At the beginning of a career for a modern artist, the question is where to start and in which direction to move. Uncertainty, and sometimes confusion, inhibits the process of developing a musician as an artist and building a business around their creativity. And this is where the DIY Guide offered by Chris Cook can be useful for emerging artists.

According to this guide, the career of an average musician tentatively consists of three phases – DIY phase, business phase and phase of fortune and fame.

Obviously, the artist has to do everything on his own for a certain time until the moment when the music industry in a wide sense is involved in the development of their business. The DIY phase, which occupies approximately the first third of a musician’s entire career path, begins with songwriting and self-organization of performances. It also covers the process of forming a fan base through social networks, releasing music and DIY-distribution, self-search for collective societies, concert venues, and finally receiving the first income.

At the beginning of the business phase, the Artist manager appears. They free the artist from a large amount of organizational work. Actually, the business phase is the second third of the development of the music business. The distributor brings new specific services, takes the business to a higher level. Other business partners of the music industry are involved – booking agents, promoters, lawyers, accountants, labels, merchandisers and publishers. In general, this phase is characterized by the stage when the artist devotes all his working time to the music business and receives a sufficient income for living. Although the majority of quite successful artists are in this phase cons tantly, the logical continuation of a musician’s career is the transition to the next period – the phase of fortune and fame. The highest-paid and world-renowned artists who are at the peak of their popularity reach the top of their music business during this phase.

If we go back to the DIY phase, it can be considered as a continuous DIY artist circle, which repeats itself with each new song: creative stage (writing, performing, producing) – building a fan base (content, collaborations, social media) – releases (distribution, marketing, live activity) – business (platforms, revenues, platforms). With each new cycle, the artist’s fanbase expands, the number of platforms on which songs are posted and, accordingly, income are increasing. The key points at this stage are the creation of collaborations with other artists, which lead to the exchange of audiences, as well as the formation of a team and building the music business networking. It is crucial to understand the role of each team member, look for expert advice, support your community, and stay in touch with key figures.

• At the end, some tips from Chris Cook:To build a marketing strategy in the DIY phase, you need to choose the right social media (Insta, TikTok, Twitter, FB) and digital channels (Youtube, Soundcloud, Discord, Twitch).
• Creating unique content outside of music will contribute to the growth of the fan base and audience loyalty.
• It is extremely useful to use such marketing and direct-to-fun (D2F) channels as social ads, smart links, creator tools, D2F store, membership, donation and digital gifting.
• The DIY distributors (DistroKid, TuneCore, AWAL, EmuBands) and streaming service artist portals at Youtube Music, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer usually also offer some useful marketing and data tools

*Сreated based on the materials of the lecture by Chris Cooke