It's a DIY world, and the barriers between music makers and consumers get thinner and thinner every day. Still, there are a whole ton of goals shared by many songwriters that seem frustratingly unattainable if you don't have an insider's knowledge. If you've ever spent hours perfecting your band's Wikipedia page only to have it removed due to "lack of notability," or tried and failed to submit your album for a Grammy, or struck out getting your music on iTunes, you know what I'm talking about.
That's why we're grateful to Hypebot for posting two recent articles that demystify a couple of these processes. Here're the basics:
***REVISED!!! - Submitting Your Music for Grammy Consideration - REVISED!!!***
According to a recent article by Hypebot, a proper Grammy submission involves two steps. First: in order to submit music online for consideration, you need to either be a member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), the organization that puts on the Grammy Awards, or register with NARAS as a Media Company. Once that's done, you submit your music via their Online Entry Process. And finally, you wait for the multi-tiered NARAS voting process to complete its course. If you haven't heard, the 2012 Grammys will feature a restructured category field - 'twould be wise to bone up on all the changes if you're interested in applying. The submission deadlines for the 2012 Grammys are slightly different depending on if you're a Recording Academy member or a Media Company: NARAS members can submit between August 2nd and 31st, while Media Companies have two separate submission windows - July 6th to 27th for projects released between October 2010 and July 2011, and August 17 to 31st for projects released between August 2011 and September 2011.Long story short, your drop-dead deadline is August 31st! Visit the NARAS website for all the particulars.
Constructing a Wikipedia Page
In a perfect world, you or your band would be notable enough that someone in your adoring fanbase has already constructed a Wikipedia page for you. If that's not the case, you or someone close to you can start the page. But doesn't this conflict with Wikipedia's explicit statement that a Wikipedia page should not serve advertising/promotional purposes? Not necessarily, says Hypebot blogger Clyde Smith. "The key," he writes in this article, "is to have solid third party coverage that makes you sound important within whatever genre you're working. That doesn't require an album but it does require putting in some work that that numerous folks will read about in reputable media outlets." Read the rest of his helpful pointers here.
Bonus how-to: Getting your music on iTunes
Many songwriters I've talked to have hit a wall getting their music on iTunes. There's a whole application process on Apple's website, but an independent artist may find it impossible to get approved if they aren't a big name and don't have a relationship with a label. That's where digital distributors come in. There are plenty of reputable distributors that can get your music into the iTunes store quickly, without you having to deal directly with iTunes. We've heard great things about our Member Benefits partners Nimbit and TuneCore, both of which will also distribute your music through a variety of digital stores in addition to iTunes.
The one thing that I still haven't gotten the hang of is submitting a band to Encyclopedia Metallum, the ginormous online compendium of all things pertaining to heavy metal. I once tried to submit the awesome ASCAP band National Sunday Law to their database, and the band was rejected for "not being metal enough." Ouch!
