Three Useful Websites for Musicians: Distribution, Networks and Show Opportunities

Being in a band, whatever the genre, is a very fulfilling and enjoyable experience. In the past, though, it's been tough for bands to really get their foot in the proverbial door. Luckily, the internet's changing the way things work, and independent musicians now have a massive amount of tools available to gain notoriety, money, and increase their fanbase.

CDBaby is a spectacular site dedicated to providing huge amounts of distributions to indie bands low on cash. For a small setup fee, they'll handle all of the online sales of your album. They'll even get your album listed on most of the net's major digital distributors, such as iTunes, Napster, RealRhapsody, and eMusic. This can be more than worth it, considering that it gives your fans easy access to wide variety of ways to purchase your music; whether they want a physical copy of your CD or a digital mp3 version, you can sell everything online. For the physical discs, CDBaby lets the bands decide the price, and bands get nearly 70% of online sales through iTunes and other retailers. This is a much bigger cut than "industry" artists get since you're not going through a record label, and the prestige of telling venues and fans that your album's available on iTunes is pretty awesome.

Most bands have a MySpace page by now, and for good reason; it's probably the best networking tool any band could hope to have. Their search system's a little wonky, but with a little bit of practice you can find a band to help you get a show in any state or town in virtually the entire US, not to mention fans to attend those shows. The bulletin feature is a great way to keep your fans up to date on the latest shows, etc., and it's easy to organize street teams (a group of people that post your flyers, drum up support for out of town shows, etc.) and in some cases, even contact venues directly. Just be sure that you can offer reciprocal shows; the unstated karmic law of touring bands is that if someone goes out of their way to help you out, you help them. This can be through getting them a show, putting them up for a night, or maybe just cooking some burgers through them when they're in town. Everything helps when you're on tour.

MySpace also has a calendar to help you keep track of your shows, a messaging system that's pretty flawed but still incredibly useful, and the best part, nearly everyone's got a profile. The high school audience is probably the most valuable to rock musicians, and there's no better way to target that crowd than MySpace.

If you're looking to make money through music, you might check out Gigmasters.com. This site will allow you to make a profile for a rather large fee, around $200-300. It's worth it, though; this profile is available to hotel managers, wedding planners, and people just looking for a band to party with; I joined this site and received some pretty decent offers within a few months. If you've got a lot of material and you can travel, it can be even better. Hotels in particular shell out big bucks to have live entertainment of every type; while jazz is always in high demand, there are places for rock acts too, especially at casinos.

These sites are fantastic, but they're not the only ones out there. Do some Google searches and a bit of exploring-webmasters are coming up with new ideas all the time to help musicians pursuing their dreams. There's no more luck involved in making a living musically; the tools are all there, it's up to each musician to use them to the best of his or her ability.