A couple years ago, I did a post on How Not to Get Airplay on Folk Radio. It was a good post, as far as it went, and I thought it worth revisiting.
I got the following email (name removed)
Hello,
I am curious as to whether or not you would be interested in doing a review or adding my new album to your playlist. You can access my music through the following sites and I would be more than happy to send you a copy of the cd.Look forward to hearing from you.
Seems very straightforward and polite, right? Polite, yes. Effective, no. I will not visit this artist’s cdbaby site. I will not visit this artist’s myspace page and I will not go to this artist’s website. Am I some kind of monster? I think not.
The first rule for getting airplay on folk radio is to follow the submission guidelines of each station (see article above). My submission guidelines can be found here and here. On both of those pages, I have this text:
Don’t send me an email invitation to visit your website and listen to your music. I barely have enough time to preview the physical disks I receive as well as the other audio files I’ve been asked to download. If you send me a direct link to files to download, then I can download them and listen at my convenience. Honestly, I will forget to visit your website, but I will click on a link to download an mp3 directly.
Bottom line – I don’t have time to visit the myspace or cdbaby website of everyone who asks, especially if you ask in such a way that gives me no compelling reason to do so. I have a limited time to spend previewing music, and I state upfront that I owe that time to people who send me disks and who follow my instructions. For more information on what artists do wrong (and, conversely, what you can do right), please see the article linked above, and if you’re seriously interested in airplay on Festival Radio, please follow my instructions. I have plenty of music to play – I can always throw on another Woody Guthrie tune.
