Survey Says…
Regular readers of this blog can easily list off some of the so-called game-changing moments in the distribution and enjoyment of music: the original Napster, the iTunes Music Store, mobile devices, Pandora and, most recently, Spotify.
But some of the biggest changes to the music industry haven’t been the most obvious ones.
Think about album sales. Twenty years ago, the album sales charts were based on the rough estimates from random store clerks who happened to pick up the phone when Billboard called every week. In 1991, SoundScan was installed in thousands of retail stores across the country. No longer a number pulled out of thin air, album sales were based on barcode scans and tied to register receipts. Data was collected by SoundScan and reported weekly. Since 1991, the music industry has had rich, reliable data about how many records were selling, and where.
So… you want to be in the music business? There are a lot of you out there. I know this because every time we put out a call for interns or jobs at Cyber PR®, we get over 100 resumes. As you know I love breaking things down into steps (see: http://www.MusicSuccessInNineWeeks). So, I wrote this guide for you. Once upon a time, I was just like you: dying to follow my passion and aggressively trying to land a job in the industry of my dreams. It was a humbling and, at times, humiliating exercise. So, this dear young aspiring music business mogul is for you. Interns are much needed in every facet of the industry, and most of my music industry friends (myself included) started out as unpaid interns back in their day and we leveraged our unpaid internships into paying jobs.
The Indie Maximum Exposure List is Ariel Hyatt’s manifesto on how indie musicians can realistically profit from Web 2.0 & social media. 
