The term DIY (Do It Yourself) isn't just for assembling the closet shelves and flooring you see on home makeover shows. Everyone always fantasizes about being a musician, but dreads the realization of having to MIY (Market It Yourself).

Printing off hundreds of fliers to promote your latest record or show date is pretty costly. Seeing that shiny piece of paper thrown immediately to the ground by an unaware hipster once you give it to them is a huge bummer. Walking down the beaches of Venice with a pair of headphones asking random strangers to listen to just one track of that said record is a chore unto itself.

There's only one place that can help mitigate this problem. Yep, you guessed it: MySpace. Not just used for picking up a date for Saturday night, the infamous online networking site enables the local band from Oxnard or singer-songwriter from Long Beach to catch their first wave of success.

Look no further than Lily Allen, the hottest sensation out of the UK as an example. A relative unknown until her songs started to become viral on “the space,” Allen transformed into pop ingénue (over four million song plays and counting to date). Her upcoming gig at the Troubadour sold out in minutes.

So, how exactly does a band begin their journey to fame via MySpace?

First things first, you've got to jazz up your profile page. Let's hope your bass player knows some basic HTML. If you're dark and brooding, it's better to go with red and black colors; if you're more tween-oriented, then lavender is the way to go.

Now it's time to upload those pictures. Two to 12, be mindful that other users determine if a band is cool just by its photos. Posing right next to a junkyard or a graffiti sprayed wall is the best first option until you have time to do a quick photo shoot in the woods.

Use the show calendar to your advantage and don't be embarrassed if the only gig you've got is your Aunt Bessie's 50th birthday party. Who knows? Those random groupies that you recently added as “friends” might show up to surprise you.

The key factor is the songs, and the rule is you can only have a maximum of four songs. So, make them count. You're going to want to attract the biggest audience you can and if you have one really great heater and three lousy stinkers, then don't bother.

If anything, just put up the one track that you worked on for months in your makeshift studio and watch the results flutter in. You've now built up the anticipation for your second track and if it's a lousy one, it won't matter because by then you've already hypnotized your fans with the former track. Anything after is pure gravy.

Judging by the number of friends MySpace founder Tom Anderson has on his profile ( 114,595,602 and still growing by the second), your music will be heard. Be prepared to use that guitar pic, but more importantly, that left button key on your mouse.