“Don’t talk to me about contracts, Wonka – I use them myself. They’re strictly for suckers.”
(Sam Beauregarde in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)
A good quote from one of my favorite movies – but in all seriousness, contracts are definitely not for suckers. They’re actually for professionals who want to be smart in protecting all parties involved in a business agreement. In the music world today all too often we forgo using contracts either because we’re unsure of what to put in them or are worried that suggesting the use of a contract could be detrimental to our relationship with a potential client or venue. In reality, I think you’ll find that most clients will take your contract suggestion as a testament to your professionalism – or they might even tell you they have a contract of their own that they’d like to use. For small gigs a contract may not be necessary, and you can make a decision about that on a case-by-case basis, but as a general rule of thumb: where there is real money involved, always use a contract to protect yourself. Continue reading
It’s so easy to start a blog these days that sometimes it seems like everyone and their mother has one. So amidst a sea of bloggers in an ocean of blogs, how can you differentiate yours from the rest? Well, the really successful blogs (in other words, the ones that actually get read) all have one thing in common: they have a theme – an underlying thread that weaves through all the posts in that blog, giving it a sense of unity. If your blog is simply a smattering of ramblings on various topics such as why you hate our presidential party, or what your new favorite brand of coconut water is, or all about your weekend trip to Paris – you’re going to have a hard time attracting and maintaining readers. 
Facebook pages are all the rage these days (not to be confused with Facebook profiles – 
How can I get my own Wikipedia page? This is a question I’ve been hearing a lot lately. And I’ll confess that, until recently, I did not know the answer. I remember for a long time hearing that anyone can write and publish a Wikipedia page. But if anyone can write one, I always wondered – where’s the quality control? Who’s making sure that blatantly false information isn’t all over the web? In truth, Wikipedia does have quite a tremendous quality control system in place (you guess it – there’s a Wikipedia page to tell you all about it –