Major Contacts Music Association- A&R Contacts, Managers, Artist, & Producers

Guide to Publicity

To have a successful album you need the media involved whether you just have a great life story or create controversy this can sell albums and help out your career greatly. Think of publicity as free advertising, any media you are placed in will work to get you more exposure and hopefully in turn sell more records and get more shows.

Many artists would be surprised how much press they can obtain if they just ask. You must have a good press kit or at least photos, music, and biography to email to get press if you do not have one of the three above then don’t try because they are all needed to get coverage with a respected publication.

A thing every artist should do is find emails to create a mailing list of press. This can be done by simply going to the websites of the press pertaining to your genre and searching in their contact us page or by buying the magazine and checking articles and mastheads (list of all writers and editors). Not all magazines give out emails but many can be found on places like Myspace also. When contacting press remember that they receive a number of emails a day so your story must have a catch to it and be interesting for it to print also must pertain to what the magazines is about. No media wants to hear how you are the best artist in such and such they want facts and stories that will be interesting to their viewers.

To really take advantage of press and if you have the extra funds then the best way to go is hire a public relations company or a publicist who has a history of working with artists in your genre who have results and is able to show results. These can run you anywhere from $500 to $4000 a month depending on what company you hire and what you need. We have a few well respected companies in our links section for you to check out if you are interested in taking your career to the next level. You do not need a publicist year round if you are not an artist with a large budget but signing a publicist for a few months before and continuing a few months after the release might prove to make your album more successful.