Trent Reznor recently posted this to his blog and I think he’s absolutely right on with most of his points! Everything he says makes sense to me… but speaking as an independent artist myself, I feel that his suggestions, as good as they are, are hugely time consuming. I spend an enormous amount of time (in my opinion TOO much time) in front of a computer.
Still, I suppose we’re lucky as independents to have sites like ReverbNation and BandCamp that can help lessen the amount of grunt work we have to do and can at least do some of what Reznor was talking about. Maybe this is simply the reality that artists have to deal with today — loads of computer work… On a side note, Derek Sivers (CD Baby founder) has started a new company (MuckWork) to deal with this exact issue. I hope he can make the company fly…
Jamie Bonk 