Most social media courses don’t work because they’re generic.
They teach algorithm tricks to get people to click the like button, editing gimmicks to force reel plays, and Facebook ad strategies designed to get views as quickly as possible.
But algorithm tricks without focus or depth of message inevitably result in views and likes from random people not even remotely interested in your music.
Your story is what inspires strangers to become fans.
Even tens of thousands of likes from people who don’t go on to listen to your music is a waste of your time.
The story you tell about your music is how you get them to listen.
Humans are hardwired for stories.
Anthropologists tell us storytelling is central to human existence.
We evolved into storytellers because we didn’t have fangs and needed problem-solving skills and cooperation with other humans to stay safe from predators who wanted to eat us. Stories were the best way to share and understand a mutually beneficial objective.
As well as protecting you from being eaten, a story will make your music marketing strategy rich and full and help your audience flourish.
By focusing first on your story, you build a marketing plan that will attract the right people, align with your values and personality, and feel easy to stick with because it’s a story that deeply resonates with you: yours.
Writing the story is the first step in any marketing plan I create because everything else, your audience, goals, style, vibe, and content, stems from it.
The best way to create your music story is to hire a professional writer.
Not only will a great writer understand the best language, flow, and narrative arc to tell your story, but they can also be objective about your music, which is really hard for most musicians.
When releasing new music on a budget, I recommend you prioritize paying for great promo photos and a professionally written biography. Killer branding, a stunning website, and a professionally crafted marketing strategy are all excellent elements of a music marketing plan, but you can do a lot yourself for free with gorgeous photos and a fantastic story to tell.
If you can hire a writer to interview you and write your bio, do it. You’ll have a terrific story to build your content from, many descriptive quotes to pull for taglines and posts, and an outsider’s perspective on your art that is truly invaluable. You will never regret this investment.
But if you can’t afford that right now, read on.
Tips for writing your own biography when you can’t afford to pay a professional writer.
Perspective
It’s hard to view your music from a new listener's perspective when you’ve focused on what it means to you for so long.
A biography is not just about what the music expresses for you but what it might mean to the listener.
To draw them in, write about your music/release/tour from the reader’s perspective.
Depth
You need to include the who/what/where/when/why, but the depth and emotion behind each aspect create a compelling story.
“Jane Smith is releasing her debut album, Willow Street, recorded at Blackbird Studio in Nashville, TN, on March 15th, 2024, to celebrate ten years since she moved to Nashville”.
Those are all the facts, right? But if I read that as a music journalist, I would think, “Who cares?”.
To turn a fact sheet into a story, you need to delve into these questions:
Who: Who is Jane? What’s her backstory? Has she overcome any struggles or challenges in releasing this album? Why did it take her ten years to release it? Where does she come from?
What: What is the relevance behind the title “Willow Street”? What does the album sound like? What are the themes represented in the lyrics?
Where: Where does she come from? Why did she choose to record at Blackbird? What was that experience like?
When: When was the album recorded? How long did it take her to plan it? Is there any significance to the release date?
Why: Why is she releasing music? What drives her to create music? What compelled her to move to Nashville? Did she always think she’d be a musician?
How: What was the recording process like? Who did she hire as producer/engineer/session players? Who mastered it? How did she raise the money to record, and/or is she on a label?
Narrative Arc
A long list of facts about someone can technically be a biography, but it doesn’t make for a good story. Stories have narrative arcs that take the reader on a journey.
In stories, readers expect to see cause and effect for the main character and experience deeper meaning in life.
There are many archetypal story structures; these three are particularly common in the Western world:
Rags to Riches (the protagonist rises from meager beginnings to great success)
Riches to Rags (the protagonist falls from great beginnings to failure)
Hero’s Journey (the protagonist leaves their ordinary life, enters a new and challenging world, and must learn and grow to survive it before returning to their ordinary life, changed in some way by their journey.)
If you’re releasing music (generally an exciting thing!), you probably don’t want to use the Riches to Rags structure, but a Rags to Riches or Hero’s Journey are great choices to help you craft your story in a compelling way.
Hook
Most people will only read the first sentence before deciding if the rest of the page is worth their time. Maybe the whole first paragraph, if you’re lucky.
Once you’ve got the content depth and story structure, you need a compelling hook.
The first sentence should be 100% designed to pique the reader’s curiosity.
“Jane Smith is releasing her debut album, Willow Street, recorded at Blackbird Studio in Nashville, TN, on March 15th, 2024, to celebrate ten years since she moved to Nashville from Springfield, Missouri”.
Versus:
“The moment Jane Smith’s life changed was as fleeting as it was significant. Standing at her kitchen counter in Springfield, Missouri, she opened the long-expected redundancy letter from her teaching job. She knew this was the defining juncture in her adult life. She must decide if she was going to find a new school and stay in her hometown forever or make the move to Nashville, Tennessee, something she’d been dreaming about since she was a child, singing along to Loretta Lynn records in this same kitchen, decades before when it belonged to her Grandmother.”
I don’t know about you, but I am more interested in discovering more about Jane and her music after reading the second opening paragraph. The first might be the facts, but it’s also a total snooze-fest.
Point of View
Write your biography in the third person, the way someone else would.
Initially, the third person feels weird to write in, but writing in the first person sounds amateur.
Quote yourself in the first person like a professional writer would, adding interesting sentences in quotation marks to mix up the narrative voice and create intimacy.
Write, Edit, Delete
It doesn’t matter how good you are; at least 40% of what you first write down will be unnecessary. It may even outright suck.
After you’ve created your first draft, be brutal with the delete button. Combine sentences and thoughts as often as possible, and remove anything that doesn’t tell the reader something new, give depth to an essential fact, or move the story along.
After editing the first draft, do the same with the second, cutting out everything you can until you have the most clear and concise version possible. Creating space lets the story breathe.
Leave people wanting to learn more about you.
Maybe the most challenging thing about writing your own biography is getting over the feeling of narcissism in talking about yourself.
Don’t blow smoke and exaggerate the facts, but do try to shelve your modesty long enough to highlight your accomplishments and talk up your new project or release.
And after all this, if you still can’t get over the feeling of egocentricity, sign the biography with a pseudonym and pretend you had nothing to do with it. Perhaps you could use your first pet’s name and the street you lived on as a child.
Happy writing!
From Ginger Duexberry.
P.S. If you’re feeling pretty flush and want me to write your bio instead, check out my coaching options here, including biography interview and writing.