The venues have changed but the process of working them remains the same. To work the small acoustic clubs in the Northeast, for example, you have to frequent them to hang, to become considered somewhat local. It's an investment in time and travel if you don't live there. Same story everywhere else too. Word of mouth is still the best advertising and so the name of the game is to come back for repeat performances, building an audience.
Some people play everywhere once.
That would be a bad sign. No longer signed to a major label and no longer trying to be part of the big horse race is humbling at first and tremendously exciting later. There are young entrepreneurial record people trying to find ways to market this stuff effectively. Your competition is the sheer volume of performers working and a really bad CD looks just as pretty and full of promise when you crack it open as a good one does, and there are a lot of bad CDs out there. No revelation to you, I'm sure, but it jams up the works.