A self-promoting musician’s Press Kit

As a self-promoting musician I have learnt the hard way that time is a precious commodity. Being organized is of paramount importance if you want to dedicate only the necessary time to the boring and repetitive  promotional stuff and concentrating on what is more important: your music. So I have learnt to keep a “Press Kit” folder on the desktop of your computer. It won't take you long to put it together, and you'll be able to use it every time you need it.

This will contain:

1. Samples of your music:

At least 3 full tracks from  your latest album ready to go. Also I have found handy 3-4 shorter 30 sec samples of your best tunes that are quick to attach and email.

Make sure your MP3's are fully tagged (use this: http://www.mp3tag.de/en/) and the files contain your name, song title and site:

ARTIST_NAME_SONGTITLE_www_ArtistName_com.mp3

2.  Pictures:

A few small, medium size and a high-res picture of you (must be great professional promo shots!), a pic of your logo or band logo if you have one, and album artwork (again in 3 sizes) of all your discography.

3. A well written and appealing biography written in different lengths:

– Long version with a lot of detail of what you have achieved in the past, and your vision and goals for your career.

– Medium version – two or three paragraphs, this is usually what you see on the Net in a Bio page.

– Short version 1 paragraph…it must be great, appealing…imagine one paragraph that contains your bio and your vision.

– One-liner – one compelling line, that must say everything about you and your music.

4.  Press and quotes from reviews: 

Scan anything meaningful that you have in terms of press and appearances on magazines and newspapers, plus one big page/file (like a word file) were you summarize your press
and best quotes from these articles. Put in there endorsements and anything that people said about your music (even comments on your Myspace page if you think they are great!). Think outside the box here.

5. A Links page:

A document (again a word doc or plain text will be fine), where you have all your important web links (Myspace, twitter…) ready to be copied and pasted anywhere.

6. Showreel

If you plan to put this material on line (and make it into a EPK or electronic press kit) I suggest you to have a showreel ready, make  it a mashup of performances, pictures slideshow with your music in the background, and the odd interview section where you talk about yourself and your music in first person.

In a few words, any time somebody requests something to do with you as an artist, think 'will I need that again?' if the answer is yes, make sure you leave a copy in this 'press kit' folder on your desktop. And if you are out of inspiration, just browse the web and don't try to copy, but try to improve what you see and like in other artist's pages.

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