Extended Directory — Beyond Chicago

Use these whether or not you're in Chicago. Most are remote-friendly.

Education + business

• Berklee Online — paid certificate courses in music business, publishing, sync.
• Music Business Worldwide (MBW) — daily news on what labels and publishers are actually doing.
• Hypebot — independent artist news + tactics.

Tooling

• Disco — pro-grade sample/sync delivery. Replaces SoundCloud private links.
• Notion or Airtable — single source of truth for splits, ISRCs, contacts, pitch tracking.
• Linkfire / Feature.fm — smart links + pre-saves.

Sync libraries that accept indie subs

• Musicbed
• Marmoset
• Songtradr
• Pond5
• AudioJungle (lower rates, faster turnover)

PR + press (independent-friendly)

• SubmitHub — paid + free pitches to curators, blogs, playlists.
• Indie Shuffle, Earmilk, The Line of Best Fit — accept submissions.
• For The Record — Chicago-rooted, supports Black artists.

Legal templates

• Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (VLA) — free counsel chapters in NY, CA, IL, GA, etc.
• DIY Musician contracts (CD Baby blog) — starter templates only. Always have a lawyer review.

Action item

Pick three resources from this list, bookmark them, and put a recurring 30-min calendar block to actually use them weekly. Bookmarks without time = clutter.