There’s a sort of natural, sequential progression to achieving success in music, especially as an indie act. It goes something like this: having the talent, creating and performing worthwhile music with that talent, getting the help you need to manage your burgeoning career and market your music, having a plan to make real money from the music and, finally, reaching a level of mass appeal that allows you to make a decent living doing what you love. Some acts reach different points at different times. But no matter the order in which they occur — except for that all-important first M — these are the most import steps for attaining real success as a DIY act.

Music

This comes first and foremost, above and beyond all else. Otherwise, why are you doing this? If you don’t love creating and performing music, stop reading this and go back to your day job right now!

Management

Okay, now that you’ve nailed the music part, have been packing local clubs and are ready to branch out regionally and nationally, you need management. Even Ani Difranco, the uber-indie singer-songwriter who turned away the major labels when they came calling, had proper
representation. You should, too. At first, you can probably only afford to a single manager who will wear many hats, but eventually you’ll need a management team to handle different areas, such as business/financial stuff, booking and promotion.

Marketing

We get it. You’re a musician, not a business person. Concepts like marketing are anathema to you. It’s understandable, but that doesn’t mean you get a free pass. If you want to be successful, you must learn how to market you style of music. If you have a halfway decent management team (see above) half the marketing battle is won, but they should be earning that standard 10 to 20 percent of your income that they charge. You’re the one at the top of the pyramid, so you need to learn about music marketing, even if you hire a marketing person. Make that ESPECIALLY if you hire a marketing person, so you know if they’re doing it right or not.

Monetization

Let’s say you’re not at the stage where you need a manager yet. That’s fine, of course, but you still need to manage your career yourself. That means monetizing your music through a series a revenue streams. Retailing and licensing are the most important aspects of making real money from your music beyond playing gigs. Get an online retailer for your discs and digital downloads, join a performing rights organization — ASCAP, BMI, SEASAC — and license your music for films, TV shows, video games. If you do it right, you’ll find revenue still streaming in from retail sales, licensing deals and royalty payments years after the original release date of a song.

Mass Appeal

Reaching mass appeal doesn’t mean becoming as big as Lady Gaga, it means getting to a point where you have garnered enough of a loyal following to play the bigger venues in your city and region and pack them out over and over again, while still gaining new fans. Of course, we all want to be as big as Gaga and the like, but even if that never happens, it doesn’t mean you don’t have a successful career.

Once you’ve reached the mass appeal part of this scenario, you’ll likely never have to worry about going back to a day job again, because music is not only your life, but now how you make a living, and a pretty decent one at that. Get going!