With the new year just around the corner, right now may be the perfect time to gift yourself the New Music Economy training by Greg Rollet. I gave the course a favourable review several months ago, and if you happened to miss out on the recent Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 launch – the New Music Economy video training is an alternative that offers solid training and information at a lower price point.

Since it’s the season of giving, I’m going to match the bonuses that I offered for the Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 launch:

Bonus #1: How to Make Money By Giving Away Your Music For Free
This is a short and straight-to-the-point report with some cutting edge strategies on how to earn money while giving away free mp3s.

Bonus #2: WordPress Installation Guide + Training Videos
This is a product that I haven’t launched yet and walks you through the process of setting up your own blog/website using the amazing (and free) WordPress platform. This will show you how to setup and host your own website and set it up so that it’s optimized to ‘play nice’ with Google and the other search engines. This comes with a 20+ page PDF manual along with 7 videos that walk you through the initial setup phase and setting up a theme for your site.

Bonus #2.5 The $3/month DIY Band Website
This short and sweet no-fluff report will give you all the resources you need to build a website and save as much as $206 versus the leading musician webhosting service. This info alone ***if you follow it*** will save you more than what you invest on the New Music Economy training!

Bonus #3 Blogging Guide for Musicians (unreleased)
Blogging is an essential way to promote your band  – this guide will cover what you need to know to start driving traffic to your site by using a blog. I cover keyword research, which blogs to consider using and how to leverage all the features of a blog to squeeze as much traffic from the search engines as possible.

Bonus #4 Blog Monetizing Strategies for Musicians (unreleased)
Have a blog already? I’m going to share an alternative income stream (besides selling your own Mp3s and CDs) that can help offset your online costs. More money coming in is never a bad thing, and using this strategy along with the Blogging Guide for Musicians can lead to recurring money between CD releases.

Bonus #5 Lifetime Updates to bonuses 1-4 plus extra added videos tips.
That’s right, as long as you remain on my special list available to only those who purchase the Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0, you’ll get unlimited updates to the above mentioned products. Which is cool, because I have a lot more WordPress training to create. In this case the lifetime equals how long you remain on the list (don’t worry, it’ll only be used to deliver updates on my products to you) or as long as I continue to run the Indie Band Alliance.com.

Lastly, you can keep all of these bonuses even if you decide to refund your New Music Economy purchase! How’s that for a deal?

How to get these sweet New Music Economy bonuses

I’m going to limit this  bonus offer to the first 15 people who buy the New Music Economy through my link. You’ll be asked to send me a copy of the receipt you get from Clickbank to verify that you did  purchase the New Music Economy – once I verify this, I’ll add you to my super secret list and start sending you the first two bonuses, with the unreleased bonuses to follow later this month. You’ll get a confirmation email along with instructions on how to get your freebies within 48 hours of sending me your receipt.

Remember, these bonuses will remain yours even if you choose to get a refund on the New Music Economy – but I highly doubt you will!

Follow these steps:

• Step 1: Purchase the New Music Economy through my link
• Step 2: Send me your receipt info indicating that you paid for the New Music Economy by using my contact form here with “New Music Economy” in the subject.
• Step 3: Email instructions will be mailed to you within 48 hours with further instructions.

So if you feel like treating yourself for Christmas and giving your music a chance to explode into 2011 – do yourself a favour and pick up the New Music Economy and get all my bonuses for no extra charge!

Happy Holidays from the Indie Band Alliance!

P.S. I’m limiting this special offer to only 15 copies or until January 3rd – whichever comes first! If you snooze…you lose!

JAN 2011 UPDATE: John’s reopening the Music Marketing Manifesto training once again for a limited time on January 26th. To get your year kicked off on the right foot, I’m once again going to offer my bonus package (scroll down below to see it) but this time I’m only going to do it for the first 5 people that order through my link.

Once again, this is a killer value when you factor in my Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 bonuses on top of the awesome content that you’re going to get straight from John himself. Follow the steps below to order through my link and get everything for one small price – but if you snooze, you lose – only the first 5 people are getting my bonuses this time.

Will John reopen MMM 2.0 again in the future? You can take the chance or you can take action today – the choice is yours.

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UPDATE: The Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 training closes at midnight on Dec 14th – just a few short hours from now. If you want in – now’s your last chance. If you’re still sitting on the fence, check out the extra bonuses I’m offering below!

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Today John Oszajca pulled open the kimono and revealed exactly what his new Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 would offer when it goes on sale tomorrow at 12 noon pacific standard time.

The training will be delivered within an exclusive membership site where John will continue to add new training regularly, interact with and answer the questions left in the comment area. All of this for only $97 – which John says equals about 6.5 CD sales.

If you’re still on the fence, let me sweeten the deal by offering a bonus. This is the first time I’ve offered something like this but I feel confident in the quality of John’s course and the strength of the 60 day money back guarantee that I’m going to throw in a few bonuses for those who order through my link before the course sells out on December 6th!

Bonus #1: How to Make Money By Giving Away Your Music For Free
This is a short and straight-to-the-point report with some cutting edge strategies on how to earn money while giving away free mp3s. We already know that John recommends giving away a free Mp3 to get people to opt into your list – this will give you some ways to turn that into cash. This is 100% original content written by me, and even if it overlaps some of what John shows you (since I haven’t seen all his training, I can’t say for sure if he covers this) you’ll find some actionable tactics that can increase your sales dramatically.

Bonus #2: WordPress Installation Guide + Training Videos
This is a product that I haven’t launched yet and walks you through the process of setting up your own blog/website using the amazing (and free) WordPress platform. This will show you how to setup and host your own website and set it up so that it’s optimized to ‘play nice’ with Google and the other search engines. This comes with a 20+ page PDF manual along with 7 videos that walk you through the initial setup phase and setting up a theme for your site. I also reveal the resources I’ve used to register my domains and host my websites that alone can save you more than the $97 you invest into MMM 2.0!

Bonus #3 Blogging Guide for Musicians (unreleased)
Blogging is an essential tool that isn’t covered in the initial launch of MMM 2.0 – this guide will cover what you need to know to start driving traffic to your site by using a blog. I cover keyword research, which blogs to consider using and how to leverage all the features of a blog to squeeze as much traffic from the search engines as possible.

Bonus #4 Blog Monetizing Strategies for Musicians (unreleased)
Have a blog already? I’m going to share an alternative income stream (besides selling your own Mp3s and CDs) that can help offset your online costs. More money coming in is never a bad thing, and using this strategy along with the Blogging Guide for Musicians can lead to recurring money between CD releases.

Bonus #5 Lifetime Updates to bonuses 1-4 plus extra added videos tips.
That’s right, as long as you remain on my special list available to only those who purchase the Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0, you’ll get unlimited updates to the above mentioned products. Which is cool, because I have a lot more WordPress training to create. In this case the lifetime equals how long you remain on the list (don’t worry, it’ll only be used to deliver updates on my products to you) or as long as I continue to run the Indie Band Alliance.com.

Lastly, you can keep all of these bonuses even if you decide to refund your Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 purchase!

How to get these sweet Music Marketing Manifesto bonuses

I’m going to limit this  bonus offer to the first 50 people who buy the Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 through my link. You’ll be asked to send me a copy of the receipt you get from Clickbank to verify that you did indeed purchase MMM 2.0 – once I verify this, I’ll add you to my super secret list and start sending you the first two bonuses, with the unreleased bonuses to follow later this month. You’ll get a confirmation email along with instructions on how to get your freebies within 48 hours of sending me your receipt.

Remember, these bonuses will remain yours even if you choose to get a refund on MMM 2.0 – but I highly doubt you will!

Follow these steps:

• Step 1: Purchase MMM 2.0 through my link
• Step 2: Send me your receipt info indicating that you paid for MMM 2.0 by using my contact form here with MMM 2.0 in the subject.
• Step 3: Email instructions will be mailed to you within 48 hours with further instructions.

Full Disclosure

Wondering why I can give all this stuff away for free? The link above is my affiliate link which means I earn a commission for each time someone clicks my link and buys the product. This commission allows me to earn something in exchange for the freebies I’m adding to John’s already solid music marketing training.

I wouldn’t recommend this course to anyone regardless of what I might earn if I thought it was garbage!

The Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 training looks good and John has been open and honest about the fact that MMM 2.0 isn’t a magic pill, but solid business strategy that will reward those who take what they learn and put in the effort to sell more CDs. Between that and the sincerity of my communications with John, I feel more than confident in recommending the Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 to any musician who wants to sell more music online.

If you aren’t comfortable with me getting a commission from the sale of the Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 – feel free to visit www.musicmarketingmanifesto.com (non-affiliate link) directly and give John the full purchase amount, however this will void you from gaining any of the bonuses I’ve described above. The bonuses offered are exclusively mine and are not related to John or his Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 training in any way;  any questions or concerns that you have regarding these bonuses should be directed to me personally via my contact form listed above in step 2.

If you’re still sitting on the fence, check out the Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 FAQ video that John released earlier today. Just make sure you come back here to my site before you buy if you want to snag  one of my 50 Music Marketing Manifesto bonuses before they sell out tomorrow.

A few weeks back I wrote about the Music Marketing Manifesto 1.0 by John Oszajca, little did I know that he’d be releasing 2.0 so shortly thereafter.  In case you’ve been away from your computer all week, John’s been releasing a ton of excellent material for diy musicians this week in anticipation of the release of the Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0!

Let me start out by saying that this isn’t a review of the Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 – because it hasn’t been released yet. However, I’ve been following the launch very closely and had the chance to take a sneak peak ‘behind the curtain’ so-to-speak at what John will be unleashing upon the public on Monday. I’ll share some of what I discovered in the Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 preview in this article.

In my review of the Music Marketing Manifesto, I stated that I thought it was loaded with great information for a beginner, but the fact that there wasn’t any video training or specifics behind John’s particular success as a former major label artist turned indie-entrepreneur had me recommend that those more familiar with online marketing might want to look elsewhere.

From what I’ve seen – John has answered the call with Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0. This time instead of getting a PDF with great training, John has built a private members-only site chocked full of video training on topics like Twitter (which was barely a blip on the radar when Music Marketing Manifesto was released two years ago). He has four main modules that cover the strategy, mechanics, traffic and communication aspects of John’s online music promotion techniques.

Each module has several lessons that focus on a particular aspect in detail – for instance the traffic module goes into detail on Twitter, Facebook and plus three other sources of traffic that’ll help fans discover your music. There’s also a bonus module that covers CD Baby Secrets along with two other cutting edge topics that I’m going to keep quiet on (not sure how much of this stuff John wants be to reveal before the launch and I don’t want to steal his thunder!). These are deep lessons as well, for instance in Lesson #5 alone there are six videos 10 – 20 minutes each worth of training!

Again, I haven’t had the chance to go through the training videos myself at this time, but I feel confident recommending investing in the Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 based on the quality of the material John has already released on the prelaunch. He’s given away the basic video blue print behind his online music marketing strategy, a squeeze page template worth more than $250 and a video teaching how to set it up. Lastly, just yesterday he released the video case study he did with Billy Burke – a debut artist with the #1 sales day record at CDbaby – who had John working with him behind the scenes to make the launch of his first CD a major success.

John’s offering the techniques, strategy, tools and more in a variety of formats; video, audio and pdf, so the Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 is definitely a content-rich, one stop solution for those who want to get their music in front of as many people online as possible.

John is keeping the cost close to his vest at this point in time, but it’s definitely going to be a high value offer. If you’ve watched any of the pre-launch videos he’s released this week, you can tell that John knows what he’s talking about.

For all of these reasons, I’m endorsing the launch of the Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 to my visitors here at the Indie Band Alliance. Not only is John offering in-depth, content-rich training that goes beyond what he offered with the Music Marketing 1.0 – there’s also a 60 day money back guarantee offered through Clickbank – so if for any reason you’re not satisfied with the product…just get your money back!

There will only be a limited amount of people let into the membership training for Music Manifesto 2.0 – so if you want to sit on the fence about whether you want to sign up, you’ll risk losing your space to those who are ready to get their hands on John’s training right away.

That’s all that I have to say right now about MMM 2.0, if you haven’t checked out the pre-launch content that’s on offer right now – I urge you to do so before it goes offline. If what John is teaching sounds like a good fit for your situation right now – go ahead and pull the trigger for the Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 – there’s no risk to you and spaces are limited.

Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 Price Revealed!!!

Update – John announced today (Dec 5th, 2010) that the Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 will be consist of multi-media training delivered via an exclusive membership site for a one time price of $97. Not only that, but there will continue to be new content modules added and John himself with interact and answer questions in the comment area below each lesson.

Looking for  a Music Marketing Manifesto 2.0 Bonus? Check out what I put together for those who choose to purchase MMM 2.0 through my link.

Hey everyone,

This will be a short post to mention a new service that I just heard about today called Split Gigs. This site is basically a social networking site for musicians revolving around the concept of finding or hosting shows. All you have to do is visit their site and sign up for a free account and you can start looking for gigs. If you take a gig, you’re supposed to return the favour by offering a gig to the host band in return.

This is your basic gig swap, gig trade (or show swap, show trade – call it what you will) scenario, but they also built in a point system. You get awarded 5 points for hosting a gig and 3 points for performing at a gig. Apparently these points add up and allow you to purchase something or other – but that part of it wasn’t clear to me as I surfed through their site.

Here’s a brief intro video from the Split Gigs website.

Is Split Gigs a good idea? Heck yeah – this is a concept that I wanted to introduce to the Indie Band Alliance but I wasn’t sure how to do it. However, the site will live or die by the amount of bands that sign up for an account and are willing to host shows – that’s the tough part. I’m sure billions of bands will want to sign up looking for quick and easy gigs; it’s the bands that are willing to host the event that will be crucial for this site getting off the ground.

I gave it a quick demo to see if there were any bands hosting gigs in my area – no dice, in fact…the closest cities that returned in my initial search were in the U.S. over 1,000 miles away from me.

So, if you like the idea of a site that can help you network and find bands to play a show (or tour) with you and a place where you can hook up some extra gigs – definitely check it out and spread the word. If this site is going to work, you’re going to have to be willing to put some effort into it in the early running. If you looking for immediate gigs, you might have to wait until the site builds up some momentum along with the other bandwagon jumpers!

Related articles by Zemanta

• SplitGigs, a gig sharing platform that aims to bypass shady promoters (eu.techcrunch.com)
• 10 Resources for Booking Gigs (indiemusictech.com)

Anyone that’s been paying attention to my last few posts has noticed a lot of content about WordPress, and so the launch of Band WP Themes is timed just about perfectly for me.

Band WP Themes is the brainchild of Greg Rollett (of Label 2.0, GenYRockstars.com and The New Music Economy – review coming soon) has partnered up with a dude named Brett to create awesome WordPress themes for bands. Like I said, this is the perfect timing because I’ve been showing you guys how to use WordPress to build a band website (if you’ve checked out my DIY Band Website training). I’ve been doing my best to find some great themes for musicians to use, but I’m sad to say that there isn’t a heck of a lot to choose from.

Greg and Brett are hoping all of that is about to change with the launch of their Band WP Themes product on June 7th. So far the details are few and far between, the features, price and even the look of the themes have yet to be revealed, so I can’t say whether I recommend them or not. However, if it meets up to the same quality level of Greg’s New Music Economy training, then I have high hopes that WordPress will finally have some kick ass themes for bands, DJs and artists to use.

I’ll update this post when I learn more, for now you can check out the video on why you need to host your artist site.

UPDATE:

Greg & Brett revealed their new theme yesterday on the GenYRockstars.com site (check out the BandWPTheme in action). If you visit the page you’ll see that Greg actually walks you through the install process (again for WordPress – Brett already showed that step) plus tweaking out the them. The theme is clean and has a right sidebar with customization options for setting up your newsletter, hooking up a photo gallery and a place to bring in your Twitter feed. However, I’m left a little underwhelmed at this point in time; most of the videos show Greg using the standard features that come with WordPress. Aside from the sidebar (btw, I’m not too keen on how the photo header doesn’t run all the way across the top personally) I haven’t seen anything new from this theme in terms of customization – maybe Greg’s waiting for the next video to show us that stuff? He promises another video on Sunday – the day before the launch.

Here’s what the theme looks like – what do you think?

The other curious omission at this point is the price. Nothing has been said of how much it will cost to get this theme. Rather than just sell a theme, it sounds like they’re going to offer a membership of some kind where you get all the extra training and perhaps more themes, but I’m not 100% on that. I’m uncertain whether they plan to release one uber-customizable band theme or just a whole slew of different band themes that you can choose from. I guess we’ll find out soon.

Bottom line – right now it looks like this theme is geared to the complete technophobes that either don’t want to learn how to use the text widget in WordPress or are completely ignorant of what you can do with it. It’s really not that hard guys – trust me! Having said that the BandWPTheme will live or die based on its price – right now I like it, but I’m not sure that I’d shell out cash for it unless I see some more features. However, I’ve been playing around with WordPress for close to three years and messed around with Microsoft Frontpage for a half dozen years or so prior to that – so I’m probably not the target market for this product!

More updates to follow as the price and further details are released!

FINAL UPDATE: The price was released last Monday – $27 for the theme only or $37 for the theme with WordPress training videos and support. As I said before – I don’t think I’d buy the theme, but I already know my way around WordPress pretty well. However, for those that don’t know how to use WordPress, the $37 option is obviously much cheaper than attempting to get a designer to build a site for you.

For those that are looking for some great training for free, I just made a decision to provide the first module of my DIY WordPress Band Website training for free as part of the free membership level of the Indie Band Alliance. Membership is closed right now – but will be opening soon.

Having your own website today is important if you want to stand out from the crowd and establish yourself as a legitimate business. When you rely solely on sites like Myspace and Facebook, you put your fate in their hands. If they decide to shut down your profile, there’s nothing you can do about it. With your own website, you call the shots. You can still use sites like Facebook to link back to your site and increase your rankings in the search engines even higher.

But many people are intimidated by creating a website. They don’t know how to go about it and figure that it’s pretty expensive to get someone else to do, plus – isn’t it time consuming if I do it myself?

Well, none of those questions need to be true. You can design your own website yourself, save a ton of money and not have to lose a month of your life to make it happen.

DIY Band Websites can be every bit as easy to maintain as your Myspace profile page, but you retain ownership. You can tweak it out as much as you like, and if you don’t want to do it yourself – that’s okay, because there are thousands of designers out there that are willing to work on projects like yours for much less than you’d think.

I want to save musicians and bands from forking out huge dough for a site that might look nice, but nobody will be able to find online. So I put together some sweet training for bands so that they can create their own website using WordPress.

It’s easier than ever to create a kick ass website that is loaded with features for you band, without having to pay an arm and a leg or have to chain yourself to your desk for a month.

I just wanted to share something that I’m quite excited about; I’ve finally been taking the information that I have in my head and have been writing a DIY tutorial for bands to get their own website up and running within minutes for next to nothing. I’m calling this product the DIY WordPress Band Website Training, and you can purchase it right now for less than $5! My personal guarantee is if you cannot build a website after following the steps as I outlined them – I’ll personally set it up for you free of charge.

Now here’s the deal, since this is my first product and I’m testing the market I decided to offer a special incentive to those musicians out there that take me up on this training. This product is going to give you a high quality education on what you need to know to set up and promote your band online, without you having to be chained to your desk for hours each day. Right now I have 4 modules planned, each module will cost $4.95 and as I load up the videos the price will jump up to $6.95 per module. So when the training is complete the whole thing will cost just under $28 or so.

However, if you buy now at the low price of $4.95 – you’ll have access to all 4 modules without paying a cent more. This is a great chance to get awesome training at a fraction of it’s worth if you’re willing to put up with waiting for the content as I update it each week. It’s important to me that I price my products so that real musicians can afford them and that they provide maximum value. By purchasing you’re also doing me a tremendous favour because you’re voting with your dollars and letting me know that you’re interested in this training and hopefully you can give me some feedback on what you like so that I can tweak the content to make it even better for musicians to learn from.

So, if you ever wanted to learn exactly how to build your own band site, where to find affordable and quality hosting and domain names – visit this page and grab your training while it’s still only $4.95!

I can only guarantee that this offer will be available for the next day or so – once I complete the videos for module 1 I’ll be raising the price to $6.95 and once I release module two the price will then go up by $4.95 again – and so on until it’s finished.

Let me repeat again, that if you cannot build your own website within a few minutes with this training that I give you – I will gladly build the site for you! Plus the information I share on where to get your domain name and hosting alone can save you easily more than $100 compared to if you bought band website packages available out there. Being able to build out your own site and save well over 100 bucks is surely worth the full price I’ll be charging, must less the $4.95 that it costs right now.

It’s up to you – this is a market test for me to see whether there’s a interest for this type of training. I don’t even have a sales letter put together yet! So if you’re reading this and you want to get this training for a steal, buy it now.

Okay, that’s enough of my sales pitch. If you’re still unsure whether you want to spend your money on my training, sign up for the Indie Band Alliance list and I’ll send you 10 videos that will explain all about web hosting, domain names and what I think is the best software to use for building your band website (hint, I’m using it right now!). You get all of that for FREE, and you get a chance to get a feel for the way I do things. If after that you feel like buying my actual step by step video and written tutorial guide to installing, configuring and running your band website – well it’ll probably cost a little bit more by that time, so you’ve been warned.

Thanks for reading this!
Mike – self professed anti-rockstar

UPDATE: True to my word, I’ve upped the price to $6.95 because I’ve added 7 walk through videos that provide 40 minutes of guidance along with the module one 23 page report. This is a tremendous value for the money, and you can save yourself over $200 compared to signing up with certain website services online that are aimed at bands. Wouldn’t you rather keep that money in your pocket?