Not too early to begin new year planning

It's not too early to be thinking about some new years planning.  A new year always brings the opportunity of a fresh start.  As a gigging musician, professional artist or entrepreneur it's important to take some time each year to examine goals you may have for your endeavors in the year ahead.  

Even if fairly informal it's important to outline a few things you'd like to accomplish within the next year to progress your career.  I'm going to generalize for a moment, but quite a few musicians and artists I know are not real crazy about the business end of developing a career in their craft.  They want a career in their craft, but they haven't necessarily put pen to paper to formulate a plan or crunch some numbers to calculate the feasibility of making a living out of their passion, or at least recouping the expenses to get to and put on a show.  

I truly believe that to be successful one has to be a thinker and a doer...resulting in being creative as well as innovative and resourceful enough to realize your creations.  Being a creative person and coming up with interesting projects often ends up being the easy part when you face the challenge of bringing that creative passion to the world of commerce.  At that juncture the cream really rises to the top if there is an understanding of some business practices (i.e. crunching some numbers) to enhance the effectiveness of their efforts.  I'm talking about the kind of planning that can ensure that you'll never take a gig that doesn't recoup the expenses it took to put on the show because you'll have the information before you even take the gig allowing you to know exactly what it will take to recoup your expenses and/or make a profit.  Now, I'm not saying it's all about the money.  Often as you begin to gig in a new area that you've never played before or try to get new freelance work you sometimes need to do things just to get your name out there.  Those are things you do simply to get your name out, gain some exposure and pay your dues so to speak.  

A little planning can go a long way.  Here's a nifty gig calculator I found online (http://www.gigcalculator.com/index.html) put out by Kathode Ray Music of Nashville.  

As you plan here are a bunch of useful links that music marketer, Bob Baker recently published to his website (http://tinyurl.com/5c822z) it's good stuff.