Recording - April 2014 - 54

Tips For Songwriters... And More
By Mike Metlay

Social Media Promotion For Musicians: The Manual For Marketing Yourself, Your Band And Your Music Online
By Bobby Owsinski. 299 pages, illustrated B/W large-format paperback. ISBN 978-0-9888-3911-3.
$29.95; Bobby Owsinski Media Group, www.bobbyowsinski.com

I had the pleasure of hearing Bobby Owsinski talk to a rapt audience at PreSonuSphere last fall,
and was so tickled with his take-no-prisoners attitude to the effective use of social media in marketing oneself that I immediately asked him for a copy of his book. I wasn't disappointed, and I don't
think you will be either.
Social media are evolving constantly: what was hot a few years ago might be nearly forgotten now.
Owsinski knows that; this book combines his findings and tips on specific current social media sites with
recommendations that transcend what's hot right now and provide reasonably timeless wisdom.
After a brief introduction, Owsinski goes into a careful explanation of strategy and branding.
He's very clear that using social media and self-promotion on social media are two very different
things and require different tactics. I found his approach to the idea of self-promotion as a professional practice to be possibly the best and most long-term valuable part of the book; he delves into
the elements of success that blend together to make a solid promotional plan, while remaining sensitive to the fact that many of us, even those who want to succeed with our music, shy away from
social media as too self-aggrandizing and too risky to our friendships and relationships with those we care about.
Once the essentials are laid down, Owsinski dives right in: he has huge chapters on building a killer website and mailing list, then getting
the most from (deep breath here) Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, and bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, Digg,
Reddit, Delicious, and Technorati. He wraps up with a discussion of scheduling promotion, i.e. how often you should be doing what where,
and when. Each chapter focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of each platform or type of communication; for example, Owsinski spends
a lot of time explaining the differences in layout and perceived tone between blogs on Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, and Tumblr.
The book is loaded with raw data, distilled by Owsinski for your easy consumption. He's a big, big fan of measurement, and
argues that in an online world where you can quickly and easily dig up all the useful statistics you may need to really understand
your fans and how you're reaching them, you're doing yourself a disservice not to do so. He also provides pithy examples of just
how much a sensible social media strategy can help you (he himself ended up interviewed on national television news because
someone remembered and liked his blog and tweets) and how a bad one can hurt you (he cites a band whose nearly million-strong
fan base was destroyed overnight by a record label signing them and making them take down their MySpace page).
The book is written clearly and with a friendly and convivial tone. It's fun to read, full of "I didn't know that!" moments and useful tips you can put to work right away to get yourself well-established in the social media free-for-all.
In a future issue, I look forward to interviewing Bobby and getting more up-to-the-minute insights to share with our readers. But in the
meantime, if you want to maximize your impact on a large and often uncaring online world, you'll get a real kick out of this book.

The Art Of Music Production: The Theory And Practice
By Richard James Burgess. 329 pages, B/W paperback. ISBN 978-0-1999-2174-4. $29.95; Oxford
University Press, www.oup.com

We always hear about producers-this person produced this hit record, while that person has been
working as a producer in this or that genre forever, and this other person has been called in to produce a project because they had to let the previous producer go. But exactly what is a producer, and
what does he or she actually do?
Richard James Burgess has been in the business for decades, as an artist, engineer, and producer,
and in the late 1990s (remember back then?) he wrote the first edition of this book as neither more
nor less than a comprehensive answer to that question. Now we're up to the fourth edition, and while
there's been a lot of updating to reflect new realities in the business, the book's basic premise remains
firm.
It's laid out in chapters that cover the various facets of the producer's world. Everything gets the
same precise treatment, whether it's the producer's relationship with managers, lawyers, A&R men,
and artists, or frank discussions on everything from what everyone will expect of you to sensible policies on drug and alcohol use. There's even a (rather depressing) chapter called "Why Are There So
Few Women Producers?".
I would describe the book's tone as quietly enlightening. There's no slang or buddy-buddy language here; it's precise, clear,
detailed, even scholarly in many places. You get the feeling you're hearing from a professor on the subject, but the facts and figures are blended with pertinent quotes from many famous music industry professionals and the overall feeling you come away with
is, "That was cool. I get it now!"
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RECORDING April 2014

http://www.bobbyowsinski.com http://www.oup.com

Recording - April 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - April 2014