Music Business Blog by Jason Feinberg

For those of you that don’t know me personally, my favorite show of all time is The Sopranos. It beats out Family Guy and The Simpsons – to me, it is THAT good.

I could write pages on what makes it so great, but instead I’ll focus on just one aspect: Business Tips Learned From The Sopranos

It will take me a long time to write them all out – the show is brilliant in it’s ingenuity. There are so many topics covered – leadership, entrepreneurship, discipline, creativity, humor – it’s a very deeply interwoven show.

As time goes on and my company grows, I do notice myself adopting some of these Sopranos lessons. I also seem to be adopting the vernacular – but that’s only sometimes productive. ;)

More to come…

There are two newsletters I subscribe to that tangibly make a difference in my business and I wanted to pass them on to my readers. Both of these focus on entertainment industry issues and news. One is a daily newsletter that sums up a lot of what is going on in the entertainment industry, as well as a few other tidbits of usefulness. The other is a PR newsletter that is indispensable for tips on promotion and entertainment industry business.

1) Send a blank email to: Join-elert@host.netatlantic.com. You will get an email back to confirm – follow the instructions and you’ll be subscribed.

2) Go to www.guerrillapr.net and sign up for the newsletter.

Trust me on these. If you read this blog, you are certainly interested in what these newsletters have to say…

As much as I appreciate being hired to do promotion for artists, I’ll be the first to say that there are plenty of things an artist can do for themselves. Here are a few self-promotion ideas worth considering:

1. Give away your music. Make a free track available on all the content provider sites (mp3.com, myspace, etc). Nothing builds a fan base like hearing your music, especially when someone can listen to an entire song for free.

2. Start a blog – people love to read what bands are up to day-to-day. It also gives non-music-biz people a great insight into what it is like to live the dream.

3. Play charity shows. This gets your name out there, and links you to an audience that might not be aware of you otherwise. It’s also good for the soul.

Think outside the box. So many promotion opportunities, so little time!

Wow, I just had a call with a very established professional in the music biz, and I am still a little stunned, trying to figure it all out.

I get a call from his assistant asking if I have time to take a call from him. It’s a little after 6pm, I’ve crammed 20 hours into a 10 hour day, and I am not mentally ready for what was about to ensue, but it’s hard to get this guy on the phone, so I was happy to give it a whirl.

I didn’t really get in a word or two before he took absolute control of the conversation. It was quite impressive. I am a tremendous fan of people who are right to the point and able to say in 15 words what takes most people 15 sentences. I think I am somewhere around 4 sentences, so I still have a ways to go.

He gave me some great ideas, and away we went. It was maybe a 2 minute call that covered about 20 minutes of ground.

Interactions like this are extremely valuable. It’s great to see a template of what I can achieve at some point. I really admire people that are in such extreme control of their words and business. However I am left reeling – not quite sure what exactly happened, but luckily I was smart enough to write down a few things to process.

+2 points.