How Jonathan Coulton Became An Internet Rock Star On The Cheap

INTERNET ROCK (Hypebot) – Jonathan Coulton quit his programming job in 2005 to become a full-time musician. He's met with some tangible success and this month shared his budget conscious approach in, of all places, Popular Science. Here are the highlights:

"…you've got a more advanced recording studio in your laptop than the Beatles had when they made Sgt. Pepper's, so record your music yourself."

"Skip the cookie-cutter MySpace stuff and get a full-fledged content-management system like WordPress or Drupal, which will allow you to build your empire as you go: a blog, forums, photos, videos — all in one place that you control."

"If you don't know HTML or PHP, find a sucker. . . er, a fan to build it for you."

"Create merchandise on demand with CafePress, Spreadshirt or Zazzle to avoid buying boxes of T-shirts that'll sit in your basement."

"..for $4 each, CD Baby will store, sell, and ship your discs. It will also push your music to digital outlets like iTunes and Amazon MP3."

"…use eventful.com, which lets people request a show in their town. Why slog from city to city in an old van unless you know you're going to sell some tickets?"

"Promote yourself on Twitter, broadcast live shows on Ustream"

"Send out a million pieces of yourself to interact with potential fans. If they're out there, they'll find you — and hopefully sometime after that, give you money."