Tuesday 10 August 2010

3 Easy Steps to Getting Your Music Online (For Free) – Pt 2



I spent decades trying to reach an audience with my music using conventional methods and got nowhere. But in the last 18 months I’ve had my songs downloaded over 1000 times using the very simplest (and free) online tools.

Yesterday I kicked off a short series explaining how. Step 1 was Get your mp3 web ready.

Let’s get onto step 2.


Get hosting for your files


So your have your underground classic on mp3. It’s bright and shiny and sitting on your hard drive just waiting to be adored by the unwashed masses. But they can’t get it off your computer! And even if they could rummage around in your hard drive (through some peer to peer deal) would you really want them to?


 Your songs need to be on a computer that’s always switched on, and always online. You just don’t want that computer to be yours. That’s why you need hosting.


Fresh out da box





The lovely people at Box.net will give you lots of space on their computers.

Go to Box.net and sign up for a free account.

There are probably lots of other charming hosts out there (feel free to leave comment) but I said I would tell you how I did it, and I’ve used box.net from day one. I’ve had very few problems with them and (here’s the clincher) when I have had issues, customer services actually answered my emails within 24 hours! And remember I’m a non-paying customer.

So once you have your own account you upload your song. It won’t be accessible to anyone till you select share on the file you uploaded. Once you 'share', the site will give you a secure link/URL. This is what you will paste into your blog, but don’t worry about that now - you can go back and get it when you need it.

And as that’s step 2 completed, put your feet up!

(And as that’s only a fraction of the length of step one, let’s touch on two other things).


Why stop at songs?


You can host any kind of file ready for downloading. So how about some of these?

Mp3s - Alternate mixes, vocal-less karaoke tracks, isolated tracks (for remixers)
PDFs – Lyrics, chord charts or TAB
Word Doc – if you write songs for for Churches, supplying the lyrics with clearly labelled sections (verse 1 chorus etc) & copyright info, ready to paste into lyric projection software, will be really useful.
JPGs - Photos in screensaver, desktop and icon sizes.




Call me Mr Small Potatoes


In the kingdom of free 1000 songs downloaded in 18 months is nothing. But 1000 in 24 hours will crash your account. If it happens to you try not to panic – it’s not fatal or permanent and you won’t get arrested. But if the internet suddenly decides to love you you will have to start paying for hosting. Ditto if you enjoy this whole online thing so much you decide to make your 20 year back catalogue available.

Congratulations! Your song is on the internet!

But no one knows it yet.


You’re ready for the final step - Get a blog. See you tomorrow!




 What do you mean you haven't read part one yet? sheesh!

If you’re way beyond excited about this series you can get it the second it appears by subscribing (it’s free) via email or feedreader (like google reader), or by become a follower. See the right hand sidebar for details.


Othe popular posts: A letter to my pupils

2 comments:

  1. Is that really Steven Segal holding a guitar????

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  2. It is, yes. You should try listening to some of his music! He calls it blues, and I had more or less lost the will to live after the first song so I guess it did a job! Can't recommend the experience though.

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