Blog

We are happy to consider ideas from blogs from members and corporate members. We like to ensure creating a blog is collaborative process between the writer and the ISM, to make sure we can both get the best out of it, cover the right topics and ensure the content can benefit musicians and the sector.

Our blogs are a way of providing personal perspective to a topic issue, for example, a person’s experience of depping in the West End, or your company’s thoughts on something related to your business, for example, an insurance company’s advice on ways to store an instrument securely.

In both instances, rather than submitting a written piece, contact [email protected] with a topic you would like to write on and we will work out the best way to proceed.

Member news

Members news appears in our community page on our website ISM invites members to submit news about their music careers. Items that might be considered news include new publications of scores and books, releases of new music, significant collaborations, or newly launched projects.

Due to the number of gigs and concerts that are played by our members, we cannot include these as a matter of course, but we may do if they have a significance, for example a charitable connection or significant anniversary.

News should be 150 words long. We regret that due to the size of the membership we can’t include long member obituaries, but we will accept short tributes of around 50 words in the member news section.
Pictures need to be landscape and preferably 720x480 pixels in size, with 72dpi.

We will regularly update the news section, and each news story will remain up for a reasonable amount of time depending on the nature of the news and number of other submissions at that time.
A link to the member news page will appear in every weekly member update email, reaching over 9,000 musicians. The link will be included in Music Journal and will be advertised across ISM social media regularly, to over 21.3k followers on Twitter, and 11.3k Facebook followers.

Email [email protected] with your copy and membership number if you have it.

Corporate member news

Corporate members new appears in our community page on our website. Some may also be selected for our Music Journal, which is published four times a year. Which news stories get chosen to appear is at the editor’s discretion.

News should be 200 words for platinum and gold members and 150 words for silver and bronze members. News stories should go up within ten days of receiving them. A news story will stay up for a month or longer, unless the story contains information that implies a natural deadline (eg a concert or funding deadline). The most recent news will appear at the top.

Pictures need to be landscape and preferably 720x480 pixels in size, with 72dpi.

A link to the corporate member news page will appear in every weekly member update email, reaching over 9,000 musicians. The link will be included in Music Journal and will be advertised across ISM social media each fortnight, to over 21.3k followers on Twitter, 11.3k followers on Facebook and appear in the monthly corporate members news email, reaching nearly 200 fellow sector organisations.

Email [email protected] with your copy.

Classified ads

Classified ads appear on the community page and are free for ISM members.

They will remain live for approximately three months. Please inform us if there is a reason to remove the advert prematurely.

External parties can ring to book and advert for a standard fee of £7.50 a month.

All submissions should be 10 to 60 words long.

Email [email protected] with your copy and membership number.

Listings

We are happy to list member, local groups and corporate members events in our events section on the website or in our local groups section. Email the event name, times and dates and short description to [email protected]. You may also include an image (landscape) and we will include it if possible.

Courses and workshops
We often list short term courses or one-off workshops delivered by members on our website.

Gigs and concerts
Because our members play many gigs and concerts, we cannot include every one of these, but if they are distinct for some reason, for example, they mark an anniversary for an organisation or member, we may include them in the member news section.

These guidelines are subject to change. Please email the relevant email for each section if you have questions.