Bookers, curators, journalists and other artists decide a lot about you before they hear a note. An odd email address, a missing signature or a reply that comes three weeks late all tell them how working with you will feel. The fix is not complicated, and a professional email and contact routine takes one afternoon to set up.
A professional email address for musicians
Use one address only for music work, separate from your personal mail. If you have a website on your own domain, an address on that domain looks the most serious. If not, a free address is completely fine, as long as it's clean: your artist name, or your artist name plus "music" or "booking". Avoid school nicknames, birth years and long strings of numbers.
Set the display name properly. When your email lands in someone's inbox, it should say "Lalə Nova" or "Lalə Nova Music", not a random username.
If someone else handles your bookings, consider a second address for that role. It makes it easy to hand the role over later without changing everything.
A signature that does the work
A good signature answers questions people would otherwise have to ask. Keep it to a few lines:
- your artist name and your role (singer, producer, band);
- city and country, which matters for bookers and press;
- a phone number, if you're happy to share it for work;
- where to listen, written as plain text: the platforms you're on and your artist name;
- your main social media handle.
Skip big images, quotes and legal disclaimers. A signature built as an image often turns into an attachment nobody opens.
Writing emails that get answered
Most work emails are read on a phone between other tasks. Make yours easy to read:
- A specific subject line. "Booking request: Lalə Nova, Baku, 14 March" beats "Hello" or "Collaboration".
- The point in the first two lines. Who you are, and what you're asking for.
- One ask per email. A date, a feature or a review. Not all three.
- No heavy attachments. Send a private streaming or download link instead of a large WAV file, unless the person asked for the file.
- The recipient's language, if you can write it properly, or simple English if you can't.
A first message to a venue can be four sentences long. Say who you are and where you're based. Say what you want, for example a Friday slot in April, as headliner or support. Give one line of proof, such as a recent show that filled the room or a song that got local radio play. End with where to listen. Everything else can wait for the reply.
If there's no answer, one polite follow-up after about a week is normal. A third or fourth message usually isn't.
Response habits that build trust
Speed matters more than polish. A short "Got it, I'll come back to you by Friday" within a day or two, followed by a real answer on Friday, is better than a perfect reply two weeks later.
A few habits help:
- Check your inbox at fixed times, for example morning and evening, instead of all day.
- Keep templates for common replies: booking enquiries, feature requests, interview requests, questions about your fee. Edit them each time so they don't sound copied.
- Use folders or labels: bookings, press, collaborations, releases, finance.
- Check your spam folder weekly. Real offers do end up there.
- Never leave contracts or payment questions unanswered, even if the answer is "I need a few days".
A simple contact sheet
You don't need special software to keep track of people. A spreadsheet works. Use one row per person and these columns:
- Name
- Role (venue, promoter, journalist, curator, producer, artist)
- Company or city
- How you met
- Date of last contact
- Next step and its date
- Notes
If you work across countries, add a column for language and time zone, so you write to people in the right language and at a sensible hour.
Update it after every real exchange. Once a week, sort by the next-step date and see who you owe a reply or a follow-up.
Elvin Rza, an invented singer, came back from a showcase with fourteen new contacts. He added them to his sheet the same evening, wrote one line about each conversation, and set reminders for the three people he had promised to send a song to. A month later, when one of them was putting together a festival stage, she remembered him, because he had written exactly when he said he would.
Keep only what you need for work, and respect privacy. Getting someone's email after a meeting doesn't mean they agreed to receive your newsletter. Ask first.