Ready to start touring? I've created a FREE guide called "How to Book a DIY Tour in 14 Steps: The Essential Guide for Musicians". In this Free PDF download, you'll learn how to....
Book great shows even if it's your first time touring Leverage local music scenes for ideal audience cross over *Plus I'll share my "on-a-platter" booking method (works GREAT for bands that don't have a huge following...yet)
Grab the free guide at julialucille.com/guide
Today I’m answering another question on the podcast:
“When you’re booking a show, how can you guarantee that the bands you book will have a draw? Do you require that they bring so many people to the gig when you reach out to them? Here many venues here will ask about your draw before booking you.”
To answer this question about whether you can guarantee that the bands you book will have a draw–you can't! I know some venues will ask for that kind of information, but if they're doing their jobs right, they really shouldn't be putting that on your shoulders. They should be promoting the show and running a solid enough business that THEY attract people to your show. It's really bad form when a venue puts that kind of pressure on musicians.
I would definitely recommend you try and find venues to play in that don't ask for your draw. There are venues out there that support artists and want to help create great shows, and, unfortunately, there are those out there that just want to make a buck.
I also wouldn't ask other musicians what their draw is. But I WOULD encourage them to promote the show leading up to it and send them a couple of reminders to do that.
The best way to create the best possibility of a good crowd is to focus on choosing the right bands to play with (something I teach in my course How to Book a Great Show in a New City and Book Your First Tour.) Their style of music is more important than their draw. Collectively, if you can build a bill of bands that fit well together musically (and of bands that already know each other, play together regularly, and are familiar with the venue you're booking the show in), it's very likely you'll have a good draw.
If you can find a group of bands that play together regularly and match up with your style of music well, that's your gold mine. (You can usually find active music scenes like this by looking at local show calendars over the past few months and seeing which combinations of bands seem to keep playing together.) Typically, these kinds of active, local music scenes have a built in crowd, usually made up of the various bands' friends and friends of friends.
All in all, remember that the most important thing is to find other musicians and people who will value your set, and enjoy meeting you and listening to your music. Whether the crowd is big or small, if the night is meaningful and you're making great connections with musicians and new listeners, that's what matters most. When you string together a bunch of nights like this, you'll start to see traction. And this will build your own unique draw as well.
This is about having a people-and-art-centered approach. Very different from venues pressuring you to just get bodies in the door. Night and day, really!
And of course, this is just one way to get your music out there. There are lots of different approaches you can take.
XO,
Julia Lucille
“Keep checking with yourself and make sure that you’re having fun and a meaningful experience. If you like it, keep going.” –Adelyn Rose
Today on the podcast I’m interviewing super-talented songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Adelyn Rose. Besides creating albums under her own name, she also tours internationally with bands Tomberlin and Humbird.
We cover:
“It feels like a very rich experience. There’s a lot of potential to just figure out who I am musically, and I guess that is the real goal.” –Adelyn Rose
Enjoy the interview!
XO, Julia Lucille
P.S. I’m giving away a free copy of Chthonic on vinyl (plus free shipping)! Enter to win now at julialucille.com/giveaway.
Meet yourself where you are now: At the venues where your current shows are booked, with the audiences that are in attendance, and with your music as it currently exists now. It doesn’t matter whether your “now” is open mic nights or SXSW.
Lots of musicians at the beginning of their performance journey have the attitude of, “These shows that I’m playing now, they aren’t that great. So I’m not inspired to give it my all just yet. But once I get that great show opportunity I’ve been dreaming of, THEN I’ll really try to put on a great performance and it will be awesome.”
What most musicians don’t understand is that less than ideal shows are your performance bootcamp. And if you don’t dismiss them, but instead harness them to hone your performance abilities, they will get you in incredible performance shape for the ideal shows of your future.
Every show is an opportunity to become a better performer. You can use each and every show experience to practice something important and develop yourself as an artist.
And when you do step into those show experiences where everything is coming together–the audience is great, the venue is great, you’re playing off of the audience’s energy and you’re achieving a laser focus that’s elevating the experience of everyone around you–when you pair that with the hard-won skills you’ve built at some of your more modest shows–THIS is when you start to have explosive shows that change how you experience yourself as an artist.
XO, Julia Lucille
Buy How Performing Works here: https://www.julialucille.com/store/How-Performing-Works-by-Julia-Lucille-Paperback-p432474187
Today on the Living as a Musician Podcast I’m talking to my dear friend singer songwriter and sound designer Karima Walker.
In today’s interview we talk about
We also talk about...
“What you pay attention to, what resonates with you, and what you’re interested in–that is often telling you something about yourself just as much as it’s telling you something about what you’re seeing out in the world. Those resonances are things that are alive in you that if you want you can cultivate and you can create space for–simply by spending more time in them.” –Karima Walker
Listen to the episode “Interview with Singer Songwriter and Sound Designer Karima Walker” now!
Enjoy the show!
Julia Lucille
P.S. Have you ever thought of creating videos or projections to accompany your work? Here’s Karima’s best advice for you: “Notice what you enjoy and push into that with none of the guilt or shame. And then trust that what you’re noticing is a form of composition. What you’re drawn to is you shaping your world in a way that your brain and your eyes and your mind are creating in real time.”
Your Artistic Lifecycle: A Free Workshop julialucille.com/lifecycle
In this workshop we're going to unpack the artist's lifecycle, from birth to death. From childhood, to the artistic initiation phase, training, and finally into domain manipulation, creating your body of work and submitting it to the greater culture in the hopes of making a meaningful cultural contribution. Along the way we'll tackle what makes a person a "real artist" (the answer might surprise you) and how artists who succeed in making a cultural contribution live their lives out.
Once you have a roadmap...
1) You know where you are on it
2) You have clarity about what to focus on right now
3) You know where you're headed next
Ready to get started? Get access to the free workshop at julialucille.com/lifecycle
Today we’re talking about something that keeps a lot of artists up at night. And that’s the question of sharing their work with other people.
Do you HAVE to share your work with other people? Is it okay to keep your art and your artistic life private? And which is better?
If you choose NOT to share your work with the world, is it still real art? Or do you need to have a dialogue going with the greater subculture to qualify as a true artist?
We’re going to be unpacking all that and more in today’s episode of the Living as a Musician Podcast, “Do You HAVE to Share Your Art?”.
In this episode I’ll cover
XO,
Julia Lucille
P.S. Have you checked out my FREE workshop, “Your Artistic Lifecycle”? In this workshop we unpack the artist's lifecycle, from birth to death–from childhood, to the artistic initiation phase, training, and finally into domain manipulation, creating your body of work and submitting it to the greater culture in the hopes of making a meaningful cultural contribution. Along the way we'll tackle what makes a person a "real artist" (the answer might surprise you) and how artists who succeed in making a cultural contribution live their lives out. Once you have a roadmap… 1) You know where you are on it. 2) You have clarity about what to focus on right now. 3) You know where you're headed next. Ready to get started? Go to julialucille.com/lifecycle.
“As a songwriter, there’s an immersive moment where the words are flowing and piece together in the melody. That process makes me feel more aligned to my true self.” -Sara Noelle in Lyrics as Poetry, Vol II
Today on the podcast I’m interviewing ambient folk musician Sara Noelle, who’s also the creator of the beloved music journal Lyrics as Poetry.
In this episode we take a deep dive into all things art, including…
At the end of our talk, I asked Sara to give us her best advice for creatives wanting to create great work and put it out there. She said this:
“With music, and with everything, just try to release that judgment on yourself, and view your work and yourself through a lens of compassion. Focus on what you can control, which is making the work and putting it out there, and trying to be honest, and real, and meaningful. And if you do that, people will resonate with it.” -Sara Noelle
Listen to the episode “Interview with Ambient Folk Musician Sara Noelle of Lyrics as Poetry” now! 💫
XO,
Julia Lucille
Can only artists who are on really big labels tour?
In this episode we’re going to be debunking this common misconception about touring. Spoiler alert: My best advice is this: Don’t wait to tour!
You can tour while you’re still in the process of building your business as an artist. And in fact, touring is a really great outreach mechanism. It can give you a big boost in exposure.
Why should you tour?
Besides the more practical, career-related benefits of touring, a lot of musicians start touring for artistic reasons. You might dream and long to have the experience of touring as an artist. You might want to have that real-life experience of playing night after night, traveling, and being with friends. (Artistic reasons to tour are the best motivators in my experience.)
Touring also makes you a better performer. Touring is basically performance bootcamp. When you perform every night for 45 days in a row, you can’t help but strengthen your performance.
There are lots of great reasons to tour.
Everyone has different reasons why they want to go on tour and what they’re hoping touring will achieve. If you know you’re ready to start touring, today’s episode is for you. We’re going to be talking about how to book a great tour even if you’re a new artist.
Ready to get your touring journey started? Listen to “How to Book a Great Tour (Even as a New Artist)” now!
Listen to the Episode
XO,
Julia Lucille
P.S. Want access to my mini course Making a Cultural Contribution? It’s all about the co-learning, co-helping process of creative community and why that’s so, so important.
(By the way, touring is a great way to build out your artistic network—arguably the BEST way to build that out.)
Join Vision, my online membership for musicians, to start taking the mini course Making a Cultural Contribution now. (Vision also includes my online course Book Your First Tour as well!)
Learn More
Do you struggle with not knowing what to put in your music membership site?
Today we’re going to talk about 5 content ideas for your music membership site to…
I think you’ll find that using some (or all) of these in combination will help you create an inexhaustible stream of content for your site (without the overwhelm).
After you listen to this episode, you’ll never again wonder “what in the world” to add to your membership site!
I’ll go over…
Ready to dive in?
Listen to “Creating Consistent Content for Your Membership Site” now!
Today I want to talk about vanity metrics.
What are vanity metrics? They’re things like the number of Facebook followers, Instagram followers, or Spotify followers/plays you have.
Here’s the thing: VANITY METRICS DON’T MATTER.
Too often people conflate running a business as an artist with a lot of attention and focus on these vanity metrics. It DRIVES ME CRAZY when I see music business trainings called things like “How to Get More Spotify Followers” or “How to Get on More Spotify Playlists.”
Because they’re perpetuating the myth that “If I have a really high social media following, THAT builds my business.”
In this week’s podcast episode, “Why Facebook LIkes, Spotify Follows, and Instagram Follows Don’t Matter (And What to Focus on Instead)”, I want to unpack this myth, talk about business as a whole, and share HOW BEST to fit these social media sites into your artistic business model (without losing your sanity).
Because the fact is, building up these vanity metrics—having higher and higher Facebook likes, Instagram likes and Spotify follows—DOESN’T replace building a business.
And by the way…
You can have a really high follower count and have a business that isn’t doing well.
…And…
You can have a really successful business that has a really small social media following.
And that’s the really important thing to understand: Having a successful business and having a high social media follower count are not necessarily correlated.
If you REALLY want to build a successful business as a creative, it’s important to choose metrics to focus on that actually move your business forward.
This isn’t always easy. It can take effort to resist vanity metrics sometimes.
They’re SO SHINY…
They’re so very tempting!
You may get a hit when you get more followers. It can make you feel great when you get more likes.
But you have to ask yourself, are you building popularity just for popularity’s sake? Or are you truly building a business that’s going to support you in making more art that’s meaningful to you, and creating a true cultural impact on the world during your lifetime?
Confusing those two things—thinking that you are making a cultural impact by building followers—is ultimately a trap. (A trap that can FEEL like eating a whole box of cookies. 😛🍪🍪🍪 But still...a trap.)
In this NEW podcast episode, I’ll cover...
Listen to the episode “Why Facebook Likes, Spotify Follows and Instagram Follows Don’t Matter (And What to Focus on Instead)” now!
I want to talk a little bit more about one of my favorite topics—membership sites for musicians. If you ask me, behind-the-scenes artist-created music membership sites are a no-brainer if you’re looking to increase your income.
Today I’m sharing some quick tech tips for starting a music membership site. We’re going to talk specifically about six practical tips to get your membership up and running quickly (without sacrificing user experience or good design).
If you’re ready to start your music membership site and start creating recurring revenue for your music business, this episode will also help you avoid some common pitfalls people make when starting a membership.
Ready to get started?
Listen to the episode “6 Tech Tips for Starting Your Music Membership Site” now!
Let’s stop lying about how things are “perfect” and start telling REAL stories about what it’s REALLY like to be an artist. Are you in? Today on the show I’m getting personal. I’m sharing my story of how I became a musician.
It’s not the one you put in your bio. It’s not the one where everything looks really shiny and perfect. It’s not the one with only the highlight reel.
When I hear an artist’s story, I want to hear the WHOLE story. (I’m very suspicious of “perfect” stories. Mostly because I’ve never actually seen one in real life. 💁)
I want to know what the beginning was like. How did they become an artist? What were the events that led up to it?
I find that no matter what kind of artist it is, if I can hear the real, true story—the gritty story, with all the flaws, the difficulties, the wins and the losses, and the highs and the lows—I always learn something.
Sometimes it helps me understand my own story better.
Or it helps me feel more understood, because maybe I went through some similar hell-fires.
The more honest the story is, the better.
Because when you hear a perfect, perfect story about how someone came to be an artist and how their career unfolded, that can feel so incredibly unattainable.
And that’s because it is!
Because that’s not ever really how it happens (even if a story is crafted that way looking back).
What actually happened is often a lot more interesting than that.
Every artist’s TRUE story will have elements of struggle. And I think it’s important for young people in particular—who are maybe just trying to figure out who they are, where they’re going, and what they’re doing—to know that.
To know that it doesn’t need to look and be perfect to have it be meaningful. And to know that it can go somewhere, even from very humble beginnings.
So I’m a big fan of honest story-telling when it comes to the arts. I think those stories HELP. They help humanize all of us. And they help us understand ourselves and our place in the arts a little better.
The more we can resist the urge to polish—to make it look like everything happened super methodically—the better it is for all of us.
Want to hear MY unvarnished, unpolished, mistakes-missteps-and-all story? Listen to the episode now!
Let’s go over some basic principles in design that will help you design your own posters and album covers. These principles are easy to grasp and give you the potential to put your aesthetic stamp on your own visuals—a very powerful thing.
As Prof G says in his book You Are a Message, "You are not just selling a product, a service, or an experience. You are creating a world, a space of freedom for others.
Here are 4 design tips every creative should know:
Organize the information. What’s most important? Group similar information together. Create space between relevant groupings of information.
Alignment - line up your lines, including imaginary ones
Contrast - do something bold. Play around with how you make things stand out - font, color, placement, size
Repetition - Repeat elements throughout your design like fonts, colors and sizes.
Listen to the episode “Be Your Own Graphic Designer! 4 Secrets of Design for Non-Designers” now to learn how to create your own stunning designs!
Julia Lucille
julialucille.com
Photos are a really important way for people to be introduced to who you are as an artist.
Your personal aesthetic, whether you realize it or not, is often shining through in how you dress and how you cut your hair, and what kinds of clothes you choose to wear.
A great photo of you will give people some really good clues about whether they might enjoy listening to your music.
I’ve had some great photo shoots over the years with some really talented photographers (shout out to Eric Morales, Valerie Chiang and Emily Cross), and I’ve learned from working with them that the photoshoot is its own creative experience.
The more you can dive in and get into the vibe of the moment of working with another artist (the photographer)—the better it will go.
In today’s podcast episode, I have 6 photoshoot tips for musicians. We’ll be going over how best to prep for a photo shoot.
Listen to the podcast episode “6 Photoshoot Tips for Musicians” now!
Enjoy the episode!
Julia Lucille
P.S. Ready to start touring?
I've created a FREE guide called "How to Book a DIY Tour in 14 Steps: The Essential Guide for Musicians".
In this Free PDF download, you'll learn how to....
Grab the free guide at julialucille.com/guide
Ready to start touring? I've created a FREE guide called "How to Book a DIY Tour in 14 Steps: The Essential Guide for Musicians". In this Free PDF download, you'll learn how to....
Grab the free guide at julialucille.com/guide
No one really feels ready for their first tour. I find when talking to people about their first tours that it’s universally, absolutely terrifying.
But the thing to remember is it won’t kill you, and once you learn how to do it, it’s incredibly exhilarating to go on your first tour.
On the artistic journey there can be a lot of questions about permission, or wondering if you need to do this first before that.
Unfortunately there’s not a lot of information out there about how the indie music world works.
And that’s something that I’m trying to change, through creating courses (I just launched Music Dept 🎉), through writing blog posts & making podcasts about how the indie music world works.
One of the first things I realized that I wanted to teach was touring. I’ve booked so many tours and have a lot of experience touring.
But I also know that a lot of people haven’t cracked the code of how you go about it—yet.
I really want to change that. I want everybody to have the opportunity to tour—if they want to.
It’s not about permission.
It’s not about waiting until your career looks a certain way before you tour.
It’s really about having the information about how the booking process works, and then leveraging what you have to work with now.
I promise you, if you have even three songs up online (+ energy and focus and commitment) you have everything you need to book a tour.
P.S. I include some tips & suggestions for touring during Covid in this podcast episode.
Marketing, done well, should be uniquely YOU. And if marketing your artistic work isn’t exciting to you—if it isn’t a grand adventure full of expression, play and revolutionary thoughts, ideas, images, and multimedia, then you simply haven’t mastered it yet.
I’m guessing you don’t have this problem with your music. I’m guessing you take a lot of care, and spend a great deal of time making it as transcendent and real as possible.
Through your music, I’m guessing you express things that matter to you, you express your worldview, and you carefully craft an experience for others to enjoy.
And as an artist, you can also be doing that with your marketing. (And it will generate the most effective marketing possible.)
The flow from your products to your marketing can be seamless and natural. And the writing portion of your marketing (with practice) can become another powerful extension of your self-expression as an artist.
I believe that the more musicians realize this, the more they’re going to discover that they have the potential to be really good at marketing.
Because marketing is highly creative.
It involves all kinds of mediums (if you want). It can include writing, video, audio, and images. And all of those mediums are ripe for you putting your particular mark on them. Which is what building a brand is all about.
In today’s episode, I want to share 6 writing & posting tips that will help you start to get into a creative marketing mindset.
These are really simple tips that don’t take a lot of time to learn, but once you apply them, you’re going to find that you’ll have more confidence in your writing.
In this episode I cover:
Listen to the episode now!
Julia Lucille
P.S. I dare you (throwing my glove down) to do a direct call to action this week! Ask for a sale. Ask people to buy. Make sure you tell them where they can do it and why they should. And watch what happens...
Membership sites present a HUGE financial opportunity for musicians. But are we making the most of it? Memberships are ubiquitous & catching on like wildfire for a reason in the business world in general. And that’s because they work.
They create regular, sustainable income for entrepreneurs.
So what do musicians need to know about creating & leveraging a membership site?
In this episode I’ll cover...
Have you ever thought of starting a membership site?
What makes you unique as a person & an artist, and how could you integrate that into YOUR unique membership offering?
Love,
Julia Lucille
julialucille.com
P.S. Want to see an example of a musician membership site? My membership site is called RosyDarkOceanic (rosydarkoceanic.com). I post all kinds of behind the scenes content, including a video blog that I update with what’s going on, what I’m working on, how I run my own business, what I struggle with, my celebrations and wins. I really lay it all out there (while keeping some important, pre-determined personal boundaries).
As artists we can’t really turn to anyone to ask “what’s next?” because we’re always blazing a new path. WE don’t know where you’re going, because you’re doing something wholly new. The world has never seen whatever it is that you’re cooking up for us next. And sometimes YOU don’t know where it’s going yourself. […]
Julia Lucille here. Creating things, at times, makes me feel so exquisitely vulnerable, it makes me feel weak. This week in particular I felt like I was in a fog. Many of us get trapped in the mire of vulnerability for longer than we’d like. If you’re making things and engaging your whole heart, this […]
Early on when I was interested in recording some of my music, going into a studio was a really big dream for me. So I did a quick Google search, and really the first one I found that was available and cheap–I just thought, let’s go with that. And what I learned from that experience is really that it’s not that simple. Going into the studio isn’t just about going in, pressing record, and putting down exactly what you play live and calling it a day. Going into a studio is really its own creative process. The way your songs are recorded, the way the engineer uses microphones, the kinds of microphones they use, the kinds of aesthetics that the producers like and that they think sounds good, and then finally the way that someone mixes your record, the way someone masters it–this is all going to affect how well you like your record. Today I have three tips for finding a studio. Let’s dive in!
Ready to start touring? I've created a FREE guide called "How to Book a DIY Tour in 14 Steps: The Essential Guide for Musicians". In this Free PDF download, you'll learn how to....
*Book great shows even if it's your first time touring
*Leverage local music scenes for ideal audience cross over
*Plus I'll share my "on-a-platter" booking method (works GREAT for bands that don't have a huge following...yet)
Grab the free guide at julialucille.com/guide
What happens psychologically between the performer and audience during a show? We’ll go over a simple shift/mental trick that will help you give your BEST performances yet. Learn what can demotivate and deflate you onstage – and how to avoid it. If you’re interested in what GREAT performers do differently, this episode is for you…
Ready to start touring? I've created a FREE guide called "How to Book a DIY Tour in 14 Steps: The Essential Guide for Musicians".
In this Free PDF download, you'll learn how to....
Grab the free guide at julialucille.com/guide
Learn how to optimize the creation of your Body of Work by building an understanding of the 5 stages of the creative cycle: Preparation, Incubation, Insight, Evaluation, & Elaboration. We’ll go over how to put your work out there by making goals, taking responsibility, and knowing what you can and can’t control. Then leverage the […]