Derek Sivers Quotes

After you make good, quality music, then it's your job to go out there and promote it and to market it and to get it out there to the people.

There has never been any proper commitment to marketing these artists and their music. We are not Sony.

There's nothing remotely interesting to me about marketing music as a product.

The problem with working under an outside label is that your music never seems to reach the right people.

It's hard to get people at a record company to talk about music. They don't seem to want to talk about music, it's all marketing, and that's part of a record, you gotta get it out there, people have gotta hear it, but you could do it in a way that's not repulsive.

The hardest part about the music industry for anyone is getting into the ears of the world.

Any real record person knows that the number one most powerful marketing tool when it comes to music is repetition.

I just want to get my music out and make sure that it's heard in the right way.

With instrumental music, it is traditionally hard to get exposure.

As an artist, you make music. And if you see people who don't know how to market your music, you get involved in it. Otherwise, what you want to accomplish 'gets lost in translation' - no pun intended.

Being a part of exhibitions is not a burden; it's another way for an independent label such as mine to reach a larger audience by exposing them to my whole body of work.

We want our music to reach everybody, so we're using the Internet. Every kid today is online, and we want to make sure our songs reach every one of them.

I always wanted the world to hear my music, but I didn't know how I was gonna go about it.

This is a business built on promotion. We've been giving music away to radio stations for 30 years.

You know, if nobody knows who you are, nobody's going to buy your record.

It's really hard in this day and age, with radio and MTV being so consolidated, to get new music out there. I think we've become a really legitimate, viable avenue for getting new music out there.

When 'Hide Away' first started gaining a bit of momentum, I was visiting at least two radio stations per day - sometimes in different cities - to spread the word about the song. It was a hustle, but so worth it.

While working for Diplomat Records, I helped several artists with their online branding and social media. Once I left the label, I worked directly with artists and noticed many artists were overlooked and underrated if they weren't in 'XXL' or 'The Source.'

My music and my fan base is really built off of my lifestyle.

I don't really like meetings, I like recording and performing music. I need to set myself up for when the time does come that I need better distribution or just a bigger team behind me.

When you don't have a record label and you have been on your own as we have, you can look at all these other ways you can get in touch with other people and get music out there again.

Some artists and indie musicians see Spotify fairly positively - as a way of getting noticed, of getting your music out there where folks can hear it risk-free.

I was kind of going that route with my country music. Indie country. Which would work, if I was playing on Americana stages. Unless I had a television outlet like 'Glee'.

I found that when I was putting my own music out, with my Twitter feed as the pure marketing budget, I'm preaching to the choir.

I never do releases to try and make or break some contemporary band.