For musicians outside New York State or others who can't participate or have missed past installments of "The Bootstrap Music Series" discussed in the last post, here are some resources on line you may find helpful.

The resource list comes directly from previous courses in "The Bootstrap Music Series" provided via the series blog and may be helpful in bootstrapping the prospective music career.

From "How To Protect Yourself", a series on intellectual property rights, contracts and negotiations:

• Tax preparation and planning for artists

• A standard consent agreement

• Legal and business issues for artists

• Seven elements of negotiations

From "Online promotion and marketing":

• Three PowerPoint presentations on promotion and marketing in general, "Online Digital and CD Sales", and "Social
Media and Virtual Worlds".

• Seven tips for marketing your music on line

• Search engine optimization for your band website

• The horror story of one bootstrapping band that lost its URL to big media

• The online music career of singer/songwriter John Coulton

• 20 things you must know about music online

Online sales options for your music including:

• Moses Avalon's Digital Distributor's Chart

• CD Baby, an online retailer

• Google checkout seller's info

• Disc Revolt

Social networks and tools for bootstrap music marketing include:

• MySpace

• Facebook

• iLike

• GarageBand.com

• Virb

• Last.fm

• Podsafe Music Network

• Dave Jackson's "Promoting with Podcasting"

• Live 365

• YouTube, (of course)

• Second Life

Other important web resources include:

• The New York Public Library Small Business Research Guide

• New York State's Online Permit Assistance and Licensing

• U.S. Copyright Office

• United States Patent and Trademark Office

• Wikipedia page on contracts

• New York State procedures for forming/changing not-for-profit corporations

• Creation of non-profits

• Creation of non-profit and for-profit boards

• Accountability for non-profit boards