I need some help. How do I make one? I know the basic idea of it, but can anybody give me the specifics please. If you’ve made one for your band, please help me out! My band wants to start booking shows and I want to send press kits to venues to get shows. Help please 
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Many toy manufactures now focus on the educational usefulness of the toys they produce. After all, toys have been known to nurture minds while encouraging discovery and enjoyment. Here are the top electronic educational toys for young boys that do not compromise the balance between fun and learning:
Number recognition
Introduce the joys of mathematics early to a young boy and help nurture a love for numbers. There are several great electronic educational toys that young boys will love, including oversized talking calculators that teach basic mathematics such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. These are colorful toys, which children find quite attractive. Battery power means these electronic toys can be carried anywhere.
Another great addition for your child’s collection is the electronic numbers mat. It consists of several mats with corresponding numbers and images. When pressed, the image reads the numbers out loud. Excellent for assisting young boys in learning to recognize and count numbers. Mats with images emit animal sounds.
Sequencing games
When there are electronic educational toys, sequencing games no longer have to be boring stuff. Engage your young boys in hours of fun, play and learning. An excellent electronic toy to look for is the one offered by LeapFrog — children manipulate components of the toy to create patterns and even play melodies. Helps focus not just on creativity and reasoning but also in developing children’s motor skills.
Building toys
Lego bricks are great but there are many electronic educational toys designed for young boys that encourage them to build and create another toy out of several components. Consider getting your child a radio and electronics set of a basic circuitry board. All components come in a box with instructions.
To build the toy itself, the child follows the instructions provided in an easy to read manual. Once he’s done, he will be able to make his own radio, for example, or a simple circuits board that has a computer interface or even a simple robot that comes with a sensor. Helps encourage creativity and scientific thinking; also helps develop focus.
Electronic educational toys such as these are best for older boys. Some components are small enough to be choking hazards, so avoid giving to a young child.
Science kit
There is a wide variety of electronic educational toys that young boys will find interesting, particularly if they are fond of science. Consider kits such as those that introduce your child to magnets, electricity, electromagnets, radio, sound, motion, computers and light. Try puzzles that combine light and sound or radio-controlled toys. For older kids, try the 100-in-1 or 200-in-1 electronic project kits that will provide them with neverending fun and learning.
There are plenty of boys toys designed for little boys and although these represent hours of fun, not all of them are effective as educational tools. Find out which toys are best for fun and learning.
How to promote your band is a question often asked by new bands or band managers. Fortunately, thanks in large part to the internet, you can use web 2.0 strategies to promote your band online quickly and will very little capital. This article will give you 4 ways to promote your band online.
Send Out a Newsletter
You can send out a newsletter via email to your possible fans or people in your age group. It’s pretty simple and it only costs around twenty bucks a month for the service. The best way to capture people’s emails is from your website or every time you sell tickets for a show you can ask for your fans’ email address. Then you can stay in touch with them with your newsletter and give your fans updates and discounts and such.
Use Social Networking Sites
Surprise surprise right? But you really have to be using Facebook and Twitter. I’m not a fan of MySpace so I wouldn’t advise using it anyway. However, there are over 300,000,000 (that’s three hundred million) people on Facebook. Set up fan pages and stay in contact with your friends and give out promotional materials to your Facebook and Twitter friends. You’ll also want to have a nice following on Facebook because band managers and record labels look at that kind of stuff.
Post Your Music Videos on YouTube
Yes, again you’ll have to give away your goods. You can use a basic flip digital recorder and have someone tape your band doing a few songs. Then post those songs on YouTube. You can promote that on your Facebook page as well to drive more traffic. It works. This is a ninja tactic that all the internet marketers use and they are making a killing at time. And you will too.
Have a Blog
Your blog can be a free Blogger blog or you can host a WordPress blog with your domain name. Your blog will be your main website for your band. Post your music on there, sell CDs, T-shirts and even MP3s. The list is endless at how you can promote your band online with your blog. Just make sure you update the blog at least twice a week so it will rank higher in the search engines.
Go to Get Your Band Signed to learn how to get your band signed and more information about band promotion.
The Ultimate Guide to Getting a Record Deal
It is the dream of every budding musician or singer to be able to say “I just got a record deal”. With a real record company, too. With a record deal come fame and fortune, credibility and validation. It is a hallmark of success when a company comes to you and says “We like your music enough to invest our money in you”. With a record deal you can find your songs in stores and hear them on the radio. You can be invited to perform on late night television, or get your videos on MTV. With a signed record deal in hand the world is your oyster and there are no longer any limitations on how far your craft can take you.
A record deal is your invitation to the big leagues, where you get to play with the big boys and girls, where you get to dress up and go to the Music Awards shows, and maybe actually be in the running. They are elusive pieces of paper from mysterious organizations, so hard to obtain, yet so many are awarded. And they will change your life. For better or worse? That’s up to you and how you go about it.
Do I Deserve a Record Deal?
You really need to look inwards and be realistic before you make this jump head on. Do you believe, truly, that you can do this? Do you have people (besides your mother) that love your music, who pay money to see you? Even a cover charge counts.
This is an art form for you. You love to create, to express yourself through your music, to write songs that either touch hearts, or get those toes tapping and hearts beating. All of that is great, and is an absolutely necessary component of success. But take a step back for a moment. A record company does not create music, get the fans jumping out of their seats only to run down to the music store and buy your cd. That’s on you to have the musical content that will excite the fans. The record company exists on the sales of your creations.
This Information is Brought to You By “EZ Record Deal”, the ultimate guide to getting a record deal. Visit EZ Record Deal now by going to www.EZRecordDeal.com
Linda Lane is a 5 star writer for The Music Business Center, read more of her music business success articles and subscribe to the Music Biz Center blog free of charge at http://www.MusicBizCenter.com/blog
In last week’s article, we talked about why your small business needs a press kit. Because they’re not just for the press, I prefer to call them small business information package. To recap, you need a small business information package to augment your business card, which has only limited information about you and your company.
Your small business information package is the printed materials to give or send to prospective clients to tell them who you are, where you are, how to contact you, what you do, how to buy, and why to buy from you instead of your competition.
This week, we’re going to discuss what you should put inside your information package. For all intents and purposes, anything that promotes your company can go inside it. Some of the more common things include:
• Business card
• Small business brochure
• Letter of introduction
• Product or service review
• Price list
• Press releases
• White papers
• Recent articles written by you or about your company
• Biography of key officers
• Flyers, coupons or direct mail pieces
• Information pamphlets
So, let’s talk a bit about each. And let’s start with the big one—your small business brochure. Your small business brochure can stand alone. If you decide not to have a complete small business information package, at the very least, create a tri-fold brochure so you have detailed printed information to give clients.
If your prospective client reads only one thing in your whole information package, it will most likely be your brochure. Why? Because it captures the reader’s attention better than any other item in your information package. Most of your other items will be letters, articles or reviews. They’ll look good, and they’ll all match because they’re on your letterhead, but they won’t jump out at your readers like your full color tri-fold brochure will.
So, you want to make sure it’s the first thing people see when they open the front cover of your information package. If you can capture their interest with your brochure, they’re more likely to read the rest.
The first page of your small business brochure should have your business name and logo, and possibly a photo or some graphics. Make it colorful. Make it interesting. Add a slogan or motto on the front that will make people curious as to what’s inside. You don’t want them to just look at the front cover and put it aside!
Inside, try to introduce yourself and review your product or service briefly. If you can, keep the introduction and review to the length of the first inside page or so. Adding a few graphics or photos throughout the whole brochure, together with informative text helps keep your readers’ interest. And, make good use of your headings, remembering that most readers will scan from left to right, stopping at graphics and headings, and sometimes reading the last paragraph.
Now, this part is important, and is possibly the biggest mistake most small businesses make with their brochure—at least some of the other two inside pages could be better used to show prospective buyers how your product or service can benefit them, rather than to describe your product or service features.
I cannot stress this enough. Too many times small business brochures are used simply to talk about you, your company or your product/service. Most of your readers simply won’t care who you are, what you do or how you do it. What they really care about is how you can benefit them. How you can save them time or resources. How you can make their lives just a little bit easier.
Often, the last outside page of your brochure summarizes the inside pages, or lists products or services in point form. You could even add a price list, if you have one.
The next several items in your small business information package are all written on your letterhead, and the sky’s the limit as to what you can use.
You could put the letter of introduction just behind your brochure, or you could include it outside the information package cover if you’re mailing it. Usually this is just a short, one-page letter introducing yourself and your company, and thanking the recipient for taking the time to look at your information package.
Your product or service review could be long or short, depending on what you’re offering. This is not the place to stress benefits, but simply to list and describe your services or products. You can combine a product or service review with your price list very effectively.
Include any press releases about your company, and articles written by you or about your company. If you don’t have any, don’t worry. You can write some specifically for your information kit. Include announcements of your grand opening, for example, or a new line of products, or your new location. Or write an article about one of your products or services.
White papers are becoming increasingly popular. Are you an expert in a particular area? If you are, you might want to write a white paper to include with your information package. A white paper discusses specific business issues, products, technology or other such topics. It usually summarizes information about the topic, and then suggests a proposal for action, referencing research data to justify the reasons for the action. It explains your topic in terms most people can understand, with the goal of educating consumers and marketing your product or service. White papers help establish the writer as an authority.
The biography of your key officers is basically a resume. Include short one-page biographies of key officers to highlight areas of expertise and level of experience in your industry.
Fliers, coupons and direct mail pieces can also be included in your small business information package. Fliers and coupons emphasize current specials or discounts. Here’s a few tips. When you’re thinking about specials or discounts, try to create a sense of urgency with them by making them time- or quantity-limited. And, consider the 10/10 rule, which theorizes that people are most likely to buy when they see discounts of 10% or $10. Or, better yet, offer something extra free.
Recent direct mail sales letters can also be included. There’s simply too much to say about them to really give justice in this short article, but some things to remember are: to stress benefits, create a sense of urgency, the 10/10 rule and a bolded P.S. including a call to action.
Keep direct mail sales letter simple and relevant. Be enthusiastic, know your product, use your imagination and understand your target audience. Establish trust and credibility. Include testimonials. Give free nuggets of information. And, just like in your brochure, write your direct mail sales letter for how people will read it, scanning left to right, and stopping at graphics and headlines, and the P.S.
Now that you’ve gotten all your information package items written and printed, it’s time to put them all together. You can buy covers in your company colors and have your logo and business name printed on them. Put your business card in the front slot and your information in the inside pockets, making sure your brochure is the first item they’ll see. Then send it out, and sit back and wait for responses you’re sure to get!
Eve Jackson owns Details Small Business Solutions, a company dedicated to helping small business do big business with communication and image consulting. We write business plans and design corporate identity packages, press kits and small business web sites. We’re copywriters too, writing copy for press kits, web sites and direct mail sales letters.
1. To give your music marketing strategy a jump-start better begin with a search engine friendly website. It is more advisable to have it simple, informative and credible. Better avoid too much use of Flash, search engine can not read Flash and this may affect your website’s ranking.
2. Make use of MySpace and start spreading the news. Have many friends as you can. Do some bulletin posts for your friends to read it. You can resort in using friend blaster programs to help you boost your list of friends.
3. Your profile along with your tunes and photos should always be available for public may it be in your MySpace account or with your web site.
4. Your set of audios can be submitted to different social media websites such as Last.fm, American Idol Underground and Ourstage.co. Be keen enough in searching through the Internet. Use different strategies when searching to broaden its results.
5. There are websites that offer free classifieds for your advertisements like Craigslist. This kind of websites provide specific categories that allow you to place your advertisements accordingly. You might as well incorporate links from Craigslist into your MySpace account, also try using UsFreeAds. The Internet provides numbers of freelistings for you to post your ads.
6. Provide professional write-ups such as articles and submit it to EzineArticles.com, GoArticles and to other article directories. Place your article in an appropriate category such as Music. In your content are given the opportunity to convince your readers to checkout your MySpace account and listen to your music.
7. Join forums of musicians and message boards. Make use of taglines having your MySpace or website address in it. Remember more visitors to your web sites much better.
When it comes to music marketing strategy your main target is to have a high traffic for your website who will be listening to your music. Make people know about you and your music. Through your links you are able to promote your music and even about your band. Learning about the idea of how Search Engine Optimization (SEO) works may also help you in giving your website an organic traffic.
Leroy Thomas is a great writer from Philadelphia. He had inspired lots of readers by is warming approach of writing style. He writes on different fields which no one expect making his readers to love him more.
If your band is trying to get the notice of millions of screaming fans, few things can do more than the video press kit. With the video press kit, you can engage both mainstream and Internet media sources to promote your band. Since publicity is a crucial factor in growing a large fan base, how does the unknown band create a video press kit to attract the attention of the media?
First and foremost, start with good quality video footage of your band performing. Live shows are great but even a video recording of your band playing in the studio can be used to great effect. In fact, as your band gains popularity, this early home recording studio footage may become highly prized, like the basement recording of Bob Dylan or Jim Croce.
Your video footage should be encoded in several popular formats, including mpeg, wmv, flash and avi, and you should offer link or embed codes to your videos from your website. Why? This simple step of providing a variety of working formats means that the media can use the recordings without having to do the extra work of re encoding the footage to their equipments needs. Bloggers who wish to share your video with their readers can easily insert these videos into their blogs and news rooms can use your files for direct broadcast with very little editing being required.
When preparing your video footage for your video press kit, use editing software to add a title and related information, like the date and location, with a brief pause of about one second before the clip. It is also a good idea to put copyright and contact information at the end of the clip. Limit the length of your videos or logically separate the video into chapters so editors don’t have to search through hours of video to find the section they want to use.
In addition to the video section of your video press kit, you need to supply some text files with crucial information. These text files will include contact info so publishers can tell their viewers how to get in touch with your band to book performances or get additional information. While the traditional information like name, mailing address and phone number are important, digital world contact info is equally important. Always include your website URL and the bands email info. If you would like media resources to link back to your site in exchange for using your video, be sure to include your preferred link code.
By using these tips to build your bands video press kit, you can reach a wide audience with very little work. You can put the world of media to work for you to promote your band to a global audience. You don’t have to be a big name to get media attention. You just have to be able to sway the media by giving them the things they look for in a video press kit.
To get more free information on how to sell your music online like crazy visit http://www.SellMusicOnlineLikeCrazy.com and read his blog at http://www.musicbizcenter.com/blog
Finding a great band is a search that gives results only once every decade. However it takes a lot of hard work to get to the level of rockdom to even be in the consideration as one of the greats.The 60′s is where it all started. Bands all over the world popped out left and right. In Liverpool England a small band called the Beatles started to get noticed. Soon enough they were dominating the charts.. When the 70s rollled in something unexpected happened, the Beatles broke up. This opened up the arena for the upstarts, Rolling Stones. With the small opening, the Stones became the best the decade had to offer.The 80s rolled in and time came in for a new top dog. The new band to rise was U2. They were the new band every one wanted to hear and with music and personality all their own they will be remembered as one of the best.
The decade of the 1990s saw two bands rise among a sea of seattle grunge rockers and they are Nirvana and Pearl Jam. The 90s was all about grunge and these two bands were the best when it came to that type of rock. Only time will tell which one will eventually reign supreme.The bands in these eras may seem like they are totally different from each other but in truth, they are very much alike. These similarities that they share set them apart from the competition and make them as great as they are.
All of these bands have the talent to back up claims of their greatness and this is one of the things that make them similar to each other. The music speaks for itself and it can be heard in the music that they play. They produce music that is better than what anyone else produces in the same decade.
Having talent can get you places but it will not make you great. Only desire can make a band great. At the end, your desire to be great will lead you to become the best. All the greats were not great because they can sing better or make songs better, but the true reason they were great was because they want to be the best. Being the best drove them to new heights and they reached it through this desire.
The bands here are remembered because of the fans that followed them around during their prime. Imagine the Beatles; they were huge because of the legion of girls that followed their every move. As they moved from one city to the next, the groupies followed the Rolling Stones as a pack of loyal fans.
To be one of the greats like the bands in those decades, you have to outwork the other bands out there. The practice sessions have to be unequaled. The talent also has to be there. The talent is what will bring you to new heights but when you are not able to capitalize on the talent it would be a huge waste.
One thing that other people can help with when it comes to your road t success is with the followers. The Social networking site MySpace can help promote your band and get you new fans. It all starts by adding friends to your profile. Give this new age way of Band promotion a try and you will surely ask yourself why you have not tried it before.
Lisa Red writes about a multitude of topics including Gaining exposure and band promotion.
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Hey, I’m managing a band in my town (members are 15 years old) and we’re having trouble getting gigs. One place I looked at said we could email an EPK. I had no idea what that was, so I looked into it. I still don’t really get it. What’s an EPK? How does it work? Is it free?
I have to write a paper for my math class on a career I’m interested in and how you use math in it.
Anyone know?