I recently read an article on CD Baby about the top 3 mistakes artists make so I decided to contribute my little two cents to upcoming musicians. I have been recording since 1994 and though I am not popular in the mainstream or a millionaire, I have made money from my music. I am good at marketing my music on the internet because I am a web designer also. So the tips I will be contributing with this ‘How to be a musician’ segment is based primarily on internet marketing.

Now you might say how does internet marketing help me to be a musician? The internet has become the most popular medium to get your music heard by people across the world. Being a musician is a talent so I assume you already have the talent. This series will not teach you how to play an instrument but how to get your music heard so you can be classified as a musician.

In the article CD Baby’s number one point was you need a domain name. We saw how MySpace traffic fell by over 50%. So if you uploaded all your music to MySpace and promoted your MySpace page for years now there is a less chance of you being found. So it is very important to register your band or stage name as a domain name. You should always be sending people to your website. On your website you can have links to all the different social networks like MySpace, Twitter and YouTube. You can get a domain for less than $12 per year so that should not be an excuse to fail at the internet.

1. CD Baby

2. Reverb Nation

3. Itunes

4. Raspsody

5. Zebralution

6. Tunecore

7. Emusic

As an independent musician, you should make sure you have your music on these sites whether you go directly through each company or use a company like CD Baby that distributes your music to other companies including Itunes.