SongPlanet SongSter Vol. 2 No. 6

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There are some major changes happening at SongPlanet, all in the interest of making the site easier to navigate and promoting your music. The first thing you'll notice is that the Master of Gravity has totally redesigned the site. Don't worry, though! All of the things you were able to do before from the home page are still there, just in slightly different places. You can now get to everything from the navigation bar at the top of the page and the drop down menus that appear when you hover (well, your cursor hovers) over a heading. Way coooooool! New features with this redesign include a featured digital download and a featured CDBaby link right there on the home page. In the interest of trans-Planetary recognition, we'll also show you a smattering of the countries that have been listening recently to SongPlanet Radio. More changes abound! Check out these articles in this edition of the Songster Newsletter: SongPlanet Bucks the Trend and The New CD Store.
The DJs and the listeners have chosen their "Picks of the Month" from the tunes that were uploaded in July. All of these songs will be played on Motmot's Featured Orbit show on Sunday, August 12, from 6 pm to 7 pm ET. She'll also get some inside info from the artists to pass along to the listeners. Congratulations to all of the artists who made this month's list. Other artists that got mentioned by DJs and listeners this month as they struggled to make their choices were Kustom Blend, Empty Uranus, Billy Falcon, Frank Paul, Markku and Arthur's Dilemma. This is the first month that we've had a Listeners' Featured Orbit. Thanks to those of you who took the time to nominate a tune or vote for your favorite. Be sure to make your nominations for August in the Listener Nominations Forum. You can add worthy nominations all month and we'll have a vote at the beginning of September for the next issue. Tune in on the second Sunday of every month to hear the latest from our terrific "Featured Orbits" lineup! Listeners Billy Falcon 98 to Alabama Axe Monkey Fighters She From Tiny Keg Misanthropy Neil Benjamin Breathe 2 (Palindrome) Michael Stone Tricks for Agnes Mistakes Ranch Stephanie Krowka Deeply Max Edmund Allan Brown Do You Love Me Anyway? Motmot MarvinMarvin Clockworks Sue Everett B Walters And the Story Goes Zjhok Buck69 When She Whispers Your Name     He's baaaaaack! Seems you can't keep a good DJ down, and Mike K has cut his hiatus short. He's still doing six hours of rocking music on Saturdays, but now you can wake up and turn in with Mike K. Saturday Night Rocks from 8 pm to midnight ET, and Saturday Morning Rocks Too from 8 am to 10 am ET. Welcome back, Germinator! If you ever want to know who's going to be on the air, just have a look at our DJ Schedule.     Don't forget to add us as a MySpace friend if you have a MySpace page!   Do you have a video on YouTube? The DJs have a page there and will be featuring SongPlanet Artist Videos. If you have a video that you'd like to share with us, send us a message. Be sure to attach your video!	SongPlanet was formed out of the primordial muck and ooze of the Internet to get Independent Artists Heard. But we've always felt that there's more to being heard than just getting your music on the airwaves. Our goal has always been to work cooperatively with artists to help them get recognition AND earn money for their music. Recent news stories have been kinda depressing in this regard. It seems that an awful lot of people want their music for free. And we're not just talking about listening to the music but actually owning the songs. It goes well beyond free downloads (legal or otherwise). More and more, artists are being asked to perform for free or <gasp> even pay for the right to perform, on the chance of recovering their expenses through venue cover charges. Prince made headlines last month by giving away his latest CD. What is the world coming to???? Well, we're taking a bold step, going where on-line music sites have not gone before. Effective August 20th, all new songs uploaded to SongPlanet.com must be 192kbps versions, and will automatically be made available for digital download song sales on SongPlanet.com. We're going to ensure that if someone hears your tune on SongPlanet Radio, they have the opportunity to purchase a high quality version of the song. This change will simplify the process for those artists who have already been making their songs available for sale, and will be pretty much the same as before for those who haven't, except that you'll need 192kbps instead of 128kbps versions of your tunes. We'll have help pages available to walk you through the steps of re-encoding your songs if you need a hand. We know that there are a few artists who strongly object to selling their music and others who say they can't because of commitments with their Indie labels. We think we have a solution! We'll be asking you to provide a PayPal-friendly email address so that we can send you any revenues that you earn. It can be your own address, your Indie label's, a favorite charity or cause, or even your Uncle Joe's addy, if you like. We like the idea of streaming the revenues to worthwhile charities and causes, so to help you find some of those, we're asking you, the artists, to send us info on those you support. Drop us an email or post in our forum, giving the name of the organization, their URL and their PayPal address. We'll put them all together on a page so that other artists can easily find them. There will still be free downloads on some artist pages. Pro Artist plan members have the option of giving away 128kpbs versions of their tunes. And there are still some "legacy" free downloads on the pages of artists who have been here almost since the Planet was formed. There will be some who think this idea is crazy, but we're okay with that. We are taking a stand that your music is valuable, and while people will always be able to hear it for free on SongPlanet Radio or from your artist page, if they want to own it, they should be able to cough up a buck. One dollar is a bargain for some of the great music that we have here on SongPlanet.com! After August 20th, you can convert existing songs on your page to 192kbps versions by using the "Update a Song" link on your artist admin page. We value your music. You should, too!   For the last couple of months, we've been seeking out the CDBaby links for the artists on SongPlanet, and have added "Buy The CD" links to a swack of artist pages. This month, we're taking it one step further, opening our own CDBaby Store! Under the "Shop" heading on the new navigation bar, you'll find a link to the CD Store. We're opening up with over 300 CDs available! You can now browse through a list of SongPlanet Artists' CDs which are available on CDBaby and initiate your purchases through the SongPlanet site. It's a work in progress, so please excuse the construction residue! If you have a CD at CDBaby, and it's not in our store, send the details to proartist@songplanet.com, and we'll add you on our next update. We're introducing a new feature to the Songster Newsletter, our Launching Pad. Each month, we'll list new CDs by SongPlanet artists. If you have a CD that is coming out this month or next, let us know at proartist@songplanet.com. Be sure to include your CDBaby link if you have one. Don't forget to add your Launch Parties to our Gig Calendar! Just Released: Tim Sanders (Lansdowne, Virginia, USA) Blue Collar Girls Available now on CDBaby Victor McClain (Marietta, Georgia, USA) Mystic Journey Available now on CDBaby Buck69 (Toledo, Ohio, USA) When She Whispers Your Name Available now on CDBaby Coming Soon: Edmund Allan Brown (Frederick, Maryland, USA) Can You See The Sky? Available August 11 on CDBaby The Bob Lazar Story (Christchurch, New Zealand) The Silence of Perez de Cuellar Release date: August 2007
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This is a monthly newsletter that always has something worthwhile to share about SongPlanet.com and the artist inhabitants thereof! We'll keep you informed about the updates, additions and changes we make as we evolve your SongPlanet.

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