How to Write a Bio that Doesn't Suck!

A bio can be a tough nut to crack for independent artists. So how do you write a good bio?

First of all, proper spelling and punctuation are imperative. Don’t have errors in your bio! Have other people proofread your bio, especially if this isn’t one of your strengths. (I’ve been guilty of spelling and grammatical errors plenty of times myself – just make sure you don’t let yourself off the hook too easily. Proofread. Care. It matters)

Structure your paragraphs in a way that’s easy to read. Be digestible. Giant paragraphs and run-on sentences are amateur and make your bio difficult to read – not what you want!

As for the content, there are many ways to approach it. Here’s one of them:

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Luck?

I’ve had a number of people say things to me like, “well that’s all great, but you’ve got to be lucky” and “sadly, it’s all about who you know”. Well, I think those statements are right… except that there’s nothing sad about it. You need to be lucky and you need to know people. The good news is that you create your own luck, and if you are who you need to become and you do the things you need to do, then you’ll meet all the people you need to know.

Have you ever known someone who always seemed to get in trouble and could never seem to get out of their own way? No matter how hard they seemed to try they seemed to be the victim of circumstances conspiring against them? Well…

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Does posting up flyers really get people to go to shows?

Remember the first time you ever put up flyers for a show? I’ll bet you were probably pretty excited.

I know I was. I felt that if we put up enough flyers that even if half of one percent of all the people who saw the flyer went to the show then we’d be pack the venue and be well on our way to being famous within a few months. So we posted flyers everywhere. Big ones. Eye catching flyers that everyone would take notice of. How could it not work?! We were going to be huge.

So what happened? All our friends showed up for the first couple of shows and we had a great time. So we kept putting up flyers. More, bigger, better etc. After a while we realized that we weren’t getting anyone coming to our shows from our flyers, so we started to lose interest in putting them up. There were conflicting opinions as to whether or not they served any purpose. We never really got the whole thing worked out.

So what’s the deal? Do flyers work or not?

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5 Online Marketing Essentials for Musicians

With so much noise and confusion in the world of online marketing I thought it might be useful to lay out some basic starting points to form the foundation of a successful campaign. Here are 5 things that, in my opinion, are essential to maximum online exposure.

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