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Mastering the music business in 2011 isn't going to be easy.

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There are few guarantees in today's music business – even a deal with a major record label isn't necessarily going to make you rich. However, what we can tell you is that there are several things that any aspiring musician who wants to take their career further must do in order to give themselves the best chance of success.

Hence this guide: if you do nothing else, make sure you do the following.

Get good

You can't make it in this business unless the music you make is good. 'Good' means that it has a market (beyond your loyal friends and family) and that you can write and produce to a standard substantially higher than average.

It's a harsh reality to face but, looking at the law of averages, it stands to reason that not everyone will be above the centre line. If enough unbiased people are telling you that what you do is impressive, do everything you can to become even better. Devote time, effort and - yes - money to fuelling your dream. If nothing is ventured then nothing is gained.

Get motivated

Write every day. We all know people who have 200 tracks on their hard drives which amount to 'good starts' but no more. This isn't enough. Whether you're making dance, pop or rock records, no successful record has ever featured a single verse or promising intro alone.

The art of writing is one that develops with time and effort and, if you're good already, imagine how good you could become with practice. It's amazing how lazy musicians can be with their talents. Take a tip from other competitive industries such as sport where, irrespective of natural ability, no athlete lines up to run a race without having trained every day for years. Get motivated and get to work.

Multi-task

If you're really hell-bent on going it alone, you'll need to learn how to multi-task and organise your time. To start with, you'll find it easiest to commit time to the creative side as this is the aspect fuelling your dream, whereas devoting hours to getting on the phone to chase contacts, updating your website or posting new gig details on Facebook will feel much less fun.

However, planning your time so that you're spending enough of it on each task is essential - remember, if any part of your business is ignored, the whole thing will collapse.

Discover marketing

Never assume that your music will have so much appeal that it will sell itself. Quality alone is no guarantee of success - we all know of music that we think deserves a wider audience while, conversely, we also hear music whose success seems inexplicable. These successes and failures can be explained by a single word - marketing.

People who don't know your music exists can't buy it and that's true even if it's the best song ever written. Any and all ways of letting potential fans know of your existence must be explored. Ignoring marketing in favour of churning out new material will guarantee that your fan base won't expand beyond your friends and family.

Get social

Start your marketing with social networking. This costs nothing but time and it's not hard to bring a network of people together who will begin to understand what your music is about and help you spread the word. Also free are sites like SoundCloud and Bandcamp which let you upload music for your grateful public to hear, comment on and, in the case of Bandcamp, download or buy.

Setting up accounts within YouTube and Vimeo for visual content is also free, so you can broaden the appeal of your label beyond the purely musical there. Videos of studio sessions, screen capture videos highlighting your mixing processes, even photo content cut to a rudimentary video over one of your tracks are all powerful marketing tools which you can promote through Facebook and Twitter. And if that's still too daunting, services such as Root Music will easily pimp out your Facebook band page for a more pro look.

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