BLUE MUSE NUZE

Blue Muse Nuze is a monthly newsletter for Blue Muse Publishing and BlueMusePublishing.com. Subscribers consisting of artists, members, and friends receive an e-mail copy and each issue is eventually archived online.

You may select an archived issue using the links at the bottom of the page listed by month and year.

BLUE MUSE NUZE, JUNE 2009

I hope everyone is doing well. I am sending out the June edition of Blue Muse Nuze a little early this month as there are several timely items to report to you.

First of all, I am happy to say that the new podcast entitled Spotlight on Emerging Indie Artists is ranked number one at Madcasternetworks.com as of this writing. This podcast is in two parts, aptly named one and two with a corresponding blog at Blue Muse Views and Reviews by the same name. It the first in a series of blogs/podcasts that will feature some of the artists at BlueMusePublishing.com. There were many that could have been easily included, but I am limited by time and space.

I apologize for the legal stuff, but, just like radio airplay, I need to have some form of consent directly or by third party such as Music Submit to be featured on a podcast. The same general requirement will satisfy the conditions for podcasting and radio airplay so there is no need to provide two waivers. Anyway, I hope you will listen to both parts and let me know your thoughts.

I have been streaming Blue Muse Indie Radio for a few months. It has been very stable so I am uploading music and I am ready to begin promotion. If you have some time, maybe you could check out some of the programs already in place. There will be more programs as more music becomes available. Currently, some of the genres are bundled together, but I hope to create more specific programs for specific genres. When I last checked, people have listened from 9 different countries so far. The station is accessible through Blue Muse, but it is also directly accessible through several internet radio directories.

A new program will be created on Sunday, May 31st. This program will feature the top 20 artists at Blue Muse for the previous week. The playlist will be updated each week. This playlist will be determined by popularity based on volume of plays, artist page visits, ratings, and number of radio requests. The new rotation should begin sometime each Sunday evening.

I will do everything that I can to promote BMND Radio including paid advertising, but the growth of the station will depend mostly on friends, fans, and family. Therefore, it will be very helpful to everyone if you will spread the word. There is also a potential benefit to you as an individual from the collective popularity of other artists at Blue Muse. That is, being part of a larger group of artists can be a good thing. Similarly, there is a benefit to all of us when we respect our fellow artists and their fans. I believe we have a great group of professionals and that we will all encourage our fans to promote us without bashing others in an effort to game the system.

I don't know where it will lead, but my goal is to consistently provide high quality independent music with minimal interruption. Hopefully, this will not only provide real entertainment value, but will also provide a medium through which suppliers may connect with consumers. In this case, consumers may be actual listeners or they may also be industry professionals. I will continue to offer a variety of music on a single station, but it is possible that a more "genre specific" station may spin off in the future. It will really depend on the availability of music and the demand for a particular category.

Again, I must have your permission to broadcast your music, so if you are interested, please make sure that you provide the necessary documentation directly or through a service. Also, please make sure to select the genre in which each song belongs. I may have an opinion, but I also think it is more important to know where you believe your song fits.

Finally, I hope to manage the disk space and bandwidth at Blue Muse while providing more accessibility to you and your music through larger mediums such as internet radio and YouTube. So, I have loaded many of your videos to the Muze Tube channel at YouTube. I have enjoyed watching them as I also have an interest in music videos. I hope that having a collection of quality music videos on a single channel will help to draw more interest, again through association with others. While it is difficult to provide you with direct access to the channel for uploading your material, I will attempt to upload your videos periodically. Of course, you can always subscribe or send a friend request which is another way to feature your videos on a single channel.

BLUE MUSE NUZE, MAY 2009

I would like to welcome all new members to Bluemusepublishing.com. To all our artists, I am continually amazed at the quality of your music and I am working very hard to build more opportunities that I hope might benefit you all in some way. I would especially like to welcome those members who are on the business side of music. My long term goal is to build a list of quality resources from each area of the music business. Several of our new members are small labels and publishers. To our listeners, thank you for checking out the artists on Blue Muse. You will find a lot of quality music from talented artists among our artist members. I welcome you all.

I have also talked with a variety of folks in various capacities who I hope will eventually join the growing community of music professionals at Blue Muse. I do not want to drop names, but I have recently spoken to a film maker, several respected music journalists, two indie labels, a disk duplicator/replicator, as well as other webmasters at other music websites.

My vision for Blue Muse is to provide a variety of collaboration and service opportunities among the various members. I have no problem with other publishers, labels, and services sharing the space provided at no cost. While I remain interested in providing the maximum amount of opportunities through my own small publishing and label, I would much rather see an evenly distributed exchange of talents and services provided by others to meet the needs of our members than to see folks who are not able to fill their respective needs.

To further provide available resources to you in the coming months, I will provide a page for exchanging resources, services, talents, and ideas. In the meantime, please give some thought to your specific needs or strengths that you might be willing to post or offer on a limited basis. This is not limited to singing, songwriting, and playing instruments but also includes recording, mixing, marketing, videos, and providing any help that may be needed. If you need help or want to offer your talents, this will be the place to hook up.

Although we are in difficult times, I remain confident that the future for indie music is bright. However, I also know that much work must be done to make it a reality for more people. CDBaby reports they paid $34 million to artists last year. As many of you know the distribution is still not balanced, as those with the most sales have the greatest exposure which builds upon itself. The momentum that comes from grabbing public attention is not easily attained as the dilution factor continues to increase. Stated differently, there are more people offering their music online than ever before, so it becomes much harder for people to find you. I also encourage everyone to maintain a presence on the social sites such as MySpace and YouTube.

While I see value in many of the fee based services offered online for indie artists, I am amazed at the vast number of sites that continue to feed on the desires for prosperity that we all share. I don't believe any of you are among them but I know there are many who will follow this form of carnival rhetoric. That is, ad lines promising great wealth and prosperity to all who join. Most of us realize that "life ain't like that". Prosperity comes with hard work, dedication, and good luck.

Speaking of keys to success, I hope you will all have a few minutes to check out my latest article entitled, Keys To Success For Indie Artists. I attempt to provide some very basic thoughts for moving your career forward.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone for your patience while the site is continually improved. Much of the focus at the moment will be devoted to creating value at BlueMusePublishing.com. For example, over the next few months, a lot of needed work will be done to modernize the site. This work will not only improve the overall visual impact, but will also provide a more search engine friendly environment so that people may find you at Blue Muse. I will also begin a new advertising campaign that will hopefully drive a larger group of regular listeners to the Blue Muse Independent Radio Broadcast. Ultimately, the improvements should help to provide more robust opportunities.