• Do you recommend the DIY route as a better alternative to the traditional route of "getting signed"?

In general, yes. In my opinion, the best way to get a record deal is prove you don’t need one. That is, your act is filling rooms, selling lots of music and merch, securing airplay and media coverage. If you’re an act that wants to get signed, then don’t wait for the record company to do these things for you. You will need to do them yourself. In doing so you build your value in the marketplace so that when you are offered a deal, you’re in the best bargaining position to secure the best deal possible.. As my friend George Howard likes to say, "the more you can bring to the table, the less the company can take away." In the world of business it’s called "leverage"

Getting signed also depends on ones level of tolerance for not having control of one’s music and career. Today it is both easier and more difficult to make it in the music business. While there are lower barriers to entry, there is also more competition.

And, of course, doing it yourself should not be seen as working all alone. As Derek Sivers of CDBaby likes to say, DIY really means "decide for yourself". Creative artists are moving away from that paternalism of wanting to be taken care of, and waking up to their own creative powers. Someone recently said, "The real social revolution of the last 30 years is the switch from a life that is largely organized for us to a world in which we are all forced to be in charge of our own destiny."

There are powers in the artist’s corner that are brand new; or, more accurately, an expansion of old powers.

As Thomas Dolby once eloquently stated: "The computer sets the music industry back 300 years." Artist plays directly to his audience and the patronage model re-emerges.

An ultimate story of DIY that closes the circle is what occurred last April when Sandi Thom signed a $1.2 million deal with RCA Records out of her basement in London where she had been webcasting her lo-fi performances for several months and building up a nightly audience of 100,000 listeners.

How many people would have heard those performances just 10 years ago? The collapsing of distance, which is the Internet, brings the whole world potentially into the same room as you. The key, however, is start a conversation with those who do show up.

• You state that the major labels are no longer really "record companies." Can you explain what you mean by that?

Traditional record companies were "soup-to-nuts" businesses — they found the talent, recorded the talent and marketed the talent’s recorded product. This is no longer the case. Since the late eighties major labels have been outsourcing most of the production work to a sort of diffused music production network.

This coincided with the decline of artist development and the ascendancy of product development departments at record companies.

So today the major record companies tend to act more like film distributors than production houses. They have the infrastructure and capital to take new music to the public, but little ability to create the music themselves. The solution? Buy up successful independent labels and artist-owned companies, enter into joint ventures with them, or contract with them for distribution.

In the future, the new majors will be the telcoms and the power brokers will be Google, Apple, Yahoo and Microsoft.

• What are the biggest mistakes that artists typically make when they try to market their own CDs?

Well, first off, just because you can produce a CD doesn’t mean that you should.

One of the biggest mistakes is not having built up enough of a market demand to sell to. Just because you build it doesn’t mean they will come. This often leaves the artist feeling defeated and demoralized. I recommend artists see their first recording as a promotional expense, where it’s essentially given away for free, in hopes of breaking new ground and creating some visibility for their name. This is one way you invest in your career.

Other mistakes I’ve seen:

• Music that’s not ready for prime time (sub-par production values),

• Leaving no funds for marketing the CD after production and manufacturing costs,

• Lack of a focused marketing plan — this is what Indie Marketing Power is designed to provide — the information and tools needed to put a solid promotion and marketing plan together.

• You go into a lot of details about generic marketing practices. How many of these skills do musicians really need to know?

• You mention that for a DIY musician/artist, finding a narrow niche can sometimes be a roadmap for success. Explain.

A market niche is a specialization within a market. For example, a studio musician in the L.A. area who primarily plays piano on country sessions, has created a personal niche.

Nashville’s Eric Stone took a love of music and boating and in 1999 turned it into boatsongs.com, music CDs and performances with a nautical theme. So far he’s played in four continents and sold over 250,000 CDs, and his audience continues to grow. He created a niche.

Singer/songwriter Ellen Bernfield and her composer/conductor friend Anne Bryant began singing lullabies to soothe and calm their new English springer spaniel puppies. Then their creative juices started flowing, and they decided to produce an entire album of music for dogs and the people who love them. Working out of Anne’s home where Ellen has a recording studio, they produced a CD and fully illustrated book called Songs for Dogs. In order to expand their business, however, they’ve needed to add other CDs to their line, so now the are creating CDs under the umbrella concept music for pet owners. Their next album is Songs for Cats and the People Who Love Them. They found a niche.

Your ideal niche will lie at the crossroads where your interests and assets intersect with opportunities you have to meet real-life needs around you. I have an exercise I’ve adapted in my book called "Matrixing" that helps musican/entrepreneurs get at what that niche is. I’ve also developed a whole workshop around this topic.

• You say in the book, "There's a huge opportunity for low-volume sales." Can you explain what you mean?

By low-volume I mean in contrast to the half million and up the majors are aiming for. Most CDs (both major label releases and indie) sell on avg. about 1100 units. That’s the market. That’s the benchmark, and if you go above that, then you’re having above average sales.

No doubt, if you’re going to sell physical CDs, then you’ll need to build a catalog, either through creating your own record company and signing artists, or by partnering up with other indie recording artists of the same genre. No single recording will float the boat.

Of course, when you ask this question in the context of digital downloads, you then have a truly global reach with your tracks. The net is facilitating the promotion and discovery of new and seldom heard music. This phenomenon shows consumers’ increasing power to bypass hyped-up hits and follow their own tastes. It also promises more financial support for artists working on the fringes.

This has been called, The ‘Long-Tail’ market.

As fast as Rhapsody adds tracks to its library, those songs find an audience, even if it's just a few people a month, somewhere in the country. This is the long tail.

Amazon offers 2.3 million books and 57% of these are ordered less than 12 times a year.

So, in a Long Tail market, the brands that matter most are the tastemakers. These are the filters you trust, who point you to the niche (or mainstream) stuff you wouldn’t have found on your own. And because you trust them, you’re willing to follow their recommendations, voyaging down the tail with confidence. In the Long Tail, great filters become brands.

As the music market segments, entire media cultures grow around each segment, providing channels for promotion.

• In addition to selling your CD at a gig or offering it for download from your site, what are some other ways for an artist to sell their music (for instance, you mentioned a route via instant messaging)?

I think it’s important to see it not so much as opportunities to sell CDs , but to build your value in your target market over time.