Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook: 201 Self-Promotion Ideas for Songwriters, Musicians and Bands on a Budget

by Bob Baker

The classic guide to independent music promotion -- now revised and updated! With this manual, you'll discover that music marketing doesn't have to be expensive or flashy to be effective. Whether you're promoting a fast-growing indie band, record label or solo act from your basement, the "Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook" gives you the tools you need to get the most out of your music career. Within these pages you'll - Dozens of simple, high-impact ways to promote yourself, your band or your new release - Tips on how to double your music sales (in 90 days or less) - 25 ways to finance your next recording project, music video or major equipment purchase - The 29 most important elements in creating sizzling music publicity materials. Don't create great music in the dark. Get the "Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook" today. It's already helped thousands of artists get more exposure and generate more gigs and CD sales. Now it's your turn to soak up these ideas and put them to work for you.

Genres: Music

179 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2001

About the author

I help musicians, authors and creative entrepreneurs use their talents and know-how to make a living and make a difference in the world!

Here's the official bio:

Bob Baker is a full-time author who has developed a successful niche writing and speaking about music marketing and self-promotion for songwriters, musicians, and bands. He served six terms as president of the St. Louis Publishers Association and is an advocate for the self-publishing movement.

He is the author of the highly acclaimed "Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook" (which appeared in the movie "The School of Rock," starring Jack Black). He also created the "Music Marketing 101" course, which ran for five years at Berklee Online, the continuing education division of Berklee College of Music in Boston.

CD Baby called him "The Godfather of Independent Music Marketing." According to the Salt Lake Tribune, "Bob Baker is one of the most widely recognized authorities on music marketing. A prolific writer, Baker is regarded as one of the industry's leaders in helping musicians leverage online web and marketing strategies to boost their careers."

He has appeared in the media on NPR's "Morning Edition" and in such publications as Electronic Musician, Music Connection, The Guardian, Canadian Musician, VIBE magazine, E! Online, and even The Onion!

Bob's other titles include "55 Ways to Promote & Sell Your Book on the Internet," "Guerrilla Music Marketing Online," "Unleash the Artist Within," and more.

Check out Bob's free ezine, blog, podcast, video clips and articles at http://www.TheBuzzFactor.com, http://www.FullTimeAuthor.com and http://www.DIYcareerManifesto.com.

Bob is also a seasoned guitarist/singer/songwriter. He is Music Director of the Gateway to Agape Choir in St. Louis and part of the duo Soul Massage with Pooki Lee. For details on Bob's music, visit http://www.SoulMassageMusic.com/ and http://www.GatewayToAgape.com/

Reviews

[André La Crout · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was tempted to give 3 stars because there was JUST enough useful information in here to motivate me to check out the author’s other works, as this one is part of a series…

But when less than 40% of the book is actually useful, 2 stars out of 5 is statistically generous… And it’s really maybe 10-20% of the book at best that’s actually useful.

Some of this was good confirmation bias for me — have a website as a central hub for your marketing that all other marketing channels lead back to, especially social media and email campaigns. This is the marketing advice I give to everyone, so yay for me that I can point to other “experts” saying it too.

But outside of a few nuggets I haven’t thought of before, most of this book is fluff.

There’s one section about “raising money for your next project” with a list of “ideas” and the ideas are literally things like setting aside a portion of your paycheck or asking your family for help… Stuff that technically are “ideas for raising money,” but are so stupidly obvious their only purpose is to add pages to the book. Add enough pages to the book with useless fluff and it becomes easier to justify charging money for it — readers don’t have to know that so few of those pages contain actual substance (until it’s too late).

The fact I feel motivated to check out his other books knowing that they’ll just be more 80-90% fluff surrounding the info I want is further proof Bob Baker has a nice little grift going for him here. Perhaps that’s the real lesson in marketing.

[Robert Poortinga · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives lots of great advice for the indie musician. Maybe some things are not for you but other will be, it all depends on the type of music and what you are comfortable with with yourself in doing. There are loads of ideas and explanations which make sense.

A book I would definitely recommend.

[Bodzsár Tamás · Rating 1 out of 5]

First of all there is nothing "guerrilla" in this book. nothing. Most of them are common knowledge. I guess the guy never had a music carrier. Some of the advice was like: "how to make more money? answer: "sell CDs". Well, thank you! What a genious idea! wtf?