As beautiful as the independent music industry can be, you can also have a nightmarish experience. While we’ve seen indie musicians go viral with success stories, there are also those we’ve seen make mistakes that went on to sabotage their indie music career even before it starts.
If you find it challenging to get into the limelight with no traction and zero audience growth, you need to do a bit of self-reflection. Reason being that you could be sabotaging your efforts unknowingly. In this piece, we’ll be discussing possible ways you might have derailed and how to get back on track.
1. Nursing Fear of Failing, Going Broke, Being Screwed by Others, and of Success
By living in a constant state of fear, you are doing an excellent job at sabotaging your independent music career. We’ve seen thousands of people who exercise anxiety restraining them from starting and succeeding in their independent music career.
The thought of not making enough money to make ends meet also inhibits most indie artists from achieving success. Don’t let it register in your head that you can never make good money as an independent artist. With streaming platforms like Disctopia, you can take charge of your financial freedom.
Aside from this, you need to accept that you can record success as an indie artist. Neither will you have a story of how a music executive or streaming platform screwed you.
2. Putting Your Career in The Hands of Others
Once you let go of your power, your career is just a ticking time bomb. Never put other people in control of your independent music career. Once your success is not what you can control, it will be a big battle for you to be successful.
Right from the onset, you need to remind yourself of being in control at all times. Be ready to put in the work to be at the right place at the right time to have your big break.
To have value in the music industry, you must be seen in control.
3. Targeting The Wrong Audience
One other way you could be sabotaging your independent music career is running after the wrong audience. The media is only your way to success, only if you have an idea of what you are doing. Don’t leave yourself at the mercy of someone else; understand your audience and where to find them.
Targeting the wrong people is nothing but a waste of time and resources, both of which you don’t have in abundance. It would be best to be sure that the advertising medium you choose as an independent artist focused on your target audience.
At all costs, avoid advertising to the wrong people.
4. Comparing Your Pace With Successful Musicians
Please don’t get caught up with the success of other artists by modeling your success after them. While this may appear easy and logical, you’ll get burnout faster. You need to accept that success comes differently for everyone.
Know that behind every glamourous story being reeled out by successful artists, there are also waiting period stories. By digging deeper, you’ll discover that it might have taken them a long time and sacrifice to get to where they are currently.
You will be holding yourself back by trying to mirror yourself off what others are doing.
5. Not Being Prepared
Your hunger for success should be evident in your level of preparedness. Your ability to have a clear-cut goal will get you closer to success. The reason why many indie artists are yet to succeed is the lack of clear-cut goals.
More pronounced is the lack of preparedness for opportunities that appears without notice. Imagine an artist who gets to pitch a song to a mainstream blog or radio without a well-mixed song available.
Nursing a lackadaisical attitude to your independent music career will get you nowhere.
6. Failing to Network and Collaborate
You need to go all out to know the right people in the music industry. Without this, the climb to stardom will be slow and difficult. The music industry thrives on relationships; that’s why you need to stop sabotaging your career by being a lone wolf.
Take time out to network and seek collaboration; anything outside of this will be an aberration that will slow down your rise. Connect with people to build your organic fan base and seek positive friendships with musicians, DJs, and media figures.
Final Thoughts
Ensure that when opportunities come your way, you are not turning them into failure. That’s what an upcoming artist who was a headliner at a show did, telling her audience that the only way to support her is by buying her CD at the show.
In whatever you do, take charge of yourself as an artist. It’s too early for someone else to be managing you.
