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They are always pestered by musicians. They will lead you to the good press contacts. Be the one that gets through the message system and scores the date. Make the call yourself, don't have an agent do it for you if you aren't at that level yet. Even if you had one good gig at a venue don't expect them to ask you back. They have seven nights a week to fill and lot's of acts to deal with. Call them, and call them again.

Staying in touch with fans and venue owners/bookers is the key to building a good fan base. If you are producing good material and putting it out there everything else will take care of itself. Don't expect anyone to come knocking at your door because you wrote a good song and played it at the open-mic night. The days of the talent scout walking into a club and discovering a new act are long gone. These days you must take care of the art and the business side of things yourself before the majors will even consider you for their roster. Even then you can be like Ani Difranco and turn the majors away when they come calling. If you have enough fans you can make a profit yourself and you won't need a record company-or at least you won't owe them most of the money you make.

Bottom-line: if you're having fun on-stage, then the audience is having fun. Or if you're crying during your ballad then the audience is crying. The trick is, you want to be them and they want to be you. If you can create this sort of special magic on-stage then you are doing it for all the right reasons and your fan base will continue to grow.

Learn more about this author, Blake Guthrie.
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