These are all good signs. They mean that you're ready to start playing for other people.
When major companies (even record labels -- especially record labels) spend lots of time and energy to find out who their customers are and what their customers want. So unless you've secured a grant from someone, your audience -- meaning your customers -- are who you'll need to please if you want to make a living making music.
So right now, I want you to imagine yourself at an AMAZING gig. You're on stage, and you're looking out at the crowd. Who's there?
In your ideal crowd, are there a lot of young people? Are they college-aged, swaying to your rhythms? Are they high school kids, moshing? Is your perfect audience a little older? Are they standing, seated, eating, drinking? Take a moment to write down a page or so of the kinds of people you want to be looking at when you're on stage.
Got a really good picture? Good. When you know enough about the audience you want to attract, you can start taking the right steps to attract them.
You're probably not more than a ninety-minute drive from the type of venue you envisioned when you thought about your perfect gig. Take a night off and go there! Make a point of growing your network while you're there. Don't bring materials to foist on anyone just yet (we'll get to that in Step 2). Just chat with the folks you meet there. The waitstaff, the audience, the artists on the bill that night. Get a strong sense of what the audience is responding to, and of how the place works. If you're fortunate enough to live in a larger city, try this out at a few different places.
Once you've explored the physical world, explore the virtual world, too. Think about some websites and online communities that your audience would frequent. Join them. Post a few messages. Get interacting, and ask some questions about what artists your audience enjoys, what venues they frequent, what shows they watch.
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