You've been dabbling in music for years. You don’t have any delusions about getting rich or making it big—though that would definitely be cool. But it sure would be nice to get paid for a track, a lyric, a jingle, or even a ring tone for Heaven’s sake, every once in a great while. From online sales through retail giants like iTunes and Amazon, to selling self-produced music on DIY (and often free) websites offered up by services like Wix and WordPress, surely there’s a group of listeners somewhere who’d like your songs enough to part with, say, ninety-nine cents or so from time to time, right?  With 3.5 billion Google searches made every single day, even if only one in every million of them clicked the “buy” button on your website, that’s respectable number! 

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But alas… you posted your masterpiece on your website, then blasted your Facebook network and every contact list you have on all your devices and services asking them to check out your latest creation, and two weeks later you’ve had twenty two visits to your site, nine of them by you, a smiley face emoji text message from your best friend, and an “I love it!” from your mom.  Sound familiar?

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If so, don’t get discouraged. The candid reality is that there are just so many talented people making music available to the digitally connected world today, it’s probably a lot harder to get noticed than it is to create what you created in the first place.  As a result, there are tons of talented folks making beautiful art who are simply undiscovered by the larger world.

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If this situation describes you, think about exploiting the power of the internet to help find you audience through Undiscovered Talented Musicians of America, UTMA (or if you live outside the U.S., its international cousin, UTMI).  It costs nothing and, confers … well… almost nothing, other than a sense of being immediately recognizable as part of a larger community of talented artists who, like you, wants to help the world discover awesome, independently produced music.  Thanks to a cool line of VERY REASONABLY PRICED MERCH you can proudly display your status as part of that cohort! 

 

There are no shortage of websites, Facebook pages, snaps, tweets, and on and on where aspiring artists post their work in the hope that someone--anyone--will listen and provide a little feedback.  That's not the purpose of UTMA.  What independent music makers need is information about marketing strategies that work - that can help transform cash-strapped, part-time artists into people who generate at least some modest earnings doing something they love.

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So if you have had any success, however modest, actually getting anybody to purchase musical works you’ve posted for sale online and elsewhere, send an email describing what you did and how it worked using the form contact page, or just send an email to utma.utmi@gmail.com.  Helpful, verified submissions will be posted on the "Articles" page, so we can all benefit from winning strategies.

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