What do you need to know about the music industry before your craft your plans for music biz world domination? Arm yourself with a few home truths to increase your odds of making music pay your bills - check 'em out here. Got a few home truths of your own to share? Do tell!

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When you book a show with a promoter, a contract for that gig is likely to enter the picture (and if it doesn't enter the picture, it really should). The word "contract" has a way of putting everyone on the defensive, but when it comes to a contract for a gig, try to look at it more as an agreement to work together towards a share goal than a competitive, who-is-going-to-give-up-the-most kind of situation.

A good promotion contract will let both sides know is expected of them before, during and after the show and how any profits (or losses) will be shared. Learn more about promotion contracts.

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1. In yet one more reminder that fighting file sharing is futile, McAfee reported this week that since The Pirate Bay was forced to shut down by a Swedish court, there has been a 300% increase in torrent sites. Some of these sites are nothing but virus mills, but many are indeed for sharing music, movies and more. Talk about a losing battle. Read the story on VatorNews.
2. Although more people know who shot JFK than how Choruss - the Warner Music designed program to give college students special access to music downloads to discourage file sharing/torrents - will work, the rumors that are trickling out make it sound like any promise that program may have had is being slowly but surely being stripped away in the run-up to the scheduled January debut. I have always thought this program had "failure" written all over it, but it just keeps getting worse. Students, the six colleges involved in the Choruss pilot program are not being revealed so you don't have a chance to weigh in on the subject in advance. Nice, eh? Get educated here, on The Chronicle.
3. U2 gave a free, but ticketed, concert in Berlin this week to celebrate 20 years of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Though the show was free, the promoters decided that they didn't want anyone without a ticket to be able to see the show. The solution? Build a big wall around the venue so no one outside could see in. Yes, they built a wall to commemorate the fall of the Wall. Sehr toll, concert promoters! Get the story on MSN.
4. Excellent advice from Musician Wages for all of you music teachers out there: How to Find Private Music Students.
5. I'm in love with this site: Vinyl Lives - the site "celebrates the independent record store", which is my favorite thing to celebrate (just ask Visa and Mastercard). The site is new, but they have a reader for life in me.

Join me in a new game, won't you? The weekly forum poll - each week, I'll post a poll in the forum, you come by and vote, and seven days later, I'll share the final results. First question: Are Record Labels Obsolete? Vote now! 

Speaking of the forum, one of your fellow readers is looking for advice about choosing a recording studio. Can you help? View her question to share your knowledge.

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Here it is - your last minute reminder - the deadline to apply to SXSW is today, Friday, November 6. Get on it, people! Here are some links that will help:

• SXSW Profile
• SXSW Application via Sonicbids -  note, you must use Sonicbids to apply. The cost of the application is $40 - if you don't already have a Sonicbids account, you can get a free, 6 month trial membership when you apply.
• Application Tips from Sonicbids
• Trade Shows 101

Good luck! (*Sorry for the late warning, everyone! This blog was supposed to publish yesterday!)

Yesterday, a reader commented on my blog from earlier this week about MySpace (you can read that one here) and raised a very good point - when we're talking about MySpace or any music promotion tool, the most important thing to consider isn't what is in fashion right now and what isn't but rather what YOUR fans are doing.

This is such an excellent point because sometimes one obvious fact gets lost in the shuffle of discussions of online platforms, falling sales and so on - the starting point for every decision you make about your music should be knowing your audience. What are their ages? Where do they live? How do they buy their music? What sites/papers/magazines/blogs do they read? What social networking sites do they use - if they use them at all? When you know who is listening to your music, you know how to reach them.

For instance, let's consider promoting your music on social networking sites for a moment. You can read reams of blog posts/articles about how great social networking is for music promotion, how it is the wave of the future, blah blah blah. When you spend all day online and enjoy using social networks, it can be hard to imagine that is could be any other way - especially since so much information bigging up the effectiveness of social networking sites is being swapped on, well, social networking sites.

However, what happens if your fans just aren't on these sites? What if your fans couldn't care less about friending you on MySpace or Facebook, following you on Twitter, or any other site? Believe me, it happens. You could be investing lots of time running an admirable social networking campaign that might work wonders for other musicians, but your fans might not have any idea. You need to know where your fans are so they find out about all of those unreleased tracks, secret shows and everything else you're offering.

Knowing fans can also help you sell more music, book shows in the right places, target the right press, create the right merch and much, much more.

Next week, we're going to be looking at different ways to get to know your fans and how you can use that knowledge to further your music career. In the meantime, do you have some suggestions of your own for identifying your fan base? Share your stories!

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This question is one that comes to my inbox at least once a week - do older musicians have a chance of breaking into the music industry? Of course, we know it is possible for people to grow older IN the industry, but do you have a chance of promoting and selling your music as a new artist if you are say, over 50? Over 60?

I think genre makes a big difference in the answer to this question. Pop music is a difficult genre for older musicians. To a certain extent, hip hop has a problem with age as well - even for those who have been in the genre since they were younger. Other genres of music tend to care less. World music, country, folk, jazz - these genres in particular can be welcoming to older musicians. That doesn't mean that there aren't still obstacles, but there comes a time when you have a better chance of being Emmylou Harris than Britney Spears.

Besides genre, what other issues do you think older musicians face? What can older musicians do to get around these problems? Share your thoughts about age and the music industry.

More Reader Response Questions:

• Would You Start a Record Label?
• Would You Sign a 360 Deal?
• What Are The Best Venues to Play?

The Indie Artist X Project is a wrap, and we can now reveal the identity of the mystery musician/guinea pig at the center of the experiment. Meet Austin Collins of Austin and The Rainbirds. Austin was handpicked by David Rose of KnowThe MusicBiz, who also deserves the credit for dreaming up this project. David revealed the whole story of how Austin became Indie Artist X in his blog this morning  - check it out for some good behind the scenes insight.

Before we get into the results, there is one other thing we have to reveal about Austin. Right at the start of the project, he won Airplay Direct's All Things Americana contest, which came with a nice $35,000 price. This money is earmarked for future recording, however, and was not invested into his IAXP work.

So, results. You can see the final results on the marketing plan   (click the tab on the bottom that reads "stats summary"), but let's take a look at a few highlights:

• Band Metrics Score: At the start of the project, Austin's score was 183 at the start of the project and 244 at the end of October, when the project wrapped.
• Fan List: The list went from 739 in July to 786 in October.
• Website Visitors: 689 for the part of July we tracked/1134 in October

There are plenty more stats to compare, so definitely do check them out. David Rose did a great job of summing up some major lessons in a guest blog for Hypebot today, and I really have to echo his points. For me, the biggest walk away here is the confirmation of what I've always believed - you must play live often. As much as you can. And not just in your home town. Austin was on tour in the middle of the project, and the many of the stats peak and fall off in conjunction with his tour dates. Another point to consider - check out Austin's Soundexchange royalties. Bet you can't guess that Austin has had thousands of plays by looking at those big, fat zeroes.

Of course, another lesson here is another one we all suspected at the beginning - there is no special formula, no road map from A to B. Playing live is a must, and if you don't do it, your career will suffer - period. Beyond that, a plan helps organize your tasks and keep you on the right track, but there are no guarantees. Making it in music requires a long, hard slog, and most sustainable music careers are built slowly, with small successes along the way. Our plan for Austin is available to everyone: click here to get the plan and tailor it to your situation. Remember, however, that is a plan that requires a lot of work on your part. It is a guide, not a ticket to stardom. But if you put in the work, you CAN reap the benefits.

Thanks to everyone else involved in this project - it has been fun! KnowTheMusicBiz , ArtistHouse, Musician Wages, HypeBot and Revolution Number 3. And of course, thanks to Austin!

What are you thoughts about the project? Are you surprised by the results? Let me know!

I know, MySpace is hopelessly unhip these days. I don't need to be convinced. I've always hated it. But then, I hate Facebook, too. I get some useful stuff out of using Twitter, trending topics aside. The bottom line is, however, that I'm just not a social networking kind of girl, and I am especially skeptical of the idea that having loads of social networking friends/followers/whatever you call them on Facebook-ers has any relationship whatsoever to how many fans you have.

BUT...I have to say something about MySpace. It works for me. When I promote an article on MySpace, in the Musicians' Group, people click on it. They read. They get in touch. In large numbers. And let me say, I have hardly any MySpace friends. Less than 400. I haven't proactively "friended" anyone since the novelty wore off about a week after I set up my page. Yet, when I post something in the groups, it just works. I have no idea why, but it does. So, despite the fact that many people, including myself, find MySpace to be objectionable, I have to set aside attitudes about the site to take note of the fact that it really is giving me more traffic than ever before. It is something to consider.

So, it got me thinking - is anyone out there still using MySpace for music promotion? Has it worked for you? If you have been a long time user, have you noticed a change in the effectiveness over the years? Let me know how MySpace is working for you these days.

And we do all know that Facebook and Twitter will become uncool, too, right?

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1. According to Billboard, Live Nation and Ticketmaster are working things out with the Justice Department in the US to get the green light to create their monopoly. Are we really surprised? I have to say, it had been YEARS since I'd bought a ticket using Ticketmaster, but I bought some football tickets using Ticketmaster a few weeks ago. The fees were ridiculous, then the MyTicketmaster account I had to create wouldn't work, and I waited on the customer service line for 30 minutes before giving up. Boy, I bet the service and prices will get better after the merger!
2. By the end of this year, TuneCore will have sold $30 million worth of music. One song distributed by TuneCore is sold every second on iTunes. (Despite the fact that people don't buy music anymore and it is just a promotional tool to sell merch and concert tickets! I know, I know, sarcasm is unbecoming.) We Are Listening spoke to TuneCore's Jeff Price about their success - check it out. I'm not sure I really understand the Universal deal and the appeal of opting to use Universal channels, but I guess you can't argue with options!
3. The Sony Corp is suffering, thanks to falling sales of electronics, but Michael Jackson is helping. Sales of his back catalog in the wake of his death haven't taken the company out of the red, but they have helped to make the losses much smaller than projected.  Though Sony certainly can't be blamed, all of the stories of all of the parties who are profiting from Jackson's death just kind of make a tragic story a little more depressing.
4. Good article from CNN about politically active African musicians: check it out.
5. It's not news, but remember when music used to be this simple? Minimal bells. Minimal whistles. Just talent. I think there's a lesson there for us all.