The Indie Bible Bundle

Since 1999 the Indie Bible has been publishing the most recognized and encompassing guide for the independent musician available. In the past I have purchased the Indie Bible in printed form, but now with the 18^th edition available as a digital only version, I decided to take the plunge and purchased the “Ultimate Bundle” to evaluate just how good this resource is. First, I was struck by the fact that for a few dollars more than what I use to pay for just the Indie Bible itself, the bundle gave me an additional 9 E-books and a 1 year subscription to the online Indie Bible, which would have once cost over $300 to purchase all for only $59.95. In addition, if you purchase the bundle you get the 19^th edition, which will be released later this year, FREE?!

You can listen to David Wimble the Publisher of the Indie Bible talk about how the Indie Bible came about and what it is … Below:

Making a Scene talks to David Wimble of the INDIE BIBLE by Richard Lhommedieu on Mixcloud

I also wanted to give you my review of what the indie bible bundle is and give you my opinion on what information is in it and how useful it is to you.

So, let’s first take a look at what you get with the Indie Bible Bundle:

1. The Indie Bible
2. The Indie Venue Bible – Canada
3. The Indie Venue Bible – Local Media Guide –US and Canada
4. The Indie Venue Bible – North Central US
5. The Indie Venue Bible – North East US
6. The Indie Venue Bible – North West US
7. The Indie Venue Bible – South Central US
8. The Indie Venue Bible – South East US
9. The Indie Venue Bible – South West US
10. The Indie Venue Bible -115 Articles on Touring and Playing live
11. 1 Year Subscription to the Indie Bible Online Database

That is 10 E-books of information to pour through plus the online database, but we will take each one and go through what is in them and how they can be used by you, the independent musician.

The Indie Bible – 18^th Edition.

This is the main publication that started it all. The Indie Bible is 1301 pages of information to help you to market and get your music heard. Now, I know what you are thinking, you have heard this all before. Lots of claims by people telling you how they can get your music heard, etc. Well the reality is there is no shortcut, there is no easy way out. If you are going to start marketing your music and getting it heard, the first thing you need to do is find out who and where you can send your music to, that will actually consider it for airplay, review, PR, or distribution. Mainstream radio and media really wants nothing to do with the independent market, but there are many college radio and smaller media outlets that are dedicated to supporting the independent music market. (Like my publication “Making a Scene” that you are reading now). The problem is how do you find them, and after you do find them, identify what kind of music they are interested in. This is where the Indie Bible comes in! Listed in the pages of this massive publication is 2500 Magazines and Music blogs that will review your music, 3100 radio stations that accept indie produced music for airplay consideration, 1100 Labels and distributors that you can approach to help sell your music, 1000 PR, Marketing and Management companies that specialize in the Indie music market and 400 web markets where you can upload your music and video’s. In addition there are 70 articles to help you use this information, such as “How to Submit your Music for Review” and “Getting Your Music into Film and TV” plus much more. Each of these articles is written by an industry professional with years of experience. Now, this is a daunting amount of information. But, what makes this such a useful resource is the fact that everything is divided up by genre and region! If you are a blues artist or hip hop artist who is looking to get their music reviewed in the US, you can go right to your genre, go to your region and get a list of publications that will accept submissions for your music. The way that this book is laid out makes it easy for a musician to find just what they need to do a DIY radio/PR campaign.

The Indie Bible Venue Guides

When you are booking yourself and you want to start working towards doing more regional/national tours, the first problem you have is finding venues that would consider booking the type of music you do. When Speaking with David in the above interview, one of the aspects of the “Venue Bibles” that struck me as being particularly important,  is the lengths that he goes to make sure that the information is up to date and as current as possible. Each of the venues listed (by state and city) have colored coded tags that represent the different genres that is booked by that venue. It makes it easy for you to find at a glance just what venues that might be interested in what you do musically. Next to each venue is a link to their website for you to gather the information you need to submit your band for booking consideration. Because it is a digital publication, all the links are clickable. This is a BIG time saver. You get 7 different guides covering 6 regions in the US and 1 for Canada.  This is invaluable as a starting point to building your own Touring booking database of venues.

The Indie Bible – Local Media Guide

When you are on tour, one of the important tasks of getting people to come to your show is doing local PR in advance of your show. Hiring a publicist to do tour support can be expensive and can quickly eat at your bottom line if you are just starting out. Remember, if you are starting out and touring an area that you don’t have a fan base, getting people excited about your show can be difficult. This E-book will give you radio stations and media outlets that may not be “Music related” per say, but will publish a story on a local event. If you have a good “Press Release” (See our article on “Writing a Press Release”), and a list of these media outlets available, you might just get one of them do a story on your show and get a few more people in the door. This is an amazing resource if you are out there touring.

115 Articles on Touring and Playing Live

Preparing and putting your band or yourself on the road as a touring musicians is more involved than you might think. If you don’t have a good base of knowledge on what it takes to become a touring musician, you can quickly become discouraged and lose a lot of time and money. While I was reviewing this E-Book, I was immediately struck by the wealth of information that is contained in this resource. Each article explains a very important aspect of being a touring musician, some obvious and most not so obvious. Starting with articles on the Venue/musician relationship or why it is important to play live, Preparing for a tour, how to deal with booking agents, how to book your own gigs, preparing contracts for your gigs, getting onto the college circuit, tips while on the road, promoting your tour, using local radio, getting sponsors for your tour, getting nontraditional venues, Tips on performing and merchandising your band. This is just a small sampling of the type of information you can find in this guide. The scope of information that is included in this E-Book is staggering. It’s like a jumpstart book on how to be a Touring musician.

The Indie Bible Online

Let’s face it, if you have spent any time in the music business you know that resources come and go. Sometimes really quickly! By the time you create a resource like the Indie Bible, some of the listings that were viable 10 months ago when it was put together could have changed, or are gone altogether and new ones take their place. This is why the online version of the Indie Bible  is so valuable. As resources are added or taken away, you can always be assured you have the latest information at your fingertips. To add to the usefulness of this resource, you can export any data results of your searches as CSV (Comma, Separated, Values) which can be imported directly into most contact databases and spreadsheets. Allowing you the opportunity to create your own tailored database. I cannot tell you how important this can be. But, you don’t have to take my word for it, you can try a free trial of the online indie bible by CLICKING HERE!

The Indie Contact Newsletter

Now without spending a dime you can still get some really great information by signing up for the “Indie Contact Newsletter”! Each month they give you a list of 25(or more) places you can use to promote your music or business that can be important to your music “Business”.  You can signup for it on their website, but if you want to see the July Newsletter as an example, you can by CLICKING HERE

Purchase the Bundle HERE

Conclusion

I am very careful on how I spend my “Music Business” monies. I am even more careful when reviewing a music business resource because there are so many people looking to part musicians from their hard earned dollar, by trying to sell them on unreal claims and feeding on their dreams and hopes. Nothing pisses me off more.. With that being said, I will tell you this, I purchased the Indie Bible Bundle myself. I didn’t look to get a free “Evaluation” copy, I bought it because I understand the amount of work and research went into creating and maintaining it. I realize the amount of worth that this information is to what I do and that it has a value that is more than what I paid for it. That is the bottom line.

Not many companies in the music industry get my personal recommendation, but I am confident in giving the Indie Bible the coveted “Making a Scene – Musician Worthy – Seal of Approval”. This is something I don’t give out to just anybody. To qualify for the seal, a company has to have a long standing reputation of professionalism, value and honesty in dealing with the music community. The Indie Bible has exhibited all of these qualities and I have found it to be a superior value to the independent musician.

PURCHASE BUNDLE HERE

Richard L’Hommedieu

Publisher – Making a Scene