Getting On The Blues Map

You can now add yourself to the Blues Map. However, like everything else, there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. If you follow the following, you'll be doing it the right way. We like that. It doesn't take long to read this, so go ahead and read it, and then you can sign up and get billions of hits. Sorta.

Are You Already ON The Map?

Before you go adding yourself to the Map, please check and make sure you're not already on it! This happens all the time. Fans may have added you, or someone else may have submitted the resource. If you're outside the US and Canada, be aware that your listing will not immediately appear in the listing for your continent -- it will appear under "Elsewhere" until I manually place your site in the right list. DO NOT add yourself a second time. Duplicate postings are a good way to get me mad. Always check for your item before you try to post it.

Listing Gone?

If you know for sure that you posted a listing, and it's "gone" now, there are a couple of things that could have happened.

1. The link was broken, someone reported it as broken and I verified that I could not reach your site (sorry, I nuke those pretty quick -- check your URL carefully!) Several band links have already disappeared for this reason. I try several times to verify links, but if they appear completely dead, they will be removed. If your site comes back online, or you open it up at a new location, please resubmit it.
2. Your post was a duplicate of something already here, except in situations where you, the actual artist, are posting an official site for you to replace a fan page
3. You, a fan, posted a fan page and the actual artist posted one and asked me to remove yours (sorry, but they get first dibs on a listing, fans, and they should!)
4. Your post was spam, off-topic, or became corrupted in our system and had to be removed to keep the site from having problems. In case of corruption, I'll try to contact you about problems, but spams and irrelevant or non-blues posts will be nuked with no further notice from me.

Adding Yourself

• On the next page, enter your name. This allows me to keep track of who you are so that I know who you are when you email me in two years telling me your band broke up or something, and thus find your listing. Your name will not appear on the listing, it's just for internal use. DO NOT USE ALL CAPS. EVER.
• Tell me the name of your resource. If it's a band, that means it's the band's name. For blues festivals, the complete official name of the festival. For blues clubs or bars that play blues, the name of the establishment. For record labels, the official name of the label. For radio shows, this should be the official call letters of the radio station as well as the name of the blues show AND the radio frequency! For other things, use your judgment. DO NOT USE ALL CAPS, except for the call letters of a radio station.
• Select what type of resource it is. The choices are pretty self-explanatory. If a resource falls into multiple categories, such as a blues festival sponsored by a blues club, either create two listings or choose one and use your best judgment. Be very, very hesitant to use "Other."
• For resources that have a fixed address, such as blues bars or clubs, or where you want to include a mailing address for a blues society or band, enter that in the "address" field. DO NOT USE ALL CAPS. If there's no address you want to enter (this means "street address or postal mail address"), leave it blank
• Select the state or province (US & Canada only) that represents the primary location of your resource. For a band, this means the state or province in which its home town is located. For a blues club or society, the state in which you're based. For a radio show, the home town of the station. For bars and clubs, the state it's located in. If you are outside the United States and Canada, do not select a state.
• Select the city the resource is based in. Type this in, and DO NOT USE ALL CAPS. If you don't know, go find out. This field may not be left blank.
• If you are outside the US and Canada, enter the country (in English) in which your resource is located). Do not abbreviate, spell it all out, and DO NOT USE ALL CAPS.
• If you aren't an official representative of the resource you're listing, check the box that says "I'm just a fan." This is important, because if you list a resource wrong, and an official representative of the resource (like a band member, their management, a radio station executive, whatever) gives me different information, I'll go with theirs instead. If you have a fan-created page and you own it, do not check this box, since it's your resource.
• Enter the full, legal URL for your resource. This is important! Enter the exact, full, legal, correctly-formatted URL for your resource. If your URL does not start with "http://" it will be rejected! This means, no "ftp://" links, no "mailto:" links, no "javascript" links, no "aol://" links... HTTP only! If you do not know what a correct and legal URL looks like, go find out. I'll wait. The easiest way to get a full, correct and legal URL for your site is... visit it in your own browser. Once you get there, go up to the address window toward the top of the browser, and highlight and copy whatever's there. Come here, and paste that text into the URL box. I will no longer check to see if your URL works, so if I get complaints from users saying your URL is broken, I'll just trash your listing and you can come back and fix it later.
• Enter a few sentences describing the resource. You can be a little show-bizzy in this space, but keep in mind these...
  • Five sentences, maximum (do not paste in your entire press release!)
  • Speak in real sentences, don't just list stuff
  • No HTML, no images, no Javascript, no MP3s
  • Don't repeat your URL -- you already put it in
  • DO NOT USE ALL CAPS (or all lowercase, either. Use what they call "proper case")
  • English only, thanks. I do not translate.
  Think of this as the blurb on a box of corn flakes. Keep it short, keep it to the point. Tell people what style blues you play, for example, or mention any CDs you may have out, what they can find on your society's website, and any other interesting short facts about your blues resource.
• Press Save. Press it only once.

I'm very, very serious about two things: NEVER EVER POST IN ALL-CAPS, and press the Save button only once. If it sits there and seems to have stalled, stop. Go back to the Map and see if maybe it didn't save it anyway. But do not, under any circumstances, press SAVE again! Never! Posts containing ALL CAPS or duplicate posts will be removed without notice.

Again, I'm the ultimate judge of what stays and what goes. Ideally, your listing will have as much information on it as you could fit on two business cards... no more, no less.

That all having been said, click here to get on the Map!
If you're curious, here's some background on this page, including its history
If I've completely pissed you off, click here to go back to the Map.