Why Are So Many Jazz Musicians So Bad At Selling Themselves?

It is a head scratcher. Why do so many jazz musicians, professional jazz musicians, simply suck at selling themselves? You may recognize the type—no website, or else a sloppily designed one with an outdated bio, poor quality photos, no live dates displayed, no juicy quotations from album or gig reviews to entice potential customers, no high-quality video content ... and on it goes.

How often do you come across a jazz musician's Facebook page whose last entry was six months or even six years ago?

Put another way, if someone dreams of setting up their own business as a freelance baker, self-caterer, potter, plumber, physiotherapist or taxi driver, and then invests the time, money and effort to qualify to do so, how would they then expect to make a decent living without a professional online presence and a savvy advertising strategy?

The musician who ignores the business side of the industry, saying, "All I know about is the music, man" would be like the baker saying, "All I know about is sourdough, dude."

Is the seeming disregard for self-promotion practiced by so many jazz musicians, in an extremely crowded and competitive market, nothing more than professional suicide? Just how difficult is it for jazz musicians to generate and maintain an online presence that works for them?

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