Deirdre Breakenridge Reviews Music Success in Nine Weeks

Recently, I met Ariel Hyatt in New York City.  Ariel is the author of Music Success in Nine Weeks.  I know Ariel as @cyberpr and @cyberprcontest on Twitter.  She has over 15 years of PR experience with an extensive background in the music industry.  I was really excited to get a copy of her book because I knew it would be such a great fit for my MusicQuench blog.

Music Success in Nine Weeks is a really quick read (one of my favorite kinds of books).  It’s the type of book you can pick up on a Saturday morning and be done by Sunday night.  Even better, after you read it once, you can go back and use it over and over again as a guide moving forward.

After reading Music Success in Nine Weeks, I walked away energized at all of the tremendous possibilities for independent music artists.  If there’s one thing that stands out in my mind, it’s that you shouldn’t do anything until you know who you are, what your music is about and what you want to achieve in your career.  As a matter of fact, the first week of the book is devoted to nailing down your goals.  I’m a firm believer that you need to set your goals and I agree with Ariel that you must write them down.  She reinforces this many times and even leaves space in the book for you to list out your successes, visualize your music career goals over a 12 month period, and put your inner goals on paper.

This is a “get off your butt and do something for your career” type of book. Ariel says a few times that you should get a journal ASAP.  I think this book can be your journal.  Each week allows you to take notes.  After goal setting, some of my favorite weeks include: how to nail your pitch, optimizing your website, and a musician’s Web 2.0 guide.  Ariel does a fantastic job informing readers how to reach and maximize their relationships with bloggers.  I mentioned in my last post that I would discuss the best approach to reaching out to bloggers.  Ariel does a great job here because she’s a blogger and she knows that it’s imperative to connect with bloggers the right way.  Here are a few of her tips:

Listen first in the different communities

• Find the bloggers that you want to connect with and read their posts
• Comment on different blogs and get involved in the conversation (use a sig file identifying yourself so they know where to find you online)
• Start your own blog and trackback to your favorite bloggers
• Add bloggers to your blog roll
• Hire a PR firm to help with blog placements
• Attend conferences and meet with bloggers in person

Ariel is thorough and she’ll make you want to get moving to increase the number of names on your mailing list (she teaches you how to build your fan base) and get your PR program jumpstarted.  From news releases to developing parts of your media kit it’s detailed in this helpful guide.

If you’re a go-getter and really serious about your music career, then this book will either reinforce what you’re doing and give you even more useful tips, or get you on the right track. If you follow Ariel’s advice, I believe you will find music success in nine weeks.

You can check out Ariel’s book at http://www.cyberprbook.com.  If you buy the book, you get a free lifetime membership to her Online Mastermind Forum where you can receive coaching from Ariel and her staff, as well as connect with other like-minded artists.

Good luck!