Musikerinnen und Musiker: Augen auf! 78s verrät euch exklusiv die 25 Regeln, die es zu befolgen gilt, wenn ihr mit eurer Musik Erfolg haben wollt.

1. Make breathtakingly awesome music.

2. Find your USP.

3. You’re an artist and entertainer. Is music really the only dimension you can think in?

4. Don’t wait for you to be discovered. Nobody’s waiting for you. Make yourself heard.

5. Be sure to have a six-months agenda, a two-year plan and a ten-year vision.

6. Play like a rebel, think like an artist, work like a businessman.

7. Ask your friends for help. Help when they ask.

8. You won’t make money from selling records. Get over it.

9. Aim for maximum attention, then cash in through concerts, special editions, merchandise.

10. Make it super easy for your fans to share your music.

11. Drop MySpace. Really, drop that crap.

12. Create your own website where fans, bookers and journalists find what they want in less than a second. We don’t give a shit about your fancy extras.

13. Make decent band photographs, for fuck’s sake.

14. Build a solid fanbase on Facebook. Treat them to valuable info, don’t spam.

15. Use Twitter to let people take part in your daily band-life.

16. Monitor the web to see where people are talking about you. Engage.

17. Connect with journalists and bloggers. No, you don’t have to sleep with them. They’re bad lovers anyway.

18. Speaking of which, don’t fuck your bandmates. Just don’t.

19. Play live. Again. Again. Again.

20. Be flexible, but stay true to your ideas.

21. Risk and invest. If you’re not ready to invest, something’s wrong with your project.

22. Be passionate. If you don’t love what you do, nobody will.

23. Keep your feet on the ground. If you’re not critical of yourself, everyone else will be.

24. Don’t push it too hard. Allow yourself to breathe.

25. Make breathtakingly awesome music.

Dieses Manifest ist ein erster Anstoss. Denkt darüber nach, hängt es in den Bandraum – vor allem aber: sagt mir, was ihr davon haltet. Als nächstes werde ich dann jeden der 25 Punkte mit einigen Sätzen ausführen und mit konkreten Tipps ergänzen. So dass am Ende zu den 25 eisernen Regeln ein PDF-Handbuch hinzu kommt, das jeder Band, jedem Musiker und jeder Musikerin dabei helfen soll, voran zu kommen.