Perfect your craft. Work on improving your voice, singing style and music as much as possible. Professional musicians are constantly practicing and often work with vocal coaches and producers to help themselves sound as good as possible. Practice will go a long way towards improving your chances of getting noticed.
Create a demo. Work with a good producer to create a few demo tracks. These are songs that will demonstrate your range and talent as an artist best. A good producer is necessary because she will be able to help produce music that best fits with your voice and also edit your voice digitally to sound its best. Good producers may also have industry contacts.
Create an image. An image is the brand which the artist and his handlers create to help promote their artist. Your image could be anything; it could be old-fashioned, country girl or street-corner rapper from the ghetto. Remember that your image must be consistent.
Create a website with more information about the artist and links to the demo. Create social media accounts to get the word out; a Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter account will all help develop a following for the artist. Provide links to the demo and website on the social networks.
Book live shows. Exposure can be gained from booking live shows. Contact venues with your demo and ask to play a live show. Enter local and national talent and music competitions; many artists have gotten their start from such competitions. Pop musicians like Adam Lamert, and Kelly Clarkson got their start on the music competition show American Idol, while Beyonce and Britney Spears appeared on the show Star Search.
Submit the demo to record companies, booking agents and music managers. To find the names of these people and companies, look at the credits on the albums of artists in your musical genre. The people who worked to bring the artist to the top will be listed there.