Cristina Cano:
People that are writers are creatives just like us most of the time, and they really appreciate feedback as well. They appreciate when you tag them or when you let them know, "I appreciate what you wrote about me." That's where I'm coming back to that personal relationship. Don't be swarming about it. Don't just try to make friends with people just so that they'll do nice things for you. That's transparent, but if you can actually create relationship with people, appreciate what they're doing for you, I think that'll take you far.

Michael Walker:
It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music, but I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician, and it's only getting better. If you have high quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution in today's music industry, and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

Michael Walker:
All right. We are officially live here with Christina Cano, which rhyme with bono. I just confirmed with her to make sure that I'm pronouncing her name correctly. Today, we're going to be focusing on "engaging the press" and talking about if as a musician you've got an EP or a single or an album getting to release, what does the process look for the timeline of when should you be reaching out to press and how to best leverage that release.

Michael Walker:
Christina is a great voice to share on the topic because she literally just got done with her own release. So she would be able to experience it both from the standpoint of helping other artists with it, and now she's also doing it herself. So I think it's going to be super valuable. So Christina also has experienced organizing the DIY musician conferences in Nashville, Austin, Spain. She's been a featured speaker on the subject for many years. So I think it's going to be super valuable. So Christina, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

Cristina Cano:
Thank you so much for having me this morning. I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, PR.

Michael Walker:
It's going to be awesome. It's going to be fun. So Christina, pretty much every speaker that's on the conference this year is someone that I've connected with personally before we've met. Christina and I are actually just meeting for the first time about 10 minutes ago. Yeah. So we're new friends. So both for me and for everyone that is listening or watching this right now, love to hear just a little bit about your story and how you got started in the role that you're helping now with serving artists.

Cristina Cano:
Yeah. So first and foremost, I've been a musician for as long as I can remember. I spent some time touring with a band internationally for a few years. Really got to see the background of the music industry in that way because it was more than just playing shows in town. I started to recognize, "Oh, labels need you to send this, this, and this." There's all this extra stuff that's going on behind the background, booking, all that stuff.

Cristina Cano:
So I really wanted to give my community ... At the time, I was based in Portland, Oregon, which is where I spent the last decade basically making music, and I really wanted to give back to my community that information, the stuff I was learning on the road. So I started working for CD Baby as at the time artist rep, then eventually, I'm working in the marketing department and now, I am an artist marketing specialist. So I'm giving that community a boost through marketing, did the DIY Musician Conference teaching independent artists how to take their career and put it in their hands and move forward and do it yourself.

Cristina Cano:
Through that, I met Kaytee Long of DIY Music Public Relations, and Kaytee, when I moved to LA, invited me to come work for her doing PR. So I have the artist marketing background and now the PR background. Like you said, I'm also using it for my own music. I just put out an album on May 7th. So we're still in that month of crunch time. As everybody knows, this doesn't end on the day of a release. So still pitching. So yeah, it's been a pretty crazy couple of years just bouncing between all of these different things and getting to apply all of the info that I'm learning behind the scenes to not only my music, but to those of my community.

Michael Walker:
That's awesome. Thanks for sharing. Congratulations on the new release.

Cristina Cano:
Thank you.

Michael Walker:
I can imagine that you're still in the midst of it right now and everything is good.

Cristina Cano:
100%.

Michael Walker:
That's awesome. I think it definitely gives you a unique perspective. I think that there's pros and cons. I think sometimes perspective from someone, I know I've connected with people who are able to give me so much perspective because they are focused on their thing and they can come in, but then also, I think that there is this aspect for you, both helping artists and also doing it yourself or there's probably a lot of things where you're like, "Oh, yeah, this is what it feels like," and, "Oh, this is ..." So I'm curious to hear based on your perspective now having just released this new project, what were some of the biggest lessons learned or biggest challenges or mistakes both that you made or just common patterns that you see that maybe people who are watching this right now should also be looking out for to avoid?

Cristina Cano:
Okay. So a lot, of course. I feel like I came into this really wanting to put my best foot forward. So at least for me, for this release, which was two years in the making of an album, and then I did a waterfall rollout strategy, I really planned this thing out, and I think that was in my favor 99% of the time. One thing that I'll talk about is time is important not only speaking from my own experience, but that as working as a publicist is that it is important to put enough lead time from the time that you, if you're an independent artist, you're signing up your music for distribution, you have that confirmed release date set far enough in advance so you can start pitching that to people and letting people know, "This is absolutely coming out on June 1st."

Cristina Cano:
If that's the case, the lesson is three to four for printed press, about one to two for digital press, and then about one or so for your own personal network, for your own fan base, you want to start building the buzz for that. Playlists, there's all these different avenues that you can go with SubmitHub and that sort of thing. You could start doing that a couple weeks before your release. Then of course, you never stop with the playlists after you're released. So the earliest that you're really going to start pushing things is three to four months if you're trying to get something written up, and then never ending afterwards if you're trying to keep continuing on the playlist.

Cristina Cano:
The biggest lesson I learned through this, and this is a hot topic right now, is SubmitHub can suck in the beginning. Feedback about stuff before you've even put music out, that was difficult because it's just playlisters. They're not musicians most of the time. They're not people that have worked for two years building this thing that they're putting out into the world. They're just people that are listening to your songs for 30 seconds and deciding whether or not it fits on their playlist, and sometimes getting that feedback before you've put anything out there, whatever, can feel really debilitating.

Cristina Cano:
So that's my personal experience with this release. That doesn't mean don't do it. It just means keep these things in mind. When you are pitching yourself, when you're putting yourself out there, there's going to be people that like it, and there's going to be people that don't, and try and focus your energy less on these cash grab things, and put more of your focus in, "How do I get this out to the ears that are willing to hear this right now? The press, more editorial playlists, my fans." Let's focus our energy there, building the buzz there, so that way, it's well-received everywhere.

Michael Walker:
Super helpful. Yeah. I think you touched on something there that's so important for all of us here as musicians, which is, especially when you're listening to music or you have a new project, it's like you're planting a seed and you want it to grow into this beautiful tree and to build an audience and to build really a thriving career, but when you plant the seed, you have to be pretty careful about who you let stomp around the seed because there's going to be some people who you will stomp on it, and if they do, it's this delicate state for yourself where you're probably already having some-

Cristina Cano:
Oh, my God!

Michael Walker:
It's a vulnerable thing to put out your music. So I think that 100% it's a really valuable lesson for all of us to make sure that we're careful about who we're asking for feedback and also not taking things personally, and making sure that we focus on the people and the groups that are getting the most value from the music and that are the fertilizer that are actually going to help it grow.

Cristina Cano:
Remember that creating personal relationships with whoever you're pitching to is always really valuable, too. I had some of the best success not only for myself, but other artists for creating these personal relationships with people where I'm like, "I've listened to your playlist. I love your playlist. It would be an honor if you could add this track to your playlist." That relationship I feel like goes a lot further than this platform that, I'm not going to speak poorly on these platforms because they're great, I've also gotten a lot of artists great playlists from these things, but I just think that that personal, taking that step of getting to know somebody and saying, "I recognized that you've put time and energy into this thing. I really appreciate it, and I think that you might like Michael Walker's song." That's how I think the best responses tend to come and not just for playlists. That's the same with press. It's the same with asking fans to listen to you. Give back what you're putting in.

Michael Walker:
That's so good. Yeah. I feel like that's a fundamental thing. One thing that I always recommend that everyone looks out for, and it's something I look out for when I'm having these conversations is seeing where does the advice overlap because there's all these different speakers, all these different information points, and really smart tactics, but then there's also this underlying principles and foundations and things that come up over and over again. It seems like one of the ones that you just pointed to was the power of relationship and personal communication and connection and how a lot of times, I mean, there's a reason that there's all those cliche statements about your network is your net worth and how important relationships are in the music industry and any industry. So with that in mind, I'm curious on what your recommendations would be for how do you build those relationships and how do you connect with the right people and what would that look for you.

Cristina Cano:
Well, I definitely have to give all the credit for learning how to speak to press to Kaytee Long, who started DIY Public Relations. When I met her, she was so intentional and so personal. Even just meeting her, I hired her to speak at a conference. I met her and we had this conversation that just felt so connected and personal. You meet people all the time and you don't necessarily create a connection like that, but I recognized that in her, and that is 100% what she's bringing to her business when she's reaching out to people, also in the way that she's handling artists. That intentionality is really meaningful to me and why I was like, "Yeah, sure. I'll come work for you 100%."

Cristina Cano:
So I think that that's where you start, right? You start with building relationships, and the best way to do that is to look for writers that are writing on subjects or writing on artists that you like. So for example, if you want to be in BrooklynVegan, that's a blog, and you like a certain writer or you like a certain artist, and you see that that artist was written about, you maybe look at the writer, then look at the writer's other body of work and be like, "Is this the right person to write about me? I am an existential folk artist, and this is a person that particularly only writes about hip hop. So maybe that's not the right person for me to try and ask to listen to my music or to write about it."

Cristina Cano:
That doesn't mean that you have to completely limit yourself to people that only write about a specific genre, but I do think that that's important to know who you're reaching out to and to be like, "Okay. I know your body of work. I've read it, and I would love it if you would consider writing about mine or about my artist." That's the first place to start.

Cristina Cano:
Then on a logistical level, create a spreadsheet. Start keeping track of all of these people. Start considering how you're going to roll out, asking for press, "Are you going to do it all at once? Are you going to do it in one day? Are you going to do it over the course of a month leading up to it?" Just start thinking about that stuff and stay organized because that compile up. That's my biggest problem is always piling up. So that's the logistical level.

Cristina Cano:
Again, be intentional. Don't be a robot. Don't send the same email to every single press person and be like, "Hi. I love your blog. Will you listen to my music?" Don't do that or even just like, "Please listen to Michael Walker's song, blah, blah, blah." Don't. Just try and create a normal person email, a normal person email to a normal person, and remember that they're writers or people, too.

Michael Walker:
That's so good. Yeah. What it reminds me of, too, is as you were describing the process of making a list, figuring out your favorite artist or artists that are slightly bigger than you and figuring out where are they getting placed and making a list based on that, it reminded me of the same advice around production and finding the right producer for you. I think one of the smartest things is you have that list. So if anyone here right now hasn't made that list yet of artists that are like you or in the same area, same zone, same size, maybe bigger, and that you could have the dream side, the ultimate big ones but even better, the ones that are a little bit closer, closer to where you are right now, that's such a valuable asset to create for multiple reasons for what you described with the press.

Cristina Cano:
On a manifestation level, I know that it's not that kind of chat right now, but let's talk manifestation. Put it out there, where you want to be. I think it's really important whenever you're creating any piece of art or anytime you're putting anything out into the world to, in advance of doing that, set your goals, set your goals for your immediate goals, and then also recognize, "What are my realistic goals but also what are my champagne dreams?" Right? So that way, you can see what your journey would look like, and then when you actually do hit that champagne dream, it's like you're over the moon, you've set that expectation up in advance.

Cristina Cano:
I'm a little woo. I truly believe that if you put it out there, things can happen. So it's not only because you put it out there, but it's because I think subconsciously as soon as you've written it down, now you're thinking about your wheels are turning and you're thinking, "Well, actually, how do I get a hold of the person that works at Rolling Stone? Oh, it's actually not that hard. I've just done the research. Now, I have their email. Now, I'm sending the email. Oh, my God. I'm in Rolling Stone." I wish it was that easy with Rolling Stone preface, but that's what I'm saying.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That's awesome. Also, we're woo-woo-compliant here.

Cristina Cano:
Yeah. So cool.

Michael Walker:
I think absolutely there's so much power, and I think that there's a lot of, I mean, I think there's a balance with everything, and there's some law of attraction stuff that I think is a bit over the top where it's like, "Oh, yeah. You sit down. You don't have to do anything." Clearly, it's not just magical, right?

Cristina Cano:
That's the biggest misconception of manifestation or whatever law of attraction is that you just say it and it comes. It's like, "No. You say it, and then you start creating a plan for how to execute it. That is how that works."

Michael Walker:
100%. I think there's a lot of science and things that are still coming together to describe why things work the way that they work in terms of this principle of visualizing, creating it in your mind first, and then that influencing behavior. I mean, it's no secret that everything, if we look around the room right now, everything around us that's manmade started as a thought and it turned into an actual thing, but it started in that "immaterial form" of a thought, which is really not immaterial. It's just a higher form of liquid energy.

Cristina Cano:
Yeah, but it's really good to think about, especially when we're talking about press or we're talking about getting people to listen or what our goals are with our music to, A, set realistic expectations and to say, "Okay. Well, this is my first release in ever, and I've only ever played one show, and it was to my local town to 30 people. Is this going to hit Billboard 100 in one week?" Maybe if you've got tons of resources and tons of energy applied to it, potentially, but let's be real here. What is a realistic goal for that artist? Right? How do we want to get them promoted so that they're building a sustainable foundation for their career?

Cristina Cano:
So I would tell that person, I mean, it's up to them to create their realistic goal, but I would say for that person, "Let's get you in a local paper. Let's get you in maybe even an indie blog or something so that we're expanding your network or we're expanding your audience," and then also seeing that long-term goal, you can start creating the vision. You're like, "Okay. Well, I'm starting here, starting at the bottom. Now, we're here. We're going to work our way from 30 all the way to 30 million," or whatever it is.

Michael Walker:
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Michael Walker:
Yeah. It's powerful. Yeah. I think one analogy that I come back to sometimes is that achievement or goal setting is like a game of golf where you sit down, you hit the ball, and if you know where you're aiming for and you keep hitting it and keep seeing, "Okay. Where am I now? Where did I land?" then as long as you're making progress, eventually you'll get this little tiny ball in this hole. It could be miles or hundreds of miles away.

Cristina Cano:
I looked at that Tiger Woods documentary and I was like, "How did he do that? How is he doing that?"

Michael Walker:
I haven't seen it, but that sounds probably pretty good. I think that what we were talking about with having the list of artists that are even your dream artists, but then also reverse it down to people who are slightly bigger than you, there's such a network effect. Connecting with the producer who produces that artist, that producer has all these different connections that are probably interconnected with that artist as well, and just getting in their world, also figuring out the publications that they're getting on.

Cristina Cano:
Exactly.

Michael Walker:
There's this whole web and this whole network. So I think that that is a super powerful way to really grow quickly.

Cristina Cano:
Yeah. You don't have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to your career, necessarily. If you look at another artist and you see how they got there, you can emulate it. You can say, "Well, my favorite artist is St. Vincent. I'm going to look at how St. Vincent has grown over the years, and I'm going to look at what publications she started at, if they're still around today, and I'm going to start aiming there," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Cristina Cano:
So I don't think that you have to be ... When I say a realistic expectations, it's not to take people down. It's just to say this takes time. It's like walking into a corporation at an entry level position and expecting you're going to get promoted overnight. Yes, that happens sometimes, and when that does, that's a real goodwill hunting moment, but realistically, there's going to be work that takes you there, right? So I think emulating our favorite artists or emulating their trajectory through the press, et cetera, is a really great way to also target attainable press.

Cristina Cano:
One thing that I think that Kaytee once said that has been really important for me to hear is that press is meant to get your story out there. It's not an overnight number success game. It's not something that's necessarily going to push the needle with Spotify monthly listeners or whatever. It's specifically so that once people have heard your music, they can come back and learn more about you or also, potentially, to reach another network of people that can come. So it's a two-way street there, but more importantly it's so that you have a story now forever on in print or on the internet that people can learn about you.

Michael Walker:
I love that. Yeah. That's a question I'd love to dig a little bit deeper into is really how to best leverage the impact. This is a question I asked Arielle, and it was super valuable hearing her perspective on it as well, but when someone does get some press and they get some really great quotes and things, what are some ideas for them to really leverage that to get the best impact and best value from the press that they get?

Cristina Cano:
You mean sharing it to their community?

Michael Walker:
Yeah. From your point of view, because what you just described there was really the value of the press that they get is not necessarily it's a vanity metrics thing or their number is going to shoot up or anything, but what is it that you think the biggest impact that it makes and how would you recommend that people leverage that?

Cristina Cano:
Again, the impact is really hard to measure because it's not necessarily something where you're going to be like, "Well, because I got placed in Rolling Stone, now I have 50,000 album sales." There isn't a way to find out that information. Really, there are metrics, but they're not necessarily going to help you recognize that the source of all of your streams are coming from this article that you got or this placement that you got or yes with placements, not with articles.

Cristina Cano:
One thing that I recommend also, remember your network, your immediate network, your fan base. Let them know. They're your biggest cheerleaders and they're going to share that information wildfire. When you get placed on something, make sure that you are putting it on all of your social media, you're tagging those publications, and you're letting your fan base know. Chances are your fans are going to share that information as well. So there's that.

Cristina Cano:
There's also leaning back in on that later, letting press know like, "Here's a great quote from a previous thing that I got," or whatever. Using it as part of your story going forward is always a good thing. Keep a running list of all the best little quips people have written about you. That's so valuable. The words that other people write about you, it's just foundational gold. It's something that you can now use later to not only say, "Hey, I've had people write about me so look at me," but also to say, "These are the things that people have recognized in my art that I find valuable and the things that I would like other people do write about."

Cristina Cano:
So sharing it with your fan base, using it in the future as part of your story and as a guiding light for how you want press write about you, I think that's your best bet. Remember that if it's out there on the internet, that doesn't necessarily mean that your people are going to know about it. You have to do the work in delivering this information out there. It can be in social media. It can be in newsletters. It can be in private emails to your friends or your fans or your family and being like, "Hey, I'm on this. Do you mind sharing it on Facebook?" It's impossible for you to or not impossible. It's hard for you to expect other people to just do this sometimes without asking or letting them know that it's out there.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Yeah. That makes a ton of sense. It's something I hadn't really fully thought about, too, is just the value of, and really, with press, it's about your story and it's about who you are. It's about how you communicate that. So just the process of really refining that story and figuring out, "What is that narrative? What's that through line in my career?"

Cristina Cano:
Yeah. It takes time. It takes time.

Michael Walker:
That's awesome. Certainly, too, I think this can be tied back to what we talked about with making sure that the seed that you planted is being fertilized rather than stomped on. Even just for your own mindset, if you have those quotes somewhere listed and you can see all the things that you stand for, all your values, I think that's usually beneficial.

Cristina Cano:
It's so valuable, too. Looking back, I have a spreadsheet for myself where I'm like, "Wow! I've been doing this a long time. Holy crap." Also, I've had people writing really positive and wonderful things for 15 years now because that's how long I've been playing shows, that's how long I've been doing that sort of thing. I recently was going back and found one of these reviews that was just in the local Alt Weekly in Portland. It was a Portland Mercury article from 2010. I saw the writer's name and I realized, "Oh, my God! I'm friends with that person now." I never put this two and two together, but this person came and saw me play in 2010. It's now 2021, and I can't believe that I know them now. So I went and I sent them a message and I'm like, "Hey, look at this quote I found. You wrote this about me 12 years ago. Thank you. This was so nice of you. I didn't know you then. I know you now."

Cristina Cano:
I do think it's important to recognize people that are writers are creatives just like us most of the time, and they really appreciate feedback as well. They appreciate when you tag them or when you let them know, "I appreciate what you wrote about me." That's where I'm coming back to that personal relationship. Don't be swarming about it. Don't just try to make friends with people just so that they'll do nice things for you. That's transparent, but if you can actually create relationship with people, appreciate what they're doing for you, I think that'll take you far.

Michael Walker:
I love that. Yeah. What that reminds me of is one of my mentors, Evan Pagan, told the story about how he met Steve Jobs after one of Steve Jobs' events. He asked some question like, "What's the number one key to your success?" or something like that to Steve Jobs.

Cristina Cano:
That's cool.

Michael Walker:
Steve Jobs reflected for a second in his side and said, "You know what? I think it's just you just have to care. You have to really care." That really rings true with what we just talked about, and what you just shared is another one of those key things that's been reflected across every speaker is the ability to actually share true appreciation and to actually be present is a superpower.

Cristina Cano:
Yeah, be present, for sure.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Awesome. So another question that comes up as we're talking about PR and publicity in your story and really honing that in is when it comes to figuring out a through line or figuring out a narrative or something that makes someone unique, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on people who are watching this right now or maybe wondering, "What's unique about my story? What's writeable or what would be a good story?" What would your recommendations be?

Cristina Cano:
Okay. So I just said this yesterday to somebody, but I come from a theater background and comedy and improv comedy and that sort of thing. The first thing that they teach you in improv comedy is to not try to be funny because when you do, you're going to be happy, but also because your original perspective is so much more valuable and it's already going to be inherently interesting to people. You can walk into a room, onto a stage and just be yourself and that's going to be so interesting.

Cristina Cano:
So that applies, I think, when you're trying to tell your story about who you are as an artist. Just hone in on who you are and don't try to be anything else, anything other than who you are. I know that that can sound so like, "Just be yourself," but it is true. Write your story or say your story out loud, recognize who you are as an artist authentically, and then you can start and shape-shift that how you want that presented.

Cristina Cano:
The first time I had to write a bio for myself, I know how hard it is to write a bio for yourself, first of all, and I still to this day. When I have to edit it, go into anxiety mode and I'm like, "How do I do this?" I pretend I've never done it before and I do it for artists every day. So I know how hard it is to take this information and try and apply it to yourself. So that's my preface, but the first time I really had to do it before an album release, this was about five years ago, and this was a new one for me, but I tried it. My friend recorded me speaking out loud about myself or about my music, about what I wanted to put out in the world, and from those recordings, listened back later and shape-shifted something.

Cristina Cano:
Sometimes you need to either be a verbal processor or if you're just going to create and dump it all out and then edit it and make it into something later, but I find that to be a really valuable tool if you're just like, "I don't know." If you're like me get paralyzed by the idea of self-promotion, just self-separate a little bit, speak about yourself as if you're talking about your favorite artist, and go into it and then remember that you can edit and shape-shift it later, but remember that you don't need to be anyone other than who you are. You don't need to try and fluff the numbers to make it seem you are some Grammy-winning musician if you're not. Don't try to be anything other than who you are when you're writing a bio.

Cristina Cano:
It's like writing a resume. They could smell BS all over that thing if you're pretending that you're an executive when you've been working in a entry level position. I keep coming back to this. I don't know why I think it's because I'm wearing my corporate mode shirt today that I'm in corporate mode, but yeah.

Michael Walker:
I think it's super valuable information. I think it's the superpower and the ability to, like an ice chiseler, be able to chisel away and be authentic and be yourself, but also to figure out those things that are unique or those things that resonate with people. So for anyone who is watching or listening to this right now, I'm wondering if you have a few ideas as question prompts or different things that you might ask someone if you were sitting down with them and you're like, "Okay. Let's ..." and they're going to record that video or they're going to start writing out a bio. What are some of the most important questions that you would ask them?

Cristina Cano:
I like to know how people's brains work when it comes to making the music because I feel like that's the sort of thing that I get really interested in reading about about people. So putting a little bit of info about who this artist is on a creative and artistic level. So I'd probably ask the question like, "Okay. Well, tell me what made you want to make this or how'd you start this project or what was day one like for you," and go from there. I think creating the story from, "This was developed from blah, blah, blah, and it evolved into this," I think that stuff's really interesting.

Cristina Cano:
Don't forget that if we're just talking bios right now, a bio doesn't need to be a novel about every single one of your creative whims. The main thing is that we need to know the facts. We need to know who you are, where you're from, a brief analysis of what your music sounds like, maybe a little quip about the project that you're working on, and then anything that's worth bragging about. That's where that previous press thing might come in handy if you're like, "Then also, so and so said this. I'm going to throw this into my bio and credit them for it."

Cristina Cano:
So a bio doesn't need to be a novel, but if we're just asking questions and we're just trying to brainstorm ideas, that's where I would start. I would start, "Who are you as an artist? Why are you here? What is this that you're making? What inspired you to make this? Give me a little bit of information about how you make the sauce."

Cristina Cano:
It's tough to talk about yourself, too. I understand that. Like I said, sometimes it's helpful to compartmentalize and pretend like you're talking about someone else. I definitely do that all the time where I speak about ... My artist's name is Siren and the Sea. I created that probably because of the reason that I needed to compartmentalize. I wanted a different identity from my personal identity to be my artist's name. So I did that also so that when I'm writing about it I'm not like, "Cristina Cano is a brilliant creative artist." Instead, I could be like, "Siren and the Sea is really brilliant and creative." I know, but it's helpful to compartmentalize a little bit.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That is a really powerful tool, I think, for myself, and it's something I've seen a lot is the ability to get perspective on yourself and to look at yourself from the point of view if you weren't you, basically, if you were someone else looking at you. I've heard that, too, in terms of doing a reflection or a review where you basically share what are some of the biggest challenges, the struggles you're working on, and then if a friend told you they were going through these challenges, what would your advice be for them.

Cristina Cano:
Yeah. Totally.

Michael Walker:
It's like, "Oh, wow! That changes-

Cristina Cano:
Not wallow and feel guilty. No. You would tell your friend to ... You'd be uplifting. So also again, back to you don't need to reinvent the wheel, read a bio from your favorite artist or from another artist that maybe horizontally aligns with you and your community and see how they're doing it or sometimes it's even better to just look at, "Okay. Well, if I'm here and favorite artist is up here, who's another artist that's here that I can see the way that they're shaping themselves?"

Michael Walker:
I love that. Yeah. I think that's really smart. Yeah. With artist community, we talk a lot about hyper networking and about the idea of reaching out to artists that compliment their style to build those relationships, but I think it would be smart to break it down, too, into the dream level artists are just so huge, so beyond everything, and tend to be the easiest ones to target as well on things like Facebook ads and Instagram ads, but then also making a list of the ones that are in-between and the ones that are ... I mean, maybe having four different categories, one that's just ultimate, and then one that's really, really big, probably out of reach but not superstar status.

Cristina Cano:
Totally.

Michael Walker:
Then one that's just above your level, and then one that's exactly where you are right now. That could be really interesting strategy.

Cristina Cano:
Actually, I have a class in college and the professor said, and I don't remember anything other than this one lesson from this class so that's a good sign, said, "Nobody is out of reach," and I was like, "What? That's not true." Then the exercise that we had to do was to do this list and pick somebody on this list and figure out how to get in contact with them, and I realized I could. I put a person on the list and then I found out that that person had a film premiere happening in my town and they were doing a Q&A later. So literally, three days later, I was at a Q&A, I was shaking hands with this artist and I was telling them, "I'm a huge fan," and also, "I would love to learn more," blah, blah, blah.

Cristina Cano:
So totally, it's true. Make the list. Again, I feel like this has turned into a complete manifestation chat, which I'm all about, but make your list. Find out how to get a hold of someone. Don't be a crazy stalker, but find out how to get a hold of someone if you need to. Also, cold calls are fine. Sending an email to this artist that you're talking about, whether it's the second tier, third tier, fourth tier, and just putting it out there, "Hey, I would love to know how did you get started," blah, blah, blah. People appreciate talking about their journey. They appreciate helping out other artists that maybe are coming up.

Cristina Cano:
So I do think that that's totally okay to send those emails. Don't expect anything back. Don't push too hard if they don't respond, but it's okay to put that out there. It's okay to ask for advice. I think that that goes for music, for business, for anything. It's okay to reach out to people and admit they have information that you'd like to learn about or learn from.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That's so smart, and I love that story. What a valuable exercise to have in that class.

Cristina Cano:
Super valuable.

Michael Walker:
That's awesome. Yeah. I think it is super powerful, too, in terms of upon first reach out you don't hear back and you follow up once or twice, you don't hear back, that's not necessarily a loss. A lot of times, you can be planting the seeds so that if it is someone, they happen to see the message, but they're just busy or they aren't able to really respond to it, you're still planting a little tiny seed in their world, and at some future point, you might be able to see it blossom.

Cristina Cano:
Comes back to press because, absolutely, that is the case with press, 100%. You're going to be sending out pitches, you're going to be sending press releases out for every release you have, you're going to be doing followups if people aren't necessarily getting back to you with pitches, and you'll find that over time you'll be chiseling away at that list, and maybe that person that didn't get back to you after the third press release or the fifth pitch or whatever, now five months later, you're putting out your album and you're like, "Oh, they actually paid attention and they did see those previous emails, and my name did stick for whatever reason, and now they're listening."

Cristina Cano:
So same thing, and that's also the same thing with fans, right? You might live in a community where you play 10 shows and you're like, "I swear that these people don't know who I am," and then by the 20th show, you've gained more fans or you've gained people that have been like, "Actually, yeah, I remember hearing about you 10 shows ago and that's why I'm here." So it never ends.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That's so good. Yeah. Definitely planting the seeds, allowing them time to germinate and to blossom. Awesome. All right. You know what? I think that now is probably a good time for us to start going to some Q&A, some questions from people on the audience right now. Let's do it. All right. Sean Quixote, which, again, Sean wins the name of the-

Cristina Cano:
That's a great name.

Michael Walker:
... the name of the day award.

Cristina Cano:
Oh, my God!

Michael Walker:
Sean asked, "What is a waterfall roll out?"

Cristina Cano:
Yeah. So basically, I'm going to try and explain this as easily as I can verbally, but I'm very visual. So basically, you're going to put out your first single, and then when you put out your second single, you're really putting out two songs. You're putting out the second single, and now the first single, and then when you put out your third single, you're putting out three songs. You're putting out the third single, the second single, and the first single, and they're going to all live independent of one another. So that way when you are, and you could do that so on and so on, you could put that out for your entire album if you want, you could do that for 10 songs, whatever, but the idea behind it is so that when somebody discovers the third song, maybe there's two other songs now that they hadn't heard before, and that goes back to what we were just saying about you might be putting that energy out there and not feeling like you're getting responses, but then by the third song, somebody's coming in and you're making new fans for these other things.

Cristina Cano:
It's really useful for streaming because, automatically, the next song that's going to play is now the previous single. So that's really useful to getting people to now listen to these other things.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That's super smart. Yeah. I feel like that probably ties in really well with what we're talking about later today with renewable and the early strategy and the singles leading up to a bigger release.

Cristina Cano:
Yes. I think it builds a lot of buzz. It lets people know that you're taking this thing seriously because it takes a lot of time and energy to set these things up, too. Let's be real. It's not you're just signing this up the day before, and if you are, let's talk because you need time, but yeah. I think it's a great strategy. It's definitely been an interesting one to do personally and to witness how it works because there are pros and cons to it. There are days where I'm like, "Well, is the song itself not getting enough streams because now the next song is ...." those sorts of things. I think I'm overthinking it. Really, you're creating an opportunity for people to come back to music that you've previously released. So I think it's a really positive way to do it. Yeah. Certainly getting used a lot right now in popular music. So I'm interested to see what the next thing is.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Yeah. That's a really cool idea. I really like the idea of leveraging the momentum, the momentum of the previous song. So I'm also getting ready to release a new music project on July 1st. I'm super excited. So there's four songs with it, and I'll be releasing one song a month, and doing the waterfall method, but one thing that I'm super excited about, and I think it's something that goes really hand-in-hand with what we're talking about here, and for anyone that's listing that has an EP or something to release might be worth considering is to debut, to premiere the songs. We'll do a live YouTube video premiere of a lyric video for each song, immediately followed by a live stream where it's a release party, where we're just hanging out and we're just driving the details about the song, what inspired it-

Cristina Cano:
Totally.

Michael Walker:
... and having a merch drop for the specific song. The idea is that after we do those live, as we're running traffic and we're running ads and campaigns to grow the audience, when they come in, if they didn't see the first two singles, then they can still go through a welcome sequence where every day they get a new message that basically lets them watch the replay of those leading up to the live premier. I think it's a really smart way to ... I've heard this from people who are smarter than me that I heard this idea from. With Elon Musk, he has this company called The Boring Company that's all about digging tunnels in California and their plan is they want to create this underground car.

Cristina Cano:
The Hyperloop?

Michael Walker:
Yeah, right, exactly. So what is it called? It's called Hyperloop?

Cristina Cano:
I think it's called the Hyperloop, right?

Michael Walker:
Hyperloop. It sounds sounds right. It sounds like that's probably what.

Cristina Cano:
I agree.

Michael Walker:
If I was Elon Musk, I would probably name it Hyperloop. It sounds cool, but the idea of how they build this, they have The Boring Company, and they have these machines that basically dig tunnels, and as they're digging, if all they did was dig, then the ground would fall, it would crumble above it, and it wouldn't work, but as they're digging, they create the structure with this glue apparatus on the side. So it's like they're creating the structure as they're digging at the same time. Taking that same idea-

Cristina Cano:
Love it.

Michael Walker:
... and applying it to the live releases I think is really smart. So you're doing a live release, but you're also creating the structure that you can actually set up to go "evergreen" and anyone new who wasn't there for the original release, who hasn't gone through it, it feels like a new release to them.

Cristina Cano:
Exactly. Exactly. Don't forget, like you said, you could be putting something out in 2021, but you can always point back to something you put out in 2017. That doesn't mean that just because you're on to the next thing that there aren't opportunities for people to learn about the past or what made you an artist. I love that idea of building a solid foundation as you're charging forward.

Cristina Cano:
I love your idea, too, of having all of these avenues for people to now rediscover or drive traffic back to the music. There's always a conversation of, "Do I put a music video out on the day of the release? Do I put it out a few days, a week later?" Whatever. I'm always pro put it out after. That way, you have another opportunity for someone to discover that song that's only coming here because they saw the video.

Cristina Cano:
Then again, going back to the fact that your fans aren't going to know about this unless you let them know, which is why you create press, buzz or why you share this stuff on social media. So you need to let people know, and you can't expect that they're just going to discover that music video on your YouTube unless you have shared the information or had other people help share the information.

Michael Walker:
100%. Yeah. I think that's really smart. With this release, the lyric videos, a quick and easy one so that in the future, we'll be able to do what you're talking about with having a full production music video for the songs.

Cristina Cano:
Same thing. Well, a lyric video is a perfect use of this, though. It's, again, another opportunity for somebody to discover the song and go check it out. It's also reinforcing of the song to the existing listeners. Right now, they have another piece of content or whatever to attach themselves to to then build that buzz of the song inside of them and go listen to it again a million times, but then for new people that are just going to see the lyric video, now they have an opportunity to go listen to the song for the first time.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. I'm talking about it. I'm getting really excited.

Cristina Cano:
Yeah. I'm excited for you. That's really cool. Lyric videos are hard to make. Proud of you.

Michael Walker:
Thanks. Yeah, no, it was not me making it. We got a team. Team's great. Thank the good Lord because if it was me doing it, it would be Microsoft Paint, drawing them with a brush.

Cristina Cano:
It would be on Canva like, "How do I put five words in here in one frame?"

Michael Walker:
You misspelled the word your.

Cristina Cano:
Oh, my gosh. It's a creative choice.

Michael Walker:
Here's a good question. So this is from Jeff's Healing Music. Jeff asked, "Cristina, what would you say a good game plan would be for re-releasing a song if you did it poorly the first time?"

Cristina Cano:
Oh, first, I would ask what made it feel poorly executed to you. Was it that you feel like nobody heard it? Yeah. That's my first question. I also would ask, do you need to rerelease it or can you release something else? Eventually, like we were just talking about, create more opportunities for people to then discover the thing that you released the first time. If it's just you put the song out and you hate that version of the song, the mix is awful, the master's awful, that's a creative choice that you can absolutely decide to re-execute, but I don't know. I'm very much a let's move forward and not dwell on the past. If you're not happy about the way that came out, let's put something else out and then hopefully people will start attaching to that other one. That's my advice.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That's definitely a good advice. One thing to add onto it is what we just talked about with the idea of creating "evergreen" stuff. It really wouldn't be that hard to do, if you have an existing audience, to just send them a broadcast, do some of the live stream where you're going deeper with the song and you're describing behind the scenes that you have some new content, a lyric video or something to go with it, and then you have something set up for in the meantime. If you don't have new music yet, then you have something set up for new people to discover you and you can drive traffic to that.

Cristina Cano:
Exactly.

Michael Walker:
I think what Cristina's saying, especially when it comes to press, yeah, I imagine that it would be an uphill battle really having this old song that came out three years ago and trying to reach out to press to re-release it.

Cristina Cano:
Yeah. You're not going to want to do that. To be totally honest, press is not going to write about a song that you put out three years ago. If it's like, "Yeah, but I really loved this song, and it came out three years ago, and blah, blah," unless you rerecord it or do something differently with it, it's probably not going to hit the same. I think consider moving forward. Consider using these strategies for the next thing, and people will listen to that song. Yeah. I don't think that you should.

Cristina Cano:
I've had a lot of people ask me before, "Well, I put this out five years ago and I think I should delete it from all of the platforms and just rebuild my brand." I'm like, "What's the point, really?" That being said, I've also done that. I had an album that came out in 2010 and it's not on the internet for a reason, but-

Michael Walker:
Guilty as charged as I hope you guys fear. It made its way back online. It's called The Secret Dropping Out. It's not good. We took it down for a reason, but it's there. Thank you, YouTube.

Cristina Cano:
Yeah. Just also find a pivot and reevaluate and see where you are creatively, and if you're like, "This creatively doesn't align with me anymore," sure, edit it off the internet, but if you're just like, "This is something I put out in 2010 and I'm bummed that it didn't get written up about and I'm bummed that it didn't get a million streams," then, yeah, maybe let's just move forward.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That's definitely good thinking. I promise myself I don't want to reuse this analogy too much. It's one of my favorite analogies. I'm not careful. This will come up in every conversation, but the analogy of that we're surfers right now trying to catch waves and we don't necessarily want to try to catch a wave that's past 10 years ago. It takes a lot energy, but look, what's coming up now? How can I catch the current wave?

Cristina Cano:
Exactly. Exactly. Love that analogy. You're talking to the right person for ocean-themed analogies. Let's just say that.

Michael Walker:
Okay. There we go. We're meeting for the first time, but I feel like there's quite a few synchronicity. There's symbiotic things that are happening. We got the eye, the eye logo, and we're talking about law of attraction. We should probably start a band called the something eyes, right?

Cristina Cano:
Yes. This artist name down, but we'll figure it out.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Maybe. I mean, in fact, we could just start a band with everyone here in the audience right now.

Cristina Cano:
I love that, a collaborative effort.

Michael Walker:
The All Eye, The All Eye.

Cristina Cano:
The All-Seeing Eye.

Michael Walker:
The All-Seeing Eye, and it's about how we're all separate and different, but then underneath, we're all one community. We're just one eye.

Cristina Cano:
Love it. Love it.

Michael Walker:
Is that hippy enough for all you, guys?

Cristina Cano:
Yes.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. All right. So next question. We got one from Relaxed Self said, "Question. How often should you contact a newspaper publication, et cetera, to get a hold of them?" That's a good question. Yeah.

Cristina Cano:
That's a very good question.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. What's the process of reaching out? How many times do you follow up? What is that?

Cristina Cano:
Again, it comes back to remembering that just because they read the email the first time, they didn't respond, doesn't mean that they're not going to the next time you reach out to them. So followups are super important. I think that you should, like we're talking about, it usually takes about a month for pitching your new song to press, and in that month, it's okay to follow up once or twice. Don't send them a text every single day. Don't email them every day and are like, "Why didn't you respond?" Don't be aggressive, but it's okay to follow up at least. It's important to follow up at least once. I think it's okay to follow up twice if it's something you really, really want. People respond really well to following up because often, it's not that people don't want to write about you, it's that they get thousands of emails in their inbox every day, and that little followup reminder reminds them, "Oh, well, first of all, this person means business because they're willing to follow up," and secondly, "Oh, right. Yeah. I remember seeing that name. I'll give it a listen now now that I have time." So I think following up is really important.

Cristina Cano:
As far as how many times you should contact press, it's every time you have something to release, and every next time that you have something to release, and keep building that network, and keep sending them stuff. Just because you didn't hear from NBC on the first release doesn't mean that by the time you put out 10 songs you won't necessarily. You know what I mean? Keep building. Don't just assume that because you haven't heard back from your favorite publication that you're never going to hear back one day.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That's such a great lesson to not assume just because you don't get a response the first time that they didn't see it or they're not interested, but there's a good chance. I think, yeah, it's better to assume that they're just busy, and even just the way that you phrase those followup emails. I think it's going to make a big difference if you're giving them the benefit of the doubt. I think the fact that you're willing to follow up, like you're just saying, shows them that you have something valuable or that you think that you have something valuable for them, and that they just made a mistake not working forward with it.

Cristina Cano:
Yeah, and there's ways to make yourself seen fully professional and really give them the best time for their best bang for their buck, I guess, is make sure that your emails have all the information that they need, all the clickable links that they need. Please add all of your social media and contact information on there at the bottom. Please make sure that if you're asking them to listen to a song that you're linking to that song or if you're asking them to watch a video, to link to that video. Give them a little bit about your bio. It doesn't need to be an essay. It doesn't need to be a ton of information. It just needs to be the stuff that you want them to know so that they can go listen to the song and then write about it, et cetera.

Cristina Cano:
So make sure that your email is not just one long crazy tangent about who you are and why they need to write about you. Just give them the facts and give them all the information they need to do that so they don't even have to necessarily go back and forth with you about getting that information. You want to put that info in the email in the first one.

Michael Walker:
That's so good. Yeah. Just having the clarity, I mean, with any email or in a marketing standpoint, you have the call to action and you want to be really clear about what's the next step, and if you can just make it as simple and streamlined as possible what's the next step.

Cristina Cano:
Yeah. They're not going to want to do a crazy back and forth with you asking, "Okay. Well, then send me the song." Don't do that. Give them the song upfront.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Yeah. One that might be helpful in terms of our follow up process for reaching out to, I mean, a lot of the speakers that are on the summit are people that we reached out to and, like Cristina just said, we didn't necessarily hear back right away. Ari Herstand is an example of someone we've been reaching out to for probably the last two years, and he just got back a few months ago.

Cristina Cano:
Cool.

Michael Walker:
So we finally connected. He's awesome. We had a great interview for our podcast, did an interview for his podcast.

Cristina Cano:
Nice.

Michael Walker:
We weren't aggressively following up, but it's just about planting the seeds, I think.

Cristina Cano:
Cool.

Michael Walker:
For us, we have a spreadsheet where we have everyone listed out. Like Cristina mentioned earlier, having that spreadsheet is so powerful and just the contact and also breaking it down. For us, the followup process is we have a column that's literally just status, and then it's to do, to reach out, reached out, followed up, last followup. So I think there's different ways to do this, but this is something that's worked really well for us is we have the initial reach out and we mark them as reached out. We give them a week. If they haven't responded, we send out a followup email. That's a slightly different angle. It's still a pitch, but just down from a slightly different point of view to see if maybe speaking about it in this way.

Michael Walker:
Sometimes adding a little bit more credibility or try not to brag and be like, "Oh, we're the greatest in the world," but also speaking like, "This is why we think this would be valuable for you." Then the last one is literally just like, "Okay. Just want to follow up one last time here." Sometimes it's not really last followup, "I think that we would be a great fit, but also, no hard feelings either way. I won't keep bugging you." I think that's so powerful.

Cristina Cano:
I don't think you even need to say that part either like, "I'll stop bothering you." Don't come off as super insecure either. I mean, not that that you're doing that. It isn't that, but-

Michael Walker:
You said that. We don't. Yeah. We definitely don't say that. That's just the way that I look at it is just like, but not I'm bothering them, but just they might be busy, it's not the right timing.

Cristina Cano:
Yeah. Sure. Of course. Of course.

Michael Walker:
No hard feelings at all, but just wanted to reach out one last time and let them know that this is the last time that we're going to be reaching out about it.

Cristina Cano:
Sure. It's just like a marketing email, for sure.

Michael Walker:
I think that that last one, if we reach out to someone, we haven't gotten a response from them, I think there's something about the way that we frame it just like the last follow up. I think for a lot of people it's like they've been putting it back. They're like, "Oh, yeah. I should respond to this at some point."

Cristina Cano:
Yeah. They're like, "Oh, I don't want them to feel I'm not going to get back to them. I just haven't yet." That's the thought.

Michael Walker:
Exactly. Yeah. All right. Awesome. So let's keep on tracking through some more Q&A. So Bard of Eli said, "I'm promoting an idea campaign, as well as a song of mine that fits with it. Song is about plastic pollution, and my campaign is to help save the seas by raising awareness with ocean aid concerts. I realize it's a massive project, but what do you think is the best way of getting this into the press?"

Cristina Cano:
First of all, love it. I was just actually conceptualizing something about beach cleanup recently. So maybe we should talk. I think the first thing to do is have a well-developed pitch about it, what is it, why are you doing it, why it does align with you as an artist, and then start reaching out to local press about this thing probably one to two months in advance. I mean, I don't know if there's an event or how this one works, but just like any other release, just put that at the forefront of the information about this project.

Cristina Cano:
Yeah. It really depends on this one. It seems like maybe there's an event or some engagement thing with it, which I think then getting press to potentially get somebody out to take pictures or getting someone out to review it in-person. So in that case, you're going to be reaching out to the same people, but you're going to be reaching out to maybe the news or the editor of that press outlet if you're looking for local press coverage. If you're looking for someone from the TV to come out, start researching those people. Don't send it to the music editor. Do you know what I mean?

Cristina Cano:
Then also, if there is a music portion of this, you can send that to the music editor. Just consider whose desk does this belong on. Does this belong on the arts and music desk? If it's just music, yes, absolutely, but if you're also trying to get some community engagement together, that's going to belong on a different desk. So yeah.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Yeah. That's great advice. That also pulled up another question in my mind around when you're reaching out, to reach out effectively, it's so important to know that you're reaching out to the right person and organization. When you're doing that research, and let's say that you were reaching out to some of these publications, from your experience, how do you find the right person to reach out to, and in most cases, who would be the person that you put down on that big spreadsheet?

Cristina Cano:
Honestly, LinkedIn is a really huge tool for me. Also, just looking at the website of that press outlet. Usually, they have a contact or an About Us section and they have a whole list of who the editors are for each column. Also, if you're looking for just press press, written up press, look at the written press. Again, look for similar articles or somebody that's written on similar theme. In this case, I would look for somebody who's written about environmental justice and trying to get it in their ear and let them know, "Well, you've written about water pollution before, and I think you might be really interested in this thing that I'm doing." That's where I would start.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. I wonder, I mean, you might even be able to Google some stuff, too, Google articles about-

Cristina Cano:
Just Google it, totally. Yeah. Totally.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Musicians who've done things like that.

Cristina Cano:
Yes, 100%. Google News is a great column to look into, but yeah, that's where I would start with something like that. I'd love to hear more. So please send me more information. I'm sure you're going to give out my email address or something.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Speaking of that, I mean, for everyone who's watching this right now, who wants to connect more or get in touch, what would be the best place for them to learn more?

Cristina Cano:
You could look for me on sirenandthesea.com. That's my artist page, and then there's also contact information there. So that would be the best place to go.

Michael Walker:
Cool. So it's sirenandthesea.com?

Cristina Cano:
... and the Sea, yeah. That's why I love ocean stuff.

Michael Walker:
Nice. It's a cool name. Yeah.

Cristina Cano:
Thanks.

Michael Walker:
All right. So let's go ahead and let's do two more questions for the day. So we got four total. So let's see if we can try to do some really good ones. Okay. Fancy Creation has ... Also, all these names are auto-generated or at least a lot of them are. So Fancy Creation, "In your opinion, Cristina, what's better in a bio, adjectives to describe your sound musically or is the bio more of an overall pitch to describe your music and why someone should come out? I guess what I'm asking is, should the bio be Twitter sized, i.e., 155 characters?"

Cristina Cano:
No. Look at Spotify. I would look at that first. Well, there's the short bio and there's the long bio, right? There's the bio that you can put on your website that has all the information that you want people to know about but still done in such a concise way, and it's bite size and people can pull from it, but then there's the Spotify bio, which I would say is usually a paragraph and it's not a pitch. It's not like, "This is why you need to listen to me." It's more, "Here's information about the artist." Also, do first person. Oh, my gosh. I feel so dumb right now. First person?

Michael Walker:
Yeah. First person, I think is ... You mean first person point of view?

Cristina Cano:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
It's worth mentioning, yeah, that Cristina came on, she was here at-

Cristina Cano:
6:45.

Michael Walker:
6:00 AM. She's in California. Also, all of you who live on the West Coast or overseas-

Cristina Cano:
Thanks for joining us.

Michael Walker:
Out of curiosity, I'm wondering who here has the craziest time zone or is tuning in for the craziest time. I know we have some people from overseas.

Cristina Cano:
Cool, but yeah, just make sure that your bio has the basic information of who you are as an artist, and it's okay to use adjectives, and it's okay to get a little floral, but just don't make that the entire thing. I definitely had to edit a artist bio the other day because it was all floral. There was no information about who they were as an artist, and this person had been touring for years for other bands that had some notability. So I was like, "You should mention that in your bio." Let people know what you've done as an artist and where you're going as an artist and don't necessarily just lean in on, "Yeah, but my vision is this." That's cool and worth adding a sentence about that vision in there, but don't make it the whole thing.

Michael Walker:
Hmm. I love that. There's something really powerful, really interesting about those two questions in general, "Where did I come from? Where am I going?" It's like the-

Cristina Cano:
Like that man of the station chat, but yeah, absolutely. Know where you want to go and then tell people about it.

Michael Walker:
Love it. All right. So one more question. Let's see.

Cristina Cano:
This is so fun. Thanks so much for having me.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Thank you for being a part of it.

Cristina Cano:
Absolutely.

Michael Walker:
You kicked off day two of the event. So it's a lot of fun to start off. So I guess there's just one last question that was just a quick one was, "Could you talk more about the DIY Music Conference you spoke first about?"

Cristina Cano:
Yeah. It's a great conference. I think a lot of the speakers that you have on this actually also spoke at the DIY Conference. I don't think they're doing it in-person this year, but I think they might be doing a virtual event. It's a great networking tool or it's a networking event. It's also a great way to learn a lot of the info that your conference is doing. So if you like-

Michael Walker:
I would love to. If you have any say in organizing that event or anything, I would also love to connect and maybe a part of a speaker on the event or something like that.

Cristina Cano:
We'll talk.

Michael Walker:
Cool.

Cristina Cano:
Absolutely.

Michael Walker:
All right. Well, let's go ahead and let's wrap up. Cristina, it was awesome meeting you.

Cristina Cano:
Thank you.

Michael Walker:
Congratulations. Congratulations on the music release. I hope that it continues to be awesome.

Cristina Cano:
Thank you, too.

Michael Walker:
Super, super valuable. I'm glad that we got to go into manifestation woo-woo land. It's a place that-

Cristina Cano:
Perfect suite.

Michael Walker:
It's a realm that I like to visit, and I think is really valuable. So appreciate you.

Cristina Cano:
Thank you.

Michael Walker:
You can go to sirenandthesea.com, and you can connect more there.

Michael Walker:
Hey, it's Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value on this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our guest today, and if you want to support the podcast, then there's a few ways to help us grow. First, if you hit subscribe, then that'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends or on your social media, tag us. That really helps us out. Third, best of all, if you leave us an honest review, it's going to help us reach more musicians like you who want to take their music career to the next level. It's time to be a modern musician now, and I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.