Top New Music Industry Leaders Share Tips on Telling Your Story to Press and Fans

StoryAmp, a soon-to-launch self-marketing service for indie musicians is currently offering a free ebook, “Amplify Your Story: Getting More Press through the Art of the Pitch," as bait for future customers. It's an excellent guide to getting press and attracting fans by telling the stories of your life as a musician as well as the stories of your music. The guide also includes storytelling insights from business leaders of the new music industry.

StoryAmp's Amplify Your Story is composed of two sections, “The Art of the Pitch," discussing “what makes a compelling story," and “Tales from the Field," which shares “lessons learned from key players in web-based music promotional services." Here are some interesting nuggets from part two.

Spencer Richardson, FanBridge Co-founder & CEO:

“There's a great book...called Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti. Ultimately it says that when a Crowd is aligned to a goal or a story, they want to grow. The Crowd's nature is to grow. Give them ways to grow and you don't have to worry about anything else. A lot of that starts with a unified story. It gives people a place to rally."

Jennifer Elias, Business Development for Bandcamp:

“Artists like Amanda Palmer are all story all the time...I think she is incredibly honest about who she is...Every show is a story; it's like going to see a work of theater. So I think people know that when they are getting something from Amanda Palmer, it is really genuine. She is creating it for herself and for her fans, by being incredibly honest."

Ian Rogers, CEO of Topspin Media:

“Every artist could do more work on tour marketing, building a story on why someone should come see you and what that experience looks like. If artists would put as much work into their tour marketing as they do into their album marketing, we'd have a totally different industry across the board."

Jed Carlson, ReverbNation COO:

“The most successful bands are experts at telling a good story about their music, and they do it with more than just words. Everything a band chooses to display to a new potential fan is an opportunity to tell that story. Their photo, the first song a fan will encounter (or video), their bio and PR—all of these add up to the first impression a fan has about the artist."

Additional interviewees include Hoover & Voyno of The New Rock Star Philosophy, CD Baby President Brian Felsen and Brenden Mulligan, Founder of ArtistData.

Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. Flux Research is his business writing hub and All World Dance: World Dance News is his primary web project. To suggest websites and related topics for review, please contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.