Why Sonicbids sucks for indie artists

NOTE: This entry now includes a recent update at the end (10/26/07)!

I have been trying out this website called Sonicbids for about six months now, and after a lengthy evaluation, I have decided that it sucks, just like all the rest of the websites directed at musicians. I know this is a generalization, and there may be one awesome musician website out there that I don’t know about, but you know.. I don’t know about it.

See, when an artist wants to play at a particular venue, they send what’s called a press kit. A press kit contains a cd of your music, maybe a video, a bio, a photo of you and your band, press clippings… stuff like that. Promoters and talent buyers look at these promotional materials to try to decide if they want to book you or not. They’re a necessary tool.

These kits cost money to send out, and most people seem to think it’s a good idea to send a shitload of these out to every club in the world in hopes of getting booked everywhere. If you’ve ever been in a talent buyer’s office, you’ll immediately see the heaping pile of these forlorn packets from dreamy musicians heaped somewhere. Probably near a trash can.

This is similar to walking down the street and asking every girl you see if she will have sex with you. Maybe one in a thousand will say yes. Maybe one in a hundred. No matter what, though, you’re going to have to ask a LOT of chicks, and if it costs you a couple of bucks a pop to ask each girl (as it does to send a press kit), you’re going to be spending a lot of money.

So, where Sonicbids comes in is they have a system for you to set up an electronic press kit, or EPK, on their website. Then all you have to do is send a link to your EPK to the promoter or talent buyer, and they’ll be saved having to toss your disc and photo and shiny folder away, and you’ll be saved your couple bucks postage and whatnot.

It seems like a great idea, and it’s a pretty easy sell, mostly because people don’t want to sell themselves the old fashioned way, which is to make contacts and shake hands and so forth. They’d much prefer to email 100 promoters a link to an EPK and hope they all bite.

Well, chances are they’re not going to. I admit an EPK like this is a good idea for a regional or national level act who already has interest in them, so they can send the link to clubs who already know who they are instead of a hard press kit, but for us wee indie folks it’s not worth it. It is my impression that the majority of Sonicbids userbase is comprised of small indie people like me who cannot benefit from their services.

Additionally, Sonicbids works out deals with festivals and clubs to offer you what seems like an exclusive line on getting booked! Hey, neat! If I join Sonicbids I can get on all these awesome festivals and get entered into all these contests and shit! This is true, but each one has an entry fee between 5 and 30 dollars. So, in addition to the money you pay Sonicbids just for the account, you take a $5 or $25 hit to submit. Ouch! And since there are fourteen million users on Sonicbids and they’re all paying that money and submitting their EPK just like you are, the competition is enormous, and there are usually only one or two slots on a festival reserved for Sonicbids artists.

I had the opportunity to hear observe the general mutterings surrounding one artist who won a slot on a music festival aboard a cruise ship and it was not positive. They were regarded as undeserving by the other musicians and the crew. This may not always be the case. I can only speak from this one experience.

I have submitted to probably twenty different festivals [In truth, 8 as pointed out by Amanda at Sonicbids -jim] and contests and I haven’t gotten a single one. Not one. The only one I came sort of close to getting anywhere with was because I knew people at the company running the contest, and I ended up not winning because the bands who won all cheated their asses off, as I heard from an unnamed source. It really sucked because I was doing great and winning for most of the contest, but the cheaters took over, and it could have been easily prevented. Sonicbids allowed the cheating, however.

So basically, if you are a small indie artist and you are trying to build your touring, do it the old fashioned way. Get in a good room in your home town and play it every six weeks and promote your ass off. When you’re packing that room, then branch out to some neighboring towns and repeat. Build concentric circles. Put asses in seats. Build a network of contacts. There really is no other way.

Later on down the road you may be able to save some money by sending Sonicbids EPKs to venues and promoters with whom you already have some relationship. I don’t know, honestly. I’ll let you know if I like it any better when I get there. Don’t even think about using the Promoter Drop Box feature, though.

Here’s the letter I sent their support folks:

To whom it may concern:

Guys, I just don’t think Sonicbids is for me. Maybe if I type out my worries about it to you you can point out where I’m going wrong with your system and put me on the right track again. Here are the prioblems I have:

1) There are too many submitters.
Because Sonicbids is so easy to use, lots and lots of people are on it and they all submit to the same festivals you do. That means you’re basically awash in a myriad sea of submissions. You’re probably even less distinct as a submitter when you blindly send an EPK than you are mailing in a regular old-fashioned press kit.

2) It costs too much and provides nothing.
I guess Sonicbids saves you money if you just email your link out to people, but for the most part, I use it to submit to festivals and contests and so forth, and these cost $5 to $20 per submission. In six months of submitting my butt off I have gotten zero to show for it.

3) You allow cheating.
The only thing I had a chance of winning I got into because I had a contact at the promoter, and I didn’t win that one because all the other contestants cheated on your contest and you allowed it. That sucked. I promoted my ass off the old fashioned way. Also, the contest polling software didn’t work on the most popular browser for macs (Safari). I know most people use PC’s but most music people use macs!

4) The spam.
Guys, knock it off with the emails please! In 6 months I have gotten 72 emails from you. Come on! That’s three per week! Some of these are thank yous for submitting and receipts, but most are not. The vast majority are not.

I have put in a lengthy evaluation of your service, and my conclusion is that it’s worth it for regional to national level acts who send out a lot of press kits, but the smaller indie artists like me are getting kind of preyed upon.

I will be telling my friends about my experience with you and warning them not to use you until they get to a point of moderate success with a touring band, and never ever to use the promoter drop box.

Is there any way I can just put my account on hold until I need it later? I may want to use it again when I get to the level I’m talking about, so it’d be great if it could just go into deep freeze or whatever until I get there, but right now I don’t need it and it’s sucking up resources.

Thanks for reading,
Jim Hodgson

http://www.jimhodgson.com

I got a response a few days later, but am just now getting around to including it, thanks to Benjy from Sonicbids posting a comment here. Here’s what Amanda, the Sonicbids rep replied with:

Hi Jim,

Thank you for your email and for expressing your concerns and feedback about Sonicbids. I am happy to offer some suggestions regarding your feedback and help you to better understand your account and EPK and how to use it more effectively.

In your first feedback, you mentioned that sending a physical press kit will actually make you more noticed and stand out more and I have to respectfully disagree with that. Sending out a physical press kit has much more risks than sending out an EPK. The EPK provides a way to send out your press kit in a more professional, easier, and effective way. I have heard of artists who submitted their EPK to a promoter who needed a last minute band and they got it because their press kit got their before all those who mailed them in and it was easier for the promoter to review it.

One of the best features of submitting an EPK is the security you get that you definitely do not receive with a physical press kit submission. Promoters are contractually obligated to review every Sonicbids submission that they receive. This insures that your submission will be reviewed and not just thrown in the trash before it is even seen (promoter are not guaranteed to review your physical press kit, provided they did receive it and it was not lost in the mail). The physical press kit is also less organized than the EPK, as the promoter can lose pieces of the physical press kit but can’t with the EPK.

Our Promoter Relations team is in constant correspondence with promoters, assisting them with running their opportunities effectively and efficiently. If you ever have any questions or concerns regarding an opportunity, it is always best to try contacting the promoter directly, but you can also let us know, and our Promoter Relations team may be able to expedite the correspondence.

In your second feedback, you mentioned that the submission fees were too high. In some cases, you may find an opportunity that has a submission fee higher than you planned to pay. Please keep in mind that these submission fees are set by the promoter to be equal to or less than the cost of sending out the physical press kit. If a festival has a submission fee of $20, this submission fee usually still applies to those submitting physical press kits, only those submitting physical press kits also have to factor in the costs of supplies for creating the physical press kit and postage for mailing it out. We also encourage that promoters use the submission fees they receive and apply it to their event or for compensation to selected artists.

The submissions fees and the subscription fees are two separate entities. Your subscription allows you to build, edit, and email your EPK as much as you want whenever you want, saving money and time over physical press kit costs like CD duplication, supplies, and postage. The submission fees are set by the promoters themselves, and they are generally equal to or less than the cost of sending out a physical press kit.

You mentioned that the EPK can save you money using the “Email My EPK Out Now” tool and you’re absolutely right that this is a very valuable feature available only to active Sonicbids members that can save you money. Don’t overlook this tool as this is a way to send your EPK for no additional cost to anyone with an email address. If you’re spending time or money on sending out physical press kits to promoters and booking agents, this tool can be a huge value for you.

I am not sure exactly what cheating you were referring to in your feedback, but if you can please provide more specific information regarding this, I am happy to clear up any confusion you may have or look further into any opportunity that you have questions about.

Remember, it is always best to build a relationship with the promoters you connect with through Sonicbids and always best to contact a promoter directly before submitting to an opportunity as it will help you to address all your questions and concerns and help you determine if this opportunity is the right one for you to submit to.

I noticed that you have only submitted to 8 opportunities that you say you have come out with nothing to show for it. Remember, there are hundreds of other opportunities you can submit to in the “Promoter Drop Box,” and you can proactively search for opportunities using the “advanced search” tool to narrow your search by location, date, and genre. The “Promoter Drop Box” is a resource for our members to reach promoters with specific opportunities, but there is no obligation to use it. Not every opportunity is for everyone, and you are encouraged to contact the promoter directly to ask any questions before making a submission. In most cases, contact info can be found on the opportunity’s website.

Again don’t overlook the “Email My EPK” tool, “Community Forum,” and “Artist Search” tools as these are great ways of connecting with other artists, managers, promoters, and bookers.

With the emails, as a member, you have full control over what emails you receive from Sonicbids. We want to get appropriate announcements out to our members, but we don’t want to inundate them. You can select to receive or not receive messages by logging in to your account, clicking “edit profile”, and selecting the settings you prefer under the area labeled “options”.

If you are still interested in canceling your account, here’s how:

1) Log into your account with your username and password. (If you have a multi-user account, please click on the artist account you’d like to cancel.)
2) Select “Subscription Information.”
3) Click where it asks if you’d like to cancel.

***If you’d also like to remove your email address from our distribution lists, you’ll need to take these additional steps***
4) Go to the “Edit Profile” section of your account
5) Un-check any appropriate option boxes and make sure to save changes.

Your account is only accessible by you. Complete that cancellation page and you’ll be all set. Remember — you’ll still be able to send out your EPK through the end of the subscription term you’ve already signed up for, so even if you’re performing with a different band or under a different name, you can just update your EPK to reflect the new information. No need to cancel or start a new account.

If you feel that there is something we could do to improve your Sonicbids experience and keep you as a member, please let us know. We always welcome and learn from feedback from our members.

Hope that helps. Let us know if you have any further questions. If you need a quick answer to your question, check out the “Support Center” of your account for access to the FAQ and Quick Tip sections.

Best Regards,
Amanda

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Have a question? Get Answers here: http://www.sonicbids.com/epkfaq
Not a member yet? Take a tour: http://www.sonicbids.com/tour
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Musicians. Promoters. ONE Way To Connect.

http://www.sonicbids.com

Amanda J. Czaja
Artist Relations Representative
Sonicbids
580 Harrison Avenue, 4th Floor
Boston, MA 02118
Tel: 617-275-7247
Fax: 617-275-7223
support@sonicbids.com

I thanked her for her message and left it at that. They seem like nice people, really, and it’s clear that they care what people think of them, but I still don’t think Sonicbids is worth it to indie artists at all unless they’re at the level where sending out press kits is taking a large bite out of their pockets. I’m talking regional to national touring level.

—UPDATE 10/26/07—-
This is by far the most popular page on my site, so it appears that this has had some impact, and for that I am grateful. I have now let my sonicbids account lapse.

In the intervening months since I wrote this, I am glad to say that my relationships with promoters and club owners has grown markedly. I always bring up this subject with people like that to pick their brains. Almost to a man, they say they check MySpace instead. It’s got everything your Sonicbids page has, for free (even with video), and it shows them how good you are at pimping yourself out because it’s got the number if friends you have.

I don’t mean to say that the number of friends you have on myspace is indicative of how big a draw you have at any given show, but if you have a lot it at least shows that a bunch of people have heard about you.

I attended the Atlantis music conference not long ago, and there were people from Sonicbids there, talking up their service to no end. You can’t fault them for this, it’s just good business, and as I’ve already said, they seem like nice people. The only thing was, Corey Smith’s publicist was on the panels too, and he blew up from myspace. As it happens, his drummer is a friend of mine, and Corey’s got a rabid, huge following.

I don’t know anyone who has blown up from Sonicbids. I’m sure the Sonicbids folks can think of a few, but I don’t know of any.

I’m also pissed because I submitted to Atlantis through Sonicbids and guess what! I was not selected. To be fair, the panels at Atlantis were really cool, and it was cheaper to get in by submitting through Sonicbids, so they did get me a deal there. It would have been nice to play alongside my buddies at our hometown festival, but hey, that’s how it works. I guess they felt they could do without my half dozen screaming fans.

Also, at the time I wrote this the Sonicbids folks suggested to me that I should spend some time on the Sonicbids forums meeting people and doing gig swaps and so forth. I had to concede that I had not tried that, and in due time I gave it a full swing.

It is, in my experience, a forum full of people all shouting at once about their band. What else could it be? This is the internet, after all. There may be someone out there who has had success with connecting with other bands on the Sonicbids forum and hooking up for shows and whatnot, but I would equate this to internet dating. Sure, you might meet the perfect person for you, but you’re also going to meet a lot of people who are unable or unwilling to meet people face to face.

Conclusion: Paying Sonicbids is no substitute for hard work, promotion, and networking in the real world. Save your money!