician.com Leave your audio questions for Bree to play on the air and answer (you can promote yourself too): SpeakPipe Subscribe to the show on iTunes Give us a review on iTunes to be entered to win a month of Female Musician Academy. Listen onSoundcloud Show Editing by Jen Edds at 317 Sound Design Music by Stella Ronson SMART Goals Workbook ABOUT HOST BREE NOBLE Bree Noble is an entrepreneur, musician and speaker. She founded Women of Substance Radio, an online radio station that promotes quality female artists in all genres, in 2007.  She launched the Women of Substance Music Podcast in November 2014, a 5 day per week show which promotes Independent female artists. Her podcast has hit #1 in New & Noteworthy for the Music, Arts and Society & Culture categories and #4 Audio Podcast on all of iTunes. She draws on her extensive experience running her own music business, both as a solo musician and as an Industry professional, to train and mentor other female musicians. Learn more about the station, the show and the artists atwww.wosradio.com. Connect with Bree on Twitter @BreeNoble or on Facebook or on Instagram @breenoblemusic

One time I recorded an album…and no one bought it. OK, I supposed if you count my mom, my dad, my cousins, and a few of my subordinates at work who felt obliged to buy it…then I guess 10 people bought it. I couldn’t figure out what all the successful Indie artists I saw around me selling multiple albums, over-funding their crowdfunding campaigns and selling out big venues were doing that I wasn’t. I knew I had talent. I knew I had a great product. But what was missing? Listen to the next lesson in this series: How To Become a Successful Artist by Avoiding These 5 Crippling Mistakes How To Sell Songs & Albums By Learning By Example I started to study the successful Indie artists I looked up to to see what they had that I didn’t and I started to see an obvious pattern. I finally discovered the missing piece of the puzzle that no one had taught me in business school, none of my band members were focusing on, and none of my musician friends were talking about…yet it was the most vital step to making sure the next project I did – CD I put out, crowdfunding campaign I launched, venue I needed to fill – would be a success. So what was it? They had built a large fan base of loyal fans who were eager to buy from them, attend their shows and support all of their projects that they could access immediately, at the push of a few buttons through their email list. I became obsessed with cracking the code on how to build my email list. Over the next 3 lessons I’m going to teach you what I learned. I’m going to give you a process and a framework that you can use to turn the cycle of failure and obscurity around. Before you have the urge to record a new CD because you think a new album will be the breakthrough you are looking for…Instead of booking the recording studio and starting to pick out your cover art, I want you to STOP and go through this framework first. How To Sell Songs & Albums By Building An Email List I want you to picture your email list as a group of people who are eager to buy from you. You know how when Taylor Swift announces a new concert tour – tickets sell out within the first few hours. Why does that happen and you can’t sell more than 10 CDs? It’s because Taylor Swift has build a fanbase that is eager to support her with whatever project she does. That’s what an email list can do for you. Before we jump into how to build your email list, I want to give you a few examples of what you’ll be able to do once you have an email list Katy Laurel has launched multiple kickstarter campaigns to fund her albums, all backed by the fans on her email list. Marina V has created her 2 songs a month subscription club that brings in $1200 per month steady income and funded a European tour all by appealing to her email list. Martha’s Trouble were able to book several house concert tours just using the contacts on their email list. I want you to take those 3 stories I just gave you and put them in the back of your mind and use them as motivation, as inspiration, as an example of what’s possible when you adopt this new way of thinking about your music career. The Cycle of Guaranteed Failure Tell me if this process sounds familiar? First, you write a bunch of really great songs. Then you decide – these songs are SO amazing, the world needs to hear these songs, so you search for the best producer in Nashville because you know these songs deserve the best. You book the producer’s time, the studio, a hotel and a flight. You then realize you’re going to need $15K! You scrape the bottom of your savings account, or you take out a loan…because you’re so far down this path of excitement about your new CD – no amount of good sense and reason will deter you. You lay down the cash, make the album and eagerly await the boxes to arrive. You’re convinced this album is a SMASH. You know you’ve invested your hard earned money and your heart and soul into this album…it has to be a hit.  When the boxes arrive you tell all your friends about it, you plaster Facebook with pictures of the album art, you send some off to Amazon and CDBaby – you’re ready for the sales to start rolling in and your songs to jump onto the charts. Instead…crickets. You sell a few copies – one to your mom, and one to your next door neighbor who saw the UPS truck arrive and was so curious what all the boxes were that she ran over and then felt like she should buy one. Now you’ve got a stack of boxes in your garage that makes it hard to get to your sports equipment…does that sound familiar at all? That’s called the cycle of guaranteed failure. There are 4 steps: You write a bunch of amazing songs You spend lots of money getting them recorded The boxes of CDs arrive on your doorstep and you tell the world Then you realize…there was no one eagerly awaiting the arrival of the boxes, there is no tribe of people who are just as excited as you are that this new album is being released…and the boxes sit collecting dust Does this sound familiar – raise your hand? I’m raising my hand, I’ve been through it. Now I want you to promise me…I will never, ever, EVER do this again. The Secret of How To Sell Songs & Albums There’s a completely different framework you need to follow. And in the next two lessons we’re going to go over it in detail. But before we do that, you need to completely change the way you think about and act in your music career.  So you know all the stories you’ve seen of overnight success, or people getting their CD to an influential radio producer, getting it played and having an instant hit, or of someone handing their CD to some Music Industry big wig and getting signed the next day to a record deal with a six figure advance…completely ignore all of that. The first thing you need to do is answer this question…why. Why do you want to build a fanbase…a group of people that love your music and want to support all your projects – your next CD, your live events, your digital fanclub – whatever it may be. Why do you want that. What would it do for you? How would your life be different? Because without a clearly articulated “why” – you will not have the persistence, the resolve and the dedication to actually get there. There’s nothing worse than getting halfway to your goal, and then quitting because you lost connection with the reason you wanted to do this in the first place.  So the very first thing I want you to do is write down “why” you want to build your fan base – this living, breathing asset that will be the thing that gets you to that goal. Here’s the example of my why when I finally wrapped my head around the importance of building a fanbase. “I want to build a solid fanbase so I can quit my creativity-killing corporate job and use my God-given talents to create my art and use it to inspire, enlighten and enrich the lives of others. I want to be able to tour and book shows without having to make tons of cold calls. I want to be confident that I can fund my next CD project at the quality of production my songs deserve. I want a music career with some level of job security.” Get this down on paper. Then I want you to find one musician friend to go through this mini class with you, share this journey and hold you accountable to doing the things I outline in these podcasts. So action item #1 is define your goal, #2 iinvite one person to share the journey with you.  Get to work and we’ll see you in the next class. Preview of the next lesson: We’re going to cover the process and specifically 5 mistakes you need to avoid when going through this process. Listen to Lesson 2: How To Become A Successful Artist by Avoiding These 5 Crippling Mistakes RESOURCES Email your questions for Bree to answer on the show: Bree@FEMusician.com Leave your audio questions for Bree to play on the air and answer (you can promote yourself too): SpeakPipe Subscribe to the show on iTunes Give us a review on iTunes to be entered to win a month of Female Musician Academy. Listen onSoundcloud Show Editing by Jen Edds at 317 Sound Design Music by Stella Ronson ABOUT HOST BREE NOBLE Bree Noble is an entrepreneur, musician and speaker. She founded Women of Substance Radio, an online radio station that promotes quality female artists in all genres, in 2007.  She launched the Women of Substance Music Podcast in November 2014, a 5 day per week show which promotes Independent female artists. Her podcast has hit #1 in New & Noteworthy for the Music, Arts and Society & Culture categories and #4 Audio Podcast on all of iTunes. She draws on her extensive experience running her own music business, both as a solo musician and as an Industry professional, to train and mentor other female musicians. Learn more about the station, the show and the artists atwww.wosradio.com. Connect with Bree on Twitter @BreeNoble or on Facebook or on Instagram @breenoblemusic