Jim's Blog

I've seen thousands and thousands of demos over my years as manager and agent to some of music's biggest recording stars. I can tell you some of the most frequent mistakes songwriters have made when sending a demo. The first mistake is not putting the artist' contact information on every piece of the demo package. On the CD, on the CD cover, on the cover letter, on an attached business card, on the lyric sheet. These things can get separated and you want to make sure interested parties can get ahold of you.  That's the whole point, isn't it? Second, put your best song first. Don't think you can 'build them up' or 'lure them in' to the next song. It won't work. From the first beat of the first song, you have about 30 to 60 seconds to make your impression. If they like it, they may listen to the whole song. More likely, they'll skip to the next song to see if you've got consistency or something else that strikes their fancy. That's about all you're gonna get. Your demo is only one in a huge stack of demos. If you thought you were going to build them up to that third, fantastic, best song, you thought wrong. Which brings us to the next most common mistake. Don't put too many songs on your demo thinking someone will be impressed with your prolific songwriting. Three songs only...best one first.

These are just three examples out of many errors committed by songwriters looking to get their music heard and signed. I have a dozen more.  Sign up for a free trial of our newsletter and get the rest of the scoop on 'How To Make a Great Demo' in our first issue.