It isn’t easy to make decent money as a musician. It might not even be possible unless you treat your band as the business it is, and do whatever you can to help your audience feel like they know you. Whether your band is just starting out, or whether you’ve been playing shows for years, there are ways to turn your art into a profitable lifestyle. Maybe you feel you can’t live without writing and playing your music. Well, you need to convince your fan base that they can’t live without you writing and playing your music either.

There are three basic strategies that will help make your band into a phenomenon that will one day pay the bills. You need to develop and polish your stage show, offer products that your fans will love, and make a steady, consistent effort to promote your band and keep your fans up to date with all of your goings on.

Live Shows

Your shows are probably where you, as a musician, have the most fun. Nothing can compare to looking out over a crowd that knows all the words to your songs. But satisfaction doesn’t make ends meet, so you need to use your shows not only as the giant group hug they are, but also as an opportunity for your fans to get their hands on some amazing merchandise tied in with your band.

The first step is to make sure your band gives live performances that turn the fans on. You can’t do this by simply booking a venue, showing up, and playing your set list. You need to win the crowd over with each and every show, reminding your fans why they like you so much. And a polished, well rehearsed show is the first step.

In the theatre that is your band’s live performance, every band member plays a different character, whether they want to or not. You need to make these characters relate to the people in the audience. That way, your fans feel like they are getting to know you as you perform. And though it sounds shallow, your band needs to have its most attractive member front and center. This isn’t always practical. If your drummer is your band’s most attractive member, at least make sure that he or she is well lit and not blocked by the other band members.

Take a look at everything that goes into one of your shows. Do you have a decent backdrop? Are you selling CDs and merchandise from a wobbly card table manned by the bassist’s little brother, or do you have a solidly built sales booth “branded” with your band’s persona? Are you selling the same t-shirts and CDs that you sold a year ago, or are you keeping the promotional merchandise fresh? And that brings us to the next topic.

Your Band’s Merchandise

You’ll want to mention your band’s website during the show, and you should also have your band’s web address printed on the merchandise that you sell. Giving away stickers with your band’s logo and web address is a great promotional technique. Sure, those stickers cost you money, but if it puts hundreds of eyeballs in front of your website ordering your new CD, then it is a worthwhile investment.

If you plan to sell t-shirts, offer a good quality product. It is worth the investment to have a talented graphic designer design your shirts for you. This doesn’t mean you have to shell out big money to hire a big name designer. You can often find local talent through sites like Craigslist. If money is tight, you could barter with the designer you want for, say a t-shirt design in exchange for a handful of tickets to your show, a mention of his or her name during the show, and a few CDs. You should price the t-shirts so that you cover production costs, and have a small profit. You can also gin up some serious goodwill by giving away two or three t-shirts to fans during your show.

Promoting Your Band

This is something you do consistently, just like rehearsing. Give fans who visit your band’s website or its MySpace page something new every week, or every few days if you can manage it. If none of the band members has much interest in or talent for keeping up a blog, you may want to hire a blogger to do this for you. Again, “hire” may mean “barter for.” But a good, consistent blogger will keep fans returning to your sites, building anticipation for your next show and/or album.

With regard to your website, there is one very important factor that it would be easy to overlook. Create a domain name that is easy to spell and that isn’t full of hyphens or underlines. Ideally you want your website’s domain to be easy enough for anyone to remember, so that they can find your site easily the first time. If you have a good website or blog that is updated regularly, your fans will want to bookmark it and return regularly.

Create a simple press kit and send it to local media outlets. Lifestyles editors love getting well made press materials because it does part of their job for them. Write a brief cover letter describing your band. Include a demo CD containing your best song as the first track. Also include a band photo.

You don’t have to hire an expensive photographer for this. You’ll need digital photos that will print at a size of around 5” by 7” at 200 to 300 dpi and that shows each band member’s face. The setting should reflect the image you want your band to have. Whether you hire a local photographer or set up a tripod and do it yourself, take at least a dozen shots to maximize your chances of getting that iconic picture that makes you say, “Yeah, that’s us!” Simple online programs like Picasa, and tools in photo sharing sites like PhotoBucket can be used to enhance lighting and clarity and crop out clutter.

If you’re new and relatively unknown, go ahead and do the “cheesy” shows every chance you get. This means weddings and proms. If you have a few of these on your resume, local venues will believe that you can draw in fans. They’ll be less likely to book you hoping to turn a profit with cover charges and drinks if they don’t think you’ll bring in an audience. Once you have a few weddings, bar mitzvahs, and school dances under your belt, you can honestly tell a venue owner that you have played before groups of 50 or 100, or whatever it was. This will give you room to negotiate when asking for a cut of the cover charge.

Conclusion

While making music is something you do from the heart, that doesn’t mean it can’t generate income too. Making money with your band doesn’t just happen spontaneously. You will have to treat your band as a business entity and use the tools you have available to advertise that business. You can’t do this haphazardly and hope to become rich and famous. Rather, you have to put some serious effort into making your fans anticipate your shows, offering fans merchandise that they love, and promoting your band in the print press, in person, and over the Internet.

Don’t give up! It won’t necessarily be easy, but the first time your band gets a check big enough to cover the rent will be a sweet memory that will make all the work worthwhile.

Note: you need WinRAR to start, pick it up at RarLabs. Its just like winzip, but better.

• Get all the files you want to hide, and compress them into a file using WinRar
• Make a folder on your C:\ called “hide”
• Copy the compressed file you just made into the folder “hide”
• Copy the image you want noobs to see when they click on it into the “hide” folder
• Go open Command Prompt (you can find it in accessories)and you want to go to your C:\. If you dont start in it when you start the command prompt, type “cd ../../” without the quotes. It should say C:\>
• Now type “cd hide” without the quotes
• Type copy/b photo.jpg + files.rar result.jpg
• You have just magically created “result.jpg” with the files in your compressed folder. You can rename result to anything else

Now when you click the image file it will show an image just like normal It will be the size of the compressed file you used though.

When you want to decompress it just right click on it and go to “open with” and choose WinRar. Then just extract it to wherever you want!

Now go impress your friends. You could even make up a jpg that says “OMG DONT LOOK” or something so it looks suspicious, but no one will ever know why you have a 560MB jpg file on your desktop.

In this article we are going to discuss how to funny around good looking women

you are interested in. Now if I’ve said this once, I’ve said it 100 times…there is NO greater natural aphrodisiac than laughter! If you get a girl to be silly, light and laughing there is almost NOTHING else you CAN’T get her to do later. Most men have trouble with this simple step. So continue reading as I share a few easy tips for those of you who’ve asked! Read on.

Filed Under: Laughter and Lust Make Erotic Bedfellows.

The easiest way to make a beautiful girl laugh is to playfully laugh at HER! Most really hot women are SO used to being put on a pedestal, and patronized with really bad lines that a man who takes the comic approach is REALLY appreciated. If you can tease her with some good and funny things that she did that were funny, she’s going to be intrigued. A bit taken back and VERY curious to know more!

And when in doubt:

Not sure you can pull of the laughing at her part yet? No worries, when in doubt, laugh at yourself! There is something amazingly sexy about a man who can laugh at himself. Think about all of the great, funny sexy actors who get ALL of the beautiful women in the movies, and in real life to boot! A man who can make others laugh at his expense shows an incredible amount of confidence – and you’d be surprised at how many men are too insecure to point out their own flaws in public. (or in private for that matter) Step out of the box, INTO the spotlight and shine in brightly on one of YOUR character flaws, and watch the women flock!

And One Last thing:

Women admit that they would prefer a man who COMMUNICATES passionately during sex (which means she wants a little lusty dialog, they want you to learn the landscape a bit better (understand her body) and they PREFER a man who is SUPREMELY confident and self assured.

Replacing a flat tire

Introduction

Replacing a flat tire requires only a few essentials: a spare tire, a jack, a tire iron, and a wheel chock (or large rock). Because flat tires are so common and can happen at any time, every driver should know how to replace a tire with a spare. Although it can be daunting the first time you attempt it, replacing a tire is not very difficult. Almost anyone can do it in under 15 minutes, which is less time than it usually takes for assistance to arrive. After reading this set of instructions, you will know how to safely and correctly replace a tire on your own.

Directions

1. Pull off the road, turn off the engine, and turn on the hazard lights.

2. Put the car in park on level ground and apply the parking brake.

Note: If you drive a manual transmission car, you should put it in gear.

3. Place a wheel chock or a large rock behind (if facing uphill) or in front of (if facing downhill) the diagonally opposing wheel to prevent the car from rolling.

Note: This should be done even on a slight incline.

4. Get out the spare tire, a lug nut wrench (tire iron), and a car jack.

Note: To avoid bruised knuckles, you should pull rather than push when removing lug nuts.

Note: Do the following before jacking up the car.

5. Remove the lug nut by placing one end of the tire iron over a lug nut.

Note: The loosening of the lug nuts should be completed in a star pattern, first loosening one a few turns and then loosening the one opposite.

6. Turn the tire iron counter clockwise to loosen the lug nut.

7. Work across the tire until all the lug nuts are loose and unscrewed.

Warning: Cars can slip off jacks. Being extremely careful is very important. You should never get under a car with only a tire changing jack holding it up.

8. Move the jack underneath the car.

Note: Your owner’s manual will specify the correct place to put the jack.

9. Turn the knob at the end of the jack, using the provided metal hand crank.

10. Raise the car with the jack until the flat tire is completely raised off the ground.

11. Remove the wheel lugs completely.

Note: Depending on how tight the lugs are, you might be able to remove them by hand. The lugs should be set aside in a secure location where they can’t roll away.

12. Remove the flat tire.

13. Lift the spare tire onto the wheel studs by holding up the tire and trying to line up the holes in the wheel with the protruding wheel studs.

Note: One trick that might help is to balance the tire on your foot while you move it into position.

Note: If you are confused about which is the right way to put on the new tire, you should check for the valve where you add air: it always faces out.

14. Screw each of the wheel lugs back on by hand.

Caution: Make sure you do not cross-thread the wheel studs and the lug nuts.

15. Use the tire iron to finish the job, working around the wheel in a star pattern.

Note: You should avoid tightening adjacent nuts consecutively.

16. Slowly lower the jack and then pull the jack away from the vehicle.

17. Tighten down the lugs completely.

Note: The reason you tighten the lugs now is that the tire is on the ground and it won’t rotate around like it would if it was still hanging in the air.

18. Place the flat tire back into the space where the spare tire was, and the jack and the tire iron should be put back in the car.

Note: Most compact spare tires are smaller than regular tires, so it is possible that the flat tire won’t fit in the spare tire well.

Warning: Compact spares have a limited top speed. The tire’s top speed will be written on its sidewall. If your vehicle has a full-size spare, you won’t encounter these problems.

Conclusion

You have now successfully replaced a flat tire. With the spare installed, you should be able to reach your house or the nearest service station.

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