Music Business Myth Busters - Episode 1: In order to have a successful music career, you just have to hone your craft and be the best musician you can be.

In this video, I'll bust wide open one of the most damaging myths that hold independent musicians back from building their fanbase and making more money from their music...

In order to have a successful music career, you just need to be the best musician you can be and hone your craft.

The assumption here is that if you just make amazing music, the money will automatically take care of itself. This is one of the fundamental myths or mindsets that's holding independent musicians back from success. It keeps so many artists' careers stagnant and leads to mounting frustration, stress, self-doubt and disillusionment, unfulfilled potential, debt, and even giving up on their dreams completely.

The vast majority of independent musicians seem to think that they're going to succeed just by playing their instrument well, singing well, writing great songs, making great albums, and putting on great shows. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's a fantasy. It's not the reality of the new music business. The sooner you come to terms with the fact that you'll never be able to make a living exclusively from writing, recording, and performing music, the sooner you can start making progress in your music career.

Yes, you absolutely need great music. It's the baseline, the foundation. But it's not the only thing you need to worry about as a musician. The reality is that it's not enough just to have great music, a great product. Art needs an audience. If you have something that can change people's lives, it's your responsibility to find them and get it to them, not their responsibility to find you. This is where marketing comes into the picture.

A lot of musicians are frustrated or even resentful that it's no longer enough just to have great music, and that they now have to consider marketing and business as part of their job description as a musician. They're resistant or hesitant about embracing the business side of music because they think business and marketing are evil or sleazy. The problem is that they see business and marketing as being separate from their music.

Derek Sivers says art doesn't end at the edge of the canvas. Business and marketing are an extension of the creative process and your art. Think about the different layers of your music. First you've got structural elements like melody, chords, and lyrics. Then on top of that you've got instrumentation. Then there's production. There's also your band, your stage presentation, photography, and music videos. This is all an extension of your art. Business and marketing are just another creative layer and you can be as creative as you want. It's a shame when artists are creative through the musical layers but are not when it comes to the business and marketing because they think they have to do it the “right” way. If you learn and understand business and marketing principles, then you can be creative and have choices with your marketing.

So what's the difference between successful musicians in the new music business and musicians who are struggling to build their fanbase and make more money from their music? It's not necessarily that they're any more talented than you or any other musician. Even if they are more talented, it's not a true marker of success. There are millions of talented artists who aren't getting the success they want.

You don't need to be the best singer, instrumentalist or songwriter in the world to be successful. If you're struggling to build your fanbase and make more money from your music, becoming a better singer, songwriter, or player isn't necessarily going to fix that.

The difference is that the new wave of successful independent musicians aren't doing what typical musicians do; they're not just focusing on making music. They're taking ideas from the worlds of business, entrepreneurship, and marketing and applying them to their music careers.

In today's music business, you have to be an entrepreneur. Like entrepreneurs, we have to wear many different hats in the early stages of our music careers because we don't have the money to outsource all of these tasks. We have to learn, develop, and cultivate a constellation of complementary skills – social media, marketing, business, branding, graphic design, photography, video production, booking gigs, as well as making music. Eventually, you can build a team and delegate some of these tasks to them to get back some of your time so you can focus on the things that are in your unique zone of genius.

If you make the mistake of thinking that your success is completely dependent on how talented you are, when you don't get the results you want, when you can't build your fanbase, when you can't get anyone to come to your gigs, when you can't sell any CDs, when you can't make any money from your music, you start to doubt your abilities as a musician. You think your songs suck, your singing sucks, your playing sucks, that you're not talented enough. You think you don't have anything worthwhile to offer the world. And so you get demoralised and your self-confidence is shattered and you feel like giving up. This is heartbreaking to me because it's completely unnecessary. This is the death spiral for your music career. How many artists have deprived the world of their gifts because they've been sucked into this death spiral because they've believed this myth?

Ultimately, you need to remember that you are NOT a musician... you are a marketer who sells music. I talked about this in my Facebook Live from the 21st Feb, so I won't repeat it all here. But you should definitely go back and watch that if you haven't already.

It's called the music business for a reason: 50% music, 50% business. Too many artists focus exclusively on the music side of the equation. You've probably got the music side under control. But if you want to be more than just a hobbyist, more than just an amateur, if you want to be a professional musician, if you want to grow a dedicated fanbase who loves what you do so much that they support you financially again and again so that you're able to make a sustainable living from your music, quit your day job and pursue your music career full time, then it's time to learn the business side. Ultimately, that's what's going to make the difference for you, move your career forward, and bring you the success and fulfilment that you want.