Bandize / Basecamp

One of the first things we teach musicians is to treat their music like a business. That may be an easy concept for many reading this site to understand, yet many musicians are running their career like a hobby. The first step beyond all the legal mumbo-jumbo is to get organized and start tracking progress of all the things happening in the band. We use project management software to do this. For smaller indie bands we go with Bandize, a project management software made specifically for musicians where they can track everything from mileage to gigs to inventory, accounting and more - all from a very nice user interface that gets even the most computer loathing musicians in tune. For those bands with a bit more going on, we use Basecamp from the 37 Signals crew. It gives more power to the big projects and allows us to tie in all kinds of users from promoters to PR to techies to booking agents, managers and even the band members themselves.

Email Solutions

photo by LoneGunMan

The largest asset a band has are its fans. They dictate the income, travel and release schedules for all musicians that are paying the bills through their art. When artists are on the road they need quick and effective ways to communicate with all their rabid fans. For us, we teach that the email is the most valuable metric to their business and we have gone on to show that more than 30% of their revenue will come as a direct result of the emails they send. There are countless email software providers and each has its own little quirks and features. In the music industry there is FanBridge and Reverbnation that are the two big players for indie artists. Again when the musician gets to a point where their skills pay the bills we look into larger solutions like Aweber or InfusionSoft.

Bandcamp

In the music sharing space the hands down leader is BandCamp. This service allows you to upload high quality .wav files and distribute them to your fans in a multitude of ways including

• Pay What You Want
• Per Track
• Per Album
• Free W/ an Email
• Free W/no Email
• With physical merch
• In any format of your choosing (.mp3, FLAC, WAV, etc)

I can't say enough about the service other than they rock and will be a huge player in the direct to fan movement happening in the music business right now.

 

Google Suite of Tools

What business would be complete without good old Google. From the web apps to the smartphone connectivity nearly all communications go through Google in one way or another. Whether its brand management through Google Alerts, managing a street team with Google Groups, checking Basecamp and fan mail in Gmail or reading up on some trends with Google Reader, we can go on and on about the "G." The best part for a band. They are all free, which fits right in their price range.

Mobile Blogging With Wordpress

Fans love interaction and they love seeing behind the scenes. Technology has really helped give musician's the edge here as their ability to quickly and consistently post photos, videos and text to their official sites has become very seamless and effective. Wordpress is our weapon of choice, however posting updates to a Tumblr account is just as easy. The simplicity of sending an email to your Wordpress account as a post means that even on the road or on someone's couch they can keep their fans updated with the latest happenings. There are plenty of other tools, yet you have to draw the line somewhere. We keep seeing new industries get into the location independence mindset. I love learning about them. Let's share some other tools and industries that help make this lifestyle attainable.