Indie Bible
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The Indie Bible is the only resource that is totally dedicated to Musicians and Songwriters that have recorded a CD or a demo.
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[edit] About
The Indie Bible is a music directory created for musicians and singer/songwriters that have recorded a CD. It shows artists where they can get their music reviewed, their songs played and their CDs sold. Now on its 8th Edition, The Indie Bible has 343 pages of valuable contacts and music-related articles.
[edit] History
As is the case with a lot of things in life, the Indie Bible was created totally by accident.
In 1999, author David Wimble was in the process of recording his first CD. During the last months of recording, he began searching online for places that might help his soon-to-be-released CD to get some exposure - radio stations that would play his songs, publications that would review his CD etc. He began poking around on the internet and it wasn't long before a "massive" new world opened up to him. He found that the number of services online that were willing to help independent artists was incredible!
David spent several hours every day finding places where he could send his CD to in order to get a review or airplay. He was happily surprised to also find several online services that were willing to help SELL his music. He stored all of this information he was gathering into a spreadsheet. After a few months of research, he had accumulated several hundred contacts.
When the recording of his CD was finally finished, the band he was building (and planned on touring with) broke up. He was heavily in debt, so the idea of trying to form another band, and then tour around, was not very practical. He needed to start paying off some of the bills, and selling a few CDs a week wasn't going to cover the expenses. He also knew that if he was to try and put a new band together, there was no guarantee that it would last long enough to get any momentum going.
Then an idea popped into his head. During the whole time he was researching throughout the internet, David was wondering why he couldn't find some sort of directory that lists the addresses of all the helpful services available to independent artists. He wondered how practical it would be to publish a resource that would list all these places that he had been finding. It would be an ordered, tidy resource that would enable musicians and songwriters to avoid spending the incredible number of hours it took to find the resources in the first place.
He contacted a musician friend from Boston for some feedback on the idea. She confirmed that it was a great idea and that he would probably sell a lot of them. That's all he needed to hear. It was at that moment that the "Indie Contact Bible" was officially born. From that point on David began to consciously research information that would be added into this new resource.
During his research, David realized that if he was to succeed at publishing this resource, he would need to include "all" genres of music... not just resources for the styles of music that he enjoyed listening to. He began searching for resources from Americana to Zydeco in order to create a widespread appeal for the book.
The first edition came into being in October of 1999. It was a very low budget book that was photocopied and had a plain white cover. Even though the book was as simple and DIY as it gets, the value was recognized by any artist that was trying to get exposure for their music. Everyone that bought the 1st Edition loved it!
[edit] Features
The 8th Edition of the Indie Bible features:
- 4200 publications from around the world that will REVIEW your CD!
- 3400 radio stations from around the world will PLAY your songs!
- 600 vendors and services that will help you to SELL your music!
- 500 helpful resources and sites where you can PROMOTE your band!
- 50 articles that will help your career to MOVE forward rapidly! Authors include Daylle Schwartz, Jeri Goldstein, Brian Austin Whitney, Derek Sivers, Diane Rapaport, Peter Spellman, Bryan Farrish, Christopher Knab and many more!
[edit] Announcements & News
The 8th Edition of The Indie Bible features new sub-sections for Podcasts and MP3 Blogs. These two mediums have grown exponentially in the last couple of years, and have become an excellent promotional vehicle for independent recording artists. Most Podcasts and MP3 Blogs love to feature new artists.
[edit] Philosophy
[edit] Values
The Indie Bible has always been created through the eyes of an artist. There is no "filler". All the resources listed in The Indie Bible are ones that can actually help independent artists. It will always remain that way.
[edit] Mission
Our mission is to help generate exposure for artists and their music.
[edit] Milestone
[edit] Awards
- Creative Line Magazine "Creative Vision Award"
- IMMIE Award for "Best Independent Music Publication"
[edit] Community Service
Starting in 2007, 5% of all income will be given to various charities.
[edit] Partners
The Indie Bible has licensing deals with the following:
It also has hundreds of affiliates including:
[edit] Trivia
Did you know that...
- The First Edition was called "The Indie Contact Bible". A lot of people thought that the book was either for "Indie Rock" artists or in a lot of cases, "Indy cars". To make it perfectly clear that the book would be helpful to ALL musicians (and NOT to Indy car enthusiasts) the Second Edition was titled "The Independent Musician's Contact Bible".
- The distributor of "The Independent Musician's Contact Bible" said that it took too long to say the name to their prospective clients, and asked that the name be shortened to something like "The Indie Bible". The change was made, and the rest is history.
