Creating a direct link to your iTunes tracks 2016

If you’re having trouble creating a direct link to your music on iTunes, you’re not alone.

I was about to launch the pre-sale campaign for my new CD when I decided to check the links just one more time. Imagine my face when I realized that the links that worked on my desktop computer did NOT work on my mobile devices. 😖

Not wanting to make some lame post like “Order my new album by going to iTunes and searching for my name”, I desperately googled solutions. Luckily, I stumbled across this blog post that got me more than halfway there.

The article was great at explaining how and why Apple was now forcing links to open in the music app instead of the store. And, it gave a detailed description of how to find and use the iTunes link maker to create links. But, there was still a problem. It wouldn’t work for me! Arrrg!!!

To create a link, the link maker asks you to search for “popular content” using their search tool. As a pretty much unknown indie artist, I didn’t come up. I searched for my name, my album, one of my songs and…nothing! Mwap mwap.

But, not to worry, the handy-dandy blog post gave me the tools I needed. Thanks to blog poster Kirk McElhearn for including examples with screenshots of the direct links. All I had to do was substitute my details for Taylor Swift’s and I was good to go!

Here are my links. Simply sub in your album name and ID or your artist name and ID and happy linking!

Link to my album:

https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/album/stars-apart/id1117414650?app=itunes

Link to my iTunes catalog:

https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/artist/laura-marie/id266036410?app=itunes

You need to have that question mark after your ID and app=itunes to force open the store app instead of the music app.

How do you find your ID? Simply search for your content on iTunes via your desktop computer’s browser (that’s the only way) and your ID will be in the URL address. I just put “iTunes Laura Marie” into google search to find mine.

Much love,

Laura Marie

P.S. Be sure to share this info with your fellow indie artists. Pay it forward, spread the love!

P. S. S. Pre-order my new CD on iTunes: http://bit.ly/starsapartpre or the physical CD from my official pre-order page http://bit.ly/starsapartcd

P.S.S.S.Since my album went into pre-sale, my name is searchable in popular content. I’m famous!!!! 😝

Scam alert! Thanks Google image search! (Blog)

Alright, here we go again. I seriously can not imagine a mind that would go to such great lengths to attempt to scam someone. They dangled faith in God and money in front of my nose. Ridiculous. But, for the sake of teaching others how to check these things out using Google search tools, I decided to write this blog.

For those who don’t want the whole story, here’s the skinny:

Who: Mary0 on Soundcloud or Mary Swaggart on Facebook.

What: one of those “I’m sick/dying and I need help distributing my large sums of money to the poor” scams.

What to do: Ignore and dismiss their attempts to contact you

For those who want the dirty details and google search tips:

I was first contacted via soundcloud and asked for my email address (which is publicly available) so that she could send me an urgent message about a project.

Then, she contacted me on my Facebook fan page with a fake profile. We had a back and forth conversation. This is what she asked me to do if you care to read it.

Yeah. Ridiculous. Just reading it will tell you it’s a scam. And, she had no info, uploads or identifying pics on her Soundcloud page. But, her FB page had a picture of someone hospitalized which seemed consistent with her story. So, I checked out the pic using Google image search. How? Easy. I learned how to do it on the “What is one cool internet trick you’ve learned?” thread on Reddit.

1) Right click the profile picture of the scammer and save to your desktop

2) Go to Google.com images and click on the little camera in the search box.

3)Choose the picture from your desktop or drag and drop if you have that option (be sure not to change the name of the photo)

4) Bam! Yeah, fake profile pic.

I know people use other people’s images as their profile pics all the time but, the fact that this person contacted someone they don’t know to distribute millions of dollars, got defensive when I said “no” and had no traceable connections or identity other than a very recent entry on “Apostles International Seminars” website that repeated the same vague info, screams “scammy scam scammer!”!

Oh yeah, also did a search on the bond company. While several entries made it look as if it is a company that actually exists, the fact that it turned up in posts on meetup message boards in spammy ways gives you a hint that it is being used for non legit purposes.

Now, I’m not completely savvy on ways to scam people so, I’m sure there are other details I’m missing. Just hope I can give you an idea of some basics to look out for.

🙂

Peace out.

Building a Fan Base: You’re Doing it Wrong

 

Not to be harsh but, really, this will not net you results. What will? Build real relationships with other musicians you admire. Play gigs with them if your compatible, comparable and on or near the same level in your careers. Or, share ideas. At the very least, get to know them first. Other musicians don’t exist to promote you. Of course, we all appreciate it if you are a musician who likes our music and shares it with your fans. I share the music of musicians I like with my fans because I like them and not because I owe them one for liking my page. That’s not what a fan is. And, trust me, you don’t want fans who are only “fanning” you out of obligation. You want fans who truly admire your work. 

So, go ahead. Introduce yourself. Even invite musicians to listen to your work or tell them about your projects. That’s awesome. But, the above…is just silly. 

RED ALERT! Twitter Scam Targets Musicians!

If you recently received a DM message from a record label A&R person asking you to submit your tracks for sync licensing via MCMA.com, you guessed it, scam. 

 

This is the message I received on Twitter:

Thx #FF! If you’re interested in sending me your music or beats for placement consideration please send it through MCMA .com

It came from this account:

 

So, I checked into it. Signed up on the little free account thing. It looked harmless. I even uploaded a song. (Yeah, I know…stupid. But, the song is available all over the internet so I figured I wasn’t risking a whole lot…hopefully). 

For a scam, they didn’t really make it easy. I mean, the site was a b*tch to use. Very tempermental. Alarm bells started going off when I couldn’t get a consistent response from links on the pages. Then, hunting for what it was really going to cost me made me realize I’d almost been had. First the site said, “free trial”, then it said “8/ per month paid annually” then, it said “29.99/month” so you could contact the person who supposedly contacted you. What? 

I shudder to think, had they made it easier, they would already have my money.

So, back to that. 

A simple search on Twitter brought me to the real Teresa Whites:

Who, by the way, had been graciously tweeting to followers about the scam. No telling how many A&R reps they are misrepresenting. And, who knows how long it will be before this site gets shut down. Please, do a good deed and RT this blog or just let other musicians know not to fall for it. 

And, follow Teresa Whites. She’s good people. 🙂

Laura Marie

“Making stupid mistakes so you don’t have to”

 

 

 

HILARIOUS UPDATE:

 

 

Pay to play? Watch out for this one (blog)

So, that’s what they mean by “token opportunity” …

Okay, so, does Sonicbids even bother to screen opportunities anymore? I just got an “opportunity” to pay to play in my inbox. One word: AFTON. If you are a musician who has spent any time promoting yourself via social networks, the name might be familiar. .

Out of morbid curiosity and to confirm my suspicions, I’ve actually talked to one of their reps on the phone. They want to “book you”, have you sell tickets at $10 a pop, (you have to prebuy the tickets to guarantee at least 10 if I remember correctly) but, they can’t tell you who else you will be playing with or in what order you’ll be playing. Um, so, tell your fans to pay $10 bucks to see you who knows when with who knows who. And, you get the grand prize of being able to get a few bucks per ticket sale. Yeah…sure. MEH! 

There’s plenty wrong with this deal and unsuspecting indies can certainly get hosed. Another has detailed the problem and I’ll direct you to them if you want to read more. I’ll just say, stay away from pay to play opportunities. You’re better than that. And, if you aren’t, you should be trying harder.

http://neverpaytoplay.com/Afton/&NP2Pafton.htm

Here is another GREAT blog if you want to avoid scams in addition to some great ideas on how to survive the music world. Rose Cora Perry doesn’t hold back. She’s a great one to follow: 

http://soyouwannabearockstar.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 

 

Bands with the Same Name (blog)

This  is a quickie blog. I just want to sing the praises of one of the best indie music businesses out there. CDBABY!!!

 

Yes, with services like Bandcamp you can sell your CDs directly to your fans and that is wonderful. But, it also helps to have your stuff on the major download sites like iTunes because a lot of people just prefer buying from a big name. If you are an indie artist, you have to go through a music aggregator to get on iTunes and that’s where CDbaby and services like Tunecore come in. Great for us! But, here’s the problem. What if you or your band have the same name as another artist or band? Confusion in the store! (see pic below) The last thing you want to happen is to have all your hard advertising work go to waste when customers seek you out only to download someone else’s music. It happens! 

I have this issue.

 

Now, I actually went to the trouble to have my name legally trademarked so, technically, I could start proceedings against the other artist to keep them from both selling CDs and performing under the name “Laura Marie”. But that seems like a bit much, right? I don’t really want it to come to that. But, as it turns out, for this issue, that won’t be necessary. Yay! for both of us. 

Because my music is distributed to iTunes through CDBaby, all I had to do was call them up (just login to your account and hit “contact”). CDBaby customer service, as always, was super helpful and I was told that all they had to do was submit a ticket to have my works separated from the other Laura Marie in the iTunes store. For now, that’s all I really wanted. 

They say I should be hearing from Apple within the week. I’ll let you know how it goes. Just know that if you have the same problem, you have to contact the content provider that submitted your music to iTunes. Here is a list of all those approved by Apple for indie artists: MUSIC AGGREGATORS. They’ll have to log in to your Apple artist account on your behalf and submit a ticket. If you are with CDBaby, just call them up and ask for Patrick. 🙂

Pass it on! This info could really help some artists set themselves apart. 

 

Sweet! – Laura Marie

 

P.S. I have a NEW WEBSITE and it’s awesome. Check it out and let me know what you think. I’ll be blogging about how easy it was to put together very soon…