Billy Darnells Blog

Hi Everybody,

Well I am right about on time, I manage to get into this blog about every other month or so, but I think this time took a little longer.

Let me tell ya if you ever decide to do a CD , and your going to do it using Nashville pickers in an online studio enviroment, don’t do it in the summer months. Plan it for the winter because in the summer most of the better ones are going on tour. Getting tracks done for the new CD has been a nightmare. Every song has taken forever to get completed. The good news is we have found a work around, and theirs just 2 more songs till completion so it looks like maybe we can still get it out the first or second week of August.

I will say this, it’s been a long time since I have been this excited about the music. I thought the first Cd I did had some pretty good music on it, I loved the last CD because even though it didnt have all the bells and whistles that traditional country music fan normally looked for, it was a great bunch of tunes, that came out sounding like I wanted the lsitening audience to hear them. The down side to it was that it was the first time I had ventured out into the world of producing and engineering a CD. I had no idea about the technical side of recording. Over the past year I spent countless hours reading everything I could get my hands on, and when possible, purchasing the new software and equipment we needed to do things properly to produce a great sounding CD. It’s a very time consuming, and expensive process. From learning the recording and mastering software, to redoing the studio for new hardware, testing out new programs as they come out, it’s a never ending process, but I believe when you all hear this new Cd you will agree it was worth the time and money.  The tunes are great, the production is excellent, the tracks are well mastered and I can’t wait for it to get done and released. This will be, by far, the best CD we have ever produced from every aspect. Anyone who purchases this CD should be pleased with it from A - Z.

The name of the album will be ‘Getting Back To Country”, and if your a country music fan, I guarantee that this will be one of the best, and most listened to CD’s you purchase all year. It’s a totally new sound package that the traditional music lovers are going to enjoy immensley.

If this CD doesn’t do well sales wise, I think we will contemplate moving in a different direction. I dont believe we will ever produce a better CD than we have this time, and maybe the industry guru’s are right when they say” The days of people purchasing CD’s are over, theres just too much free stuff on the internet.”, if that’s the case we will still produce singles for sale on Itunes and other digital media, but the time and cost of producing a total CD has to be justified by the sales.

When I say in a new direction what I am looking at now is the publishing, and licensing, end of the business, along with taking all the equipment and knowledge we have gained over the past year and venturing into the business of helping other artists to produce quality demo’s and backing tracks for their music. I also plan to take the lessons I have learned in this venture and publish information that will be helpful to new artist aspiring to get their music out to the world wide listening audience.

Some of you might have noticed some changes on the website the past few months. We reformatted the mail order form by making it less confusing, and incorporating the cost of shipping and handling into the price of the product. We also added a Paypal section to the albums hoping to make purchasing more simplified for their users, so far that hasn’t made a difference in the number of sales we get, but maybe with the release of a new CD that will change.

Right now, along with working on the new CD, we are getting ready for one of our rare live personal performances. I will be performing on August 29th( A Friday night) at 7:30 Pm at The Jamboree By The Lake festival down in Wichester, TN.. I am looking forward to meeting some of our fans and all the dj’s that will be attending. If you can make it down there, we will have a small table set up, stop by and say hello.

Well thats about it for now, you all take care and we will catch ya on the flip side my friends.

 Billy Darnell

www.billydarnell.com

Hi Everyone,

 Hope this post finds you all doing well.  I am afraid I dont have a lot of news.  I have been spending a lot of time writing and  working on the next CD  ( and I might add discovering more everyday about this new recording program ) and should be releasing the next single within the next two weeks. The Cd should be released sometime in Late June or early July.

A lot of the Dj’s have been asking if I had any gospel or christian music and up to now I have had to reluctantly say no. This past week I woke up with a song in my head , that has a christian twist to it , even though we will release it as a country song much in the vein of Clint Blacks  “3 crosses”. Not because it relates to that song in any way but because it could be played in either venue, christian, or country. The song emulates the love that jesus had for all of us in life, and in death, and how that reflects in our lives in everyday circumstances.  It’s a song that has a great message, good beat, and an interesting twist to the lyrics. It is called  ” I Will Always love You”, I am quite anxious to get it out there and see how it fares.  The song pretty much wrote itself from every aspect. It was one of those songs that took probably less than a half hour to write completely, words and music, and most song writers will tell you that those kinds of songs are usually their best work.

I have yet to get the paypal thing up and running, but will continue to try and get something going there.

The Tv concept is also still in the can, but we are working on a few glitches. The biggest issue is we can’t do it from the studio as we planned because the cam mic messes up the drivers in the recording program, and thats a major issue. So it looks like we will need another computer and back drop for the tv show.

One interesting thing this week was an explsion in the nymber of plays of my music posted on www.indie-music.com.  Over the past few months the songs there had been getting about 50 plays or so a day, and all of a sudden 4 days ago, they began to get over a hundred plays a day! It has been that way all this week and I can’t figure out why, but it sure was a pleasant surprise. Everyone says that since the concept of internet music, songs come and go about every two months, and then people start looking for something new. I guess one mans old is another mans new depending upon the circumstances.

One other thing that might interest you all is I have made up my mind that just writing, and introducing my music, on the internet is not going to initially produce the amount of income it takes to keep this operation moving forward, so I am planning to start making personal appearances around the Nashville area initially, and then expanding by hundred mile radiuses over the next year. If you live within a hundred miles of Nashville, TN., and know of a place that a solo performer can play and would like us to look into booking it, just let us know in the comment section of this blog or drop me an email at billydarnellmusic@charter.net  and we will look into it. Also if your a musician, we are looking to put a back up group together, if you would like to get involved give me a shout. I have sent an application to the folks at ” Jamborie by the Lake” music festival, in Wichester, TN.,  that takes place labor day weekend, and that may be the first major festival we do, so if you live near by, or plan to be there, stop by and see me.

Oh, one other issue. We have been looking into a way to distribute the CD’s through a major distributor, and found the hoops one has to jump through to obtain it a bit cumbersome. So I have decided to try and build our own distribution network through small privately owned shops through out the world, by offering a limited number of CD’s on consignment. If you know of a small privately owned music store in your area we can contact please help us out and let us know. If you could email me (or leave it in a comment on this blog ) the contact information such as the name of the music store, the owners name, address, and a telephone number, it sure would help us to better distribute our CD’s.

Well guys and girls , thats about it.  You all take care and we will catch you on the flip side.

 Your Friend,

Billy Darnell

Hello Everyone,

Well it’s been too long since I did this blog again. I apoligize for not keeping you all better informed, but up to this point, to be very honest with you, given the complications of a new recording program, new hardware, the addition of a new mixer in the studio, and recruiting studio musicians, there were times I wondered if it all was worth the time or trouble, and if we would ever get back on track. The good news is we have managed to survive and conquer the learning curve, and we are back on track.

The improvements we made in the studio have enabled us to record in a more efficient and speedy way, and I think has improved the quality of what we are now bringing to market. The addition of studio musicians will most certainly improve the overall production  of our product.

On the 13 th of March we released a new single to the public called ” They Dont Make Country Like They Use To “. It’s an upbeat tune about the current state of country music, and how us traditonal music lovers feel about it. Not only do I believe this may be one of the best productions we have ever released, but I also feel it is the right song at the right time. Every once in a while a song comes along that musically or lyrically isnt all that much, but it makes a statement that listeners can embrace and get behind and I believe this is one of those songs. We are expecting great things for this single release.

The DJ’s, who had the song almost a week before it’s release, have all raved about the song, and their listeners reaction to it. Dj’s who never before have shown any interest in my music are jumping on the bandwagon and playing this tune, and we sure do appreciate their support. More DJ’s will add this song to their playlists than any other song we have ever released.

We are also changing the promotional aspect a little for this next CD. Instead of releasing a full CD, we will be releasing 2 or 3 singles prior to the finished product. Part of  the merchandising plan will be to allow everyone to get a Free download of the new single. If you haven’t got yours yet , you can get one at  this website by going to www.billydarnell.com/announcements.html , scroll down to the announcement box, find the small gray box that says “Click here for your free download” and click on the text in the box. The reason we are litterally giving away this song is that we want people to see the improved quality, and to be able to really listen and hear this production, along with the fact we wanted to give something back to the fans. I would be remiss not to include the fact that it is a loss leader of sorts. We are hoping that country music lovers will start to look forward to the next CD with an anticipation of the best is yet to come, and believe me when I tell you , it is.

One other thing you might be wandering about is the paypal issue. For sometime we have talked about improving CD sales by adding a paypal option for payment at the site. After spending several hundred dollars on programs that would not load on our website, I believe we now have an option that is viable. Hopefully we will get the back end preperation work done this month to finally get it on the albums page as an option.

 Another thing we talked bout at the beggining of the year was a one hour weekly live show either on paltalk or some other venue. So far we have the camera and sound set up, but we are still working through what format or platform to use in the presentation. I love the paltalk community like they were my family, but as someone pointed out it does limit the access to the show, so we are looking at .Tv formats that should open us up to a whole world wide community. Hopefully we can find the right answer shortly.

I will leave you with a promise that the next CD will be the very best CD we have released to date from every aspect. Hopefully the changes in the merchandising platform will result in a much improved performance sales wise. Folks the best way to support an artist is to purchase his music, thats the only way you can insure that you will get to enjoy it in the future. In my mind their are great fans, they talk about how good the music is but never purchase any of it, and their are great supporters, they not only tell everyone about your music, but they go out of their way to purchase a single, a CD, or T-shirt anytime its available. I appreciate all my fans but the supporters I have a special affection for, they make it possible for me, and all artists, to keep making the music. Even when your an indie artist, and you do all your own recording and production to cut costs, you still have expenses. The equipment that has to be purchased and maintained to produce a quality product ( The recording software we just purchased cost us $699 ). The cost of the musicians  ( average $75 a track per musician ) , and the cost in distributing that product can run into thousands of dollars. So if you really like listening to an artist, be a great supporter, as well as a great fan. It’s the only way to say thank you in a manner that means something, and that something, is that you and others will continue to hear the artists that bring you hours of listening enjoyment for quite sometime.

 Thank you all for your continuing support.

Billy Darnell

Hello Everyone!

To all my supporters, I hope the holidays treated you well, and left you healthy and happy.

We ended the year on a great note as songvault.fm sent us an email advising us that my song ” I’m Gonna Love You Till Forever “, had made it through their 4 tiers of competition, and had been placed in their songvault and added for regular rotation on their playlist! I will attach a copy of the email at the end of this article. This is great news because songvault will now classify this song as “Most suited for radio play” and promote it, and myself, heavily in 2008.

Thanks to all my fans and supporters for all that you did in 2007, and hopefully that support will continue in the New Year. I certainly appreciated it.

Now whats next for 2008? Well, for starters I had talked about adding the option of using paypal for purchases at the website, and we will continue to work on that. It should be available shortly.  

In the next week or so, we will begin work on several new singles, and as soon as they are finished I will be sure to get them out to all our dj friends. You will all see quite a difference in the quality of production on these new songs as we intend to go full blown, fiddles, steel guitars, harmonicas, the whole 9 yards. We will also change how we release these new songs. We are going back to the old way , the way the major labels used to release material. By that I mean we will be releasing 2 or 3 singles before we release the album or complete CD. This will not only build interest in the new CD, but it will prevent file sharing of the entire CD also.

I would also like to see the addition of Artist memorabilia also on our sales sites and we are currently researching the best way to offer that at the most resonable cost to our fans.

We are also currently looking into doing a live 1 hour show on pal talk or some other web conferencing software once a week. The complications and arrangements are pretty extensive so that might take a while, but it is definitely in the plans for the future. The basic Idea is to present the show just as if you were in Nashville at one of the local venues, listening to a singer, sitting on stage, in one of the clubs. Giving the viewer a glimpse of reality as if they were right there in Nashville. I think a lot of people who will never get to Nashville might enjoy the aspect of participating in this type of venue, and it will open up the oppurtunity for the fans to sit with me and communicate on a very personal level. We will also tape the shows and offer them to viewers at my website, myspace page, and youtube.

If you are someone who might have a product and would be interested in sponsoring this project, please email me at: billydarnellmusic@charter.net, and we can discuss the details.

Some other things we will be doing from a promotional stand point is we will be adding our music to many more online stores and venues in the next few months. We are currently on about 50 sites and I would like to see that number double in 2008.

We are going to add a section to our supporters page listing every site that our music is featured at. Thus allowing the fans to visit and support these sites and myself at them.

Last but not least we will start doing live performances at several local venues in the very near future. These performances will be a mix of solo, and with a band, and we will list them on our website and all other venues as we set them. If your a musician in the greater Nashille area, and your tired of doing the same old covers everynight, and want to get involved with an original artist, have the freedom to play locally, be creative, and tour a little, contact me.

Well thats about it for now. The New Year is here and with it comes a renewed commitment and energy to excell and further expand our fan base in 2008. I hope you will all join me for the journey.

Oh and feel free to leave a comment on this blog or anything else for that matter. Let me know your listening. 

 Your friend,

Billy Darnell

Below is the email we received from Songvault:

                —– Original Message —– From: SongVault To: Billy Darnell Sent: Tuesday, December 25, 2007 2:15 AMSubject: Your track has been promoted! 

This is quite an accomplishment and something you should be proud of, considering that your song has been up against hundreds of other songs and has taken several months in order to pass through all the tiered stations.This is not the end of the journey but just the beginning!

Hi everyone,

I hope this finds you all well and happy.

Well the good news is we moved up to #24 on Joyce Ramgaties Top 200 world wide playlist for country music artists. Kind of funny when you look down the list and see George Strait right behind you at #25..lol. Sort of puts that list into perspective I do believe. Still, I think it says that the efforts that have been made to get my name out there on the internet were certainly not wasted. When you consider this is all country artists played on the internet #24 is pretty darn good. I’d like to thank all of you that requested my music and have helped spread the word at sites, and all the great Dj’s out there for the support they have given my music. It has been truly amazing that a CD recorded with just a bare 4 piece, and given little money for advertising, has managed to get as much play as this one has.

I also received an inquirey from a small Nashville Label last week. They asked me to send my CD to their A & R department so I did. I haven’t heard anything back from them yet and its been a week, but at any label, the wheels of progress grind kind of slow sometimes. If anything comes of it I will be sure to let you know.

I managed to hook up with several sites this week that should allow me to really enhance the next generation of my music. Thay have fiddle , steel , and harmonica players which I intend to include on my next project. I am commited to doing one more CD just to see if the production were more full blown, how the response would improve.

The bad news, well, sales did not improve this month, even with all the great numbers we are seeing. Infact they went down, which is pretty hard to believe when they have been almost non existent to begin with. I was a little surprised because of how many people told me they would be purchasing the CD this month. Of course that happens on a daily basis. At least twice a day someone tells me they ordered it , and at least 28 out of 30 days this month nobody has. I have been forced to look at all that kind of stuff with a ” I will believe it when I see it.” kind of attitude. Seems on the internet, you can not only be whatever you want to be, but you can say whatever you think anyone wants to hear. I guess they  may not realize that when anyone buys a CD, I know exactly who they are, when they purchased it, and which one they purchased immediately. Oh well thats the internet it seems.

If misery truly loves company, the good news is, I am not alone. I have talked to several other artists who are producing quality music on the internet, have been for a lot longer than I have, and the general consensus is too many people are giving their music away, and that users on the internet are just looking for something for nothing. They tell me there is no such thing on the internet as fan loyalty, and that my best bet is to get out to the real world and start doing gigs on a consistant basis. I will not only build a bigger fan base , but that I will sell a lot more CDs. Hard to believe I haven’t really sold  many CDs at all, and yet I have out sold all of them put together the last few months. They probably are right.

I have read every piece of literature available as to how to market successfully on the internet, have applied all those theorys to my website, along with a few of my own, and still sales are negligible.

I keep telling myself it’s only been 3 months, with the numbers we are seeing things will eventually get better, but some how I can’t help feeling at times, that I am only fooling myself. So, at this point I am going to try one or two more things on the website to  try and enhance sales, and start getting back into the studio to work on new material. I am commited to doing one more CD at the very least, though this time the release of material will be a little different. I will release two or three singles over the next several months, and then complete the CD.

I am also going to put the band together and start doing shows locally to drive the CD sales. That unfortunately means I can spend less time focusing on the internet, but as in any business, one has to market to the people that are willing to support them and purchase their product. I have become aquainted with a lot of good people on here, so I wont abandon it completely, but I think it may be many years down the road before an artist can market their product successfully on this medium. Though there are millions of people on the internet, there is still a stigma about trust, and many other issues, that are just too great to overcome at this point I guess.

Anyways, the new singles should start within the next month or so, and we will see how that goes.

One improvement I think we are going to make at the website is a paypal customer page. It is an option not given at Cdfreedom, and I am hoping it will make purchases easier for those who have paypal accounts, and generate another medium of payment. At this point it can’t hurt, and its worth a shot.

Until next isssue I hope you all stay healthy and good things come to you and yours.

Your friend ,

Billy Darnell

P.S.

By the way, CDs make great inexpensive christmas gifts, and give hours of enjoyment to those who receive them.

Hello everyone!

Well let me start out by saying CD sales have improved and thats a mighty good thing!

We are already ahead of the goal we set for this month and with a few days left things might get even better. I can’t speak strongly enough on the importance of sales. Not only are they a measuring tool as to how well the music is accepted, but more importantly they allow me to keep getting CDs out there to dj’s around the world that help us to introduce the product into more markets. Keep in mind current sales are under $100.00, then consider, to send out a package of the 2 cds to radio stations and dj’s outside of the continental USA cost about $16 to $18 dollars a package! I have mailed out at least 20 packages so far and that is a far cry from the several thousand copies we need to get out there. To ship 2 cd’s to just 1,000 dj’s world wide would cost over $16,000.oo! Now you might be thinking,  wow,  you got to sell a lot of CDs just to break even, and you would be right. It has caused me to re-evaluate the approach for exposure and marketing. One answer is compilation CDs that are put together by promoters where they put 10 or 15 artists on a CD and send them out to a thousand or so radio stations and dj’s around the world. It is much more cost efficient, and effective in saturating a market. So I just contracted with a promoter to put 2 songs from my CDs on a compilation CD that is going out to 1400 dj’s in october, and I will be looking for more promotions of this type. However there are still certain dj’s and markets we will be concentrating on getting out those two CD packages to. Right now we are working on the Australian market. When we finish that we will be working on some of the other small countries that have large country music popularity. You can talk about being a fan all you want, but if you don’t buy an artists CDs, and you dont help support his music, he wont be there very long for you to be a fan of. If you really enjoy the songs and the music we do, please , purchase some of it. We need your help to keep going.          

Ok, enough on the importance of sales. If you have looked around the web site lately you probably have noticed a few changes. For one there is now a photo section. These photos are from a shoot we did a couple of weeks ago, and we plan to use them to let fans pick a picture they would like to have persoanlly autographed if they choose to do so. We are currently evaluating the cost involved in this process, and we should have them available within the next two or three weeks.

We have also added a Supporters page where you can find information on radio stations and other venues that have agreed to play or promote, my music. We thought this would be a good thing from several standpoints. First it lets you the fan know where they can hear my music, and secondly, it helps push traffic to those sites that support it. It also allows us to communicate with the fans the various ways we have made to allow them to show their support.

 We also moved the blog link, and the printable order form link, up to the main menu in the hopes it would be easier for people to locate.

This coming week we will start to look into press releases and using ezines to drive traffic to the website. There is alot to be done yet to help keep the momentum rolling our way.

Last week I did a live radio interview, that went out to the web, with Radio Dj Bobby Lynn. It went really well, was a lot of fun, and more importantly it created several new fans.

This Saturday at 6PM est time I will be opening a room at paltak for a meet and greet with what I hope will be many of my fans on there. The purpose will also to be to organize a street team for the web for the fans to get involved and help with promotion, and that will be a very big help if we can pull it off.

All in all things are still progressing very well. The sales are starting to come around, the fan base is growing in leaps and bounds, radio dj’s are willing and even motivated to play the CDs, and promoters are asking for me to get involved in their projects. If this was a wall street report The market would up 200 points!!! lol, but it isnt so I have to get back to work.

Thanks to everyone that has supported me this far, the fans, the Dj’s, the internet radio people, all of you are what keeps me going. I still believe the new CD release, “15 Years Later” is  gonna be a hit, and will help catapult us into the next CD, which is in the planning stage, and I guarantee you it will be even better than “15 Years Later”.

Until next time may the good lord bless you, and dont forget to get your copy of the cd’s…lol ( www.cdfreedom.com/billydarnell )

Your Friend,

Billy Darnell

Hey evrybody,

I hope this post finds you all healthy, wealthy, and wise. If it does your 3 steps ahead of me!  : )

Do you all have any idea how many internet radios station there are out there, or how many music sites there are, how many podcasts are available, how many forums on country music?? I do, because I’ve been researching them for the past 3 weeks. The number is unbelievable. I spent the last 4 or 5 days contacting about 50 of them, to only end up with about 15 that were worth their weight in salt. It strikes me as not too good a ratio. The bad news is you spend a lot of wasted time signing up, filling in all the information they require, Just to find out that, when you get in, all that good stuff they bragged about on their home page is available only when you pay an extra cost for them. The good news is there are probably over a million more of them available to apply too.

However the website or the albums are now posted on about 20 other locations, like myspace, isound, soundclick, songramp, artistopia, and a whole lot more. We picked up another Radio supporter today, and that’s a real good thing, well two actually. One is a show in Australia, and the other if your a big country music fan you might know, It’s the Jerry Mac and friends show over at www.countrymusicplanet.com, they broadcast from 4PM est to about 8pm est, and he took 4 songs which he started playing today , and he requested hard copies of the 2 cd’s which are already in the mail to him, so apparantly he liked the songs and I got a feeling he is going to be a real big supporter, and do a lot of good for us by getting the music out there for the world to hear. We have cd’s on the way to 2 other dj’s, and several podcast dj’s we are sending music to tommorow.

The group thing isn’t going as well I thought it would, and I doubt I will pursue any more of those. Most have very little posting activity, or so much your post gets lost in the pile, they don’t seem to realize that the quality of the information is more important than the quanity. If your going to use groups, the MSN groups in my opinion are the most useful. They are usually pretty active and they do a good job of maintaining the post boards. They aren’t filled with advertisements and porn like the yahoo groups tend to be.

I can’t update you with how “Don’t Hold On To A Memory” did this week, because Ram Radio hasn’t posted their top 30 yet. They had to bring in a new broadcaster just recently, and it’s gonna take a little while for them to catch up.

All in all things are going good and more than meeting my expectations at this point. We had some sales this week and thats a real good thing! By the way, have you gotten your copies of the cd’s yet, or purchased that favorite single?  ; )  Thats how every performer in the business evaluates his fans, and his worth, by the sales. It’s the only way to measure the  popularity of the music he offers. Combine that with the fact that, that’s how the bigger radio stations, and other distributors decide if your worth adding to their lists, and it’s even more important.  So if you haven’t gotten around to it yet, there’s no time like the present. : )

 One last item then I got to get back to the grind. This blog is meant to be , not just a journal for me, and to let our fans know what’s going on, but it’s also done to allow you all to participate and have some input to me. If you all have a suggestion, or a comment that might help us do things better or more efficiently, or you have some promotional knowledge and would like to share it, theres a comment button at the bottom of this page, click on it and share your views. Any insight or help you might be able to give as far as how to better promote this site and the albums would be deeply , deeply appreciated. If nothing else it lets me know I ain’t typing to myself or the wall.

Thank you all for your support

 Your friend,

Billy Darnell

Well I have spent most of labor day, laboring, trying to find a blog program I could get installed properly, and learn how to use. I hope this is it , finally. I am not going to say too much here because I don’t know yet if it’s even going to post properly. This is sort of a test run of the blog. God I hope it works.

For a quick capsule type thing I want to say how Happy I am that ” Don’t Hold On To A Memory ” has maintained it’s #1 position on Ram Radios chart for the second straight week!! Unbelievable.

We are currently in promotion mode at Billy Darnell Music, and starting the process of getting the news out about the new website, and the Release of our second album “15 Yeras Later”. I thought getting this far was a lot of work, but it now appears the real work has just begun! I would like to say ” Thank you “  to those of you that have been watching the progress and have been talking up myself, my music, and this website, at different forums and groups. I really appreciate it and it makes the job of promotion so much easier when you guys do that so , “Thank you” for your help and support. It is very much appreciated, believe me.  

 Ok lets see if we can get this darn thing attached to the website some how.

Talk at you very soon in the future if we can.

Billy