John Doe is the founder of the seminal Los Angeles punk group X, a solo artist and actor. John answers questions from our community members in the WWJDD? blog. Photo by Autumn de Wilde.

A Question from Pete in New York

What would you do if a drunk punk throws bottle rockets at you onstage during a solo acoustic show?

WWJDD?

It seems obvious that you have to keep yr cool and fire back some choice words to the dummy who wishes he had enough talent to be on stage rather than firing bottle rockets from the audience.  As Peter Case once told me, "Don't lose yr cool, man. If you lose yr cool, you lose yr power."  Occasionally this kind of disturbance can save an otherwise dull show, it's happened to me.  Where the show goes along, good but nothing special. Then some drunk start mouthing off & you've got immediate conflict & something memorable. Just go w/ it, be witty & don't get ugly.  If it comes to that, hopefully there is some security guy to "throw the bum out" or you might just have to put up yr dukes, this if course is a last, & ultimately never satisfying, resort.  And handling these things (stupid people or equipment failure) just gets easier the more time you have to deal w/ them.  Keep yr cool & no one will notice. If they do, they just think how cool you are.

good luck, I hope this helps
and as always, thanks for writing
JD

If you have questions for John Doe about music, the music business or life feel free to email them to wwjdd@knowthemusicbiz.com.

For more information on John Doe check out theejohndoe.com or YepRoc.com .

Peter Wells is the SVP of Operations and Customer Advocate at TuneCore. Peter began as a classical pianist, English literature teacher, senior technical writer at Cisco and director of label relations at eMusic, where he built a deep knowledge of the music business.

Part III: The Myth of Marketing and Promotion

Aggregators take a percentage of your earnings, forever, with no ceiling—why? Because they can, but it’s hardly good public relations to say so. They control the only path a small label or band can take to reach the big digital retailers like iTunes, so they can set up any terms they want. In Part II, I showed why distributors might have been entitled to a limitless cut in the past, when physical product had to be placed into brick-and-mortar stores, with all the risk and overhead and managing required. But in the digital world, it’s almost indefensible. A new reason has to be claimed for taking a percentage: marketing and promotion.

Distributors aren’t traditionally marketers or promoters, that’s part of the label’s job. In addition to getting you gigs and making CDs and setting up deals with distributors and such, the label would market and promote you, because the label had signed you, and you worked for them now. It was in their interest to make you as big as possible, because they got the reward and paid you some very small percentage (whatever terms were dictated in the contract you originally signed with them). So labels would shell out lots of cash for posters, stickers, t-shirts and hats; they hired publicists for $5000 a month and crafted press releases and schedules, fought for news space in print, broadcast and radio; they purchased ads on your behalf, TV spots and billboards. Labels can sink millions of dollars into marketing and promoting a band, hoping it’ll pay off in sales, in licensing deals, even selling the contract to bigger labels for a wad of cash.

Distributors in the old days, especially the good ones, did help a bit with marketing and promotion. In a record store, if your CD was at eye level, it sold better. CDs on the end of the aisle (“end cap”) or by the register, it would sell better. Certainly if it was up on the release day, when your hype was timed to peak, it helped! If you give your distributor a percentage, you encourage them to take these steps, to leverage the stores (who, after all, rely on the distributors for content to sell) to push your music in these ways—even get the staff of the record store to wear a big shiny pin with your band’s name on it. Given that kind of effort, distributors deserved a percentage.

I showed that digital aggregators don’t have to do this or take risks to put your music into digital stores, so why are they still taking a percentage? They claim to be marketing and promoting you, but traditional brick-and-mortar tricks don’t apply: there’s no such thing as “eye level,” there’s no register, and no staff to wear a shiny pin. There are feature pages and genre pages on iTunes and AmazonMP3 and other stores, yes, but as I’ll talk about later, it’s not up to the aggregator to put your releases there. Some stores accept ads, but no aggregator is going to pay to put your ad up at their own expense.

Anyone who does claim to be marketing and promoting you requires very careful investigation. They’ll all say they are doing something, and it’s up to you to decide if it’s viable, reasonable, and worth the cost. This is sound advice for anything you buy, but there’s a special wrinkle when it comes to digital distribution.

Aggregators make their money by putting many, many artists and small labels into digital stores: it’s a volume game. The big aggregators have 50,000+ clients. How, exactly, are they going to market and promote them all? They’re taking a percentage from all, but they couldn’t possibly treat everyone the same. No matter what their plan is, this central fact remains.

TIP #2: Check the Marketing and Promotion Plan

When choosing a digital distributor who says they’re going to market and promote you, ask: 

• How, precisely? Get very specific.
• How will you know if it’s working and who decides if it is? What tracking/feedback is there?
• Can you “opt out” of their marketing efforts and reclaim your percentage?
• If they claim to market you at the expense of some other person, what guarantees do you have they won’t do that to you later?
• What are they going to do to make you stand out from their own customers, let alone all the content in the stores, and what guarantee do you have they’ll do it for a reasonable return of value commensurate with the percentage they’re taking?

 The single most important thing to keep in mind is this: are you getting what you’re paying for, and is it worth it? Let’s say an aggregator offers to put your name on a list that goes to college DJs and indie radio program directors. Fine, but if they have 10,000 names on that list, how does that help you? Who gets to be at the top of that list? Does anyone read those? Is there space on that list for you to sell yourself (describe your music, or say anything that might get you noticed)? And finally, that percentage comes down to real money: could you get better value out of that money by spending it yourself on your own marketing and promotion?

That’s key: if I were in a band and wanted to get publicized, I’d hire a publicist. They’d get a flat fee, and I’d be able to monitor exactly what they’re doing. If a publicist told me they only wanted a percentage, but took it forever, with no cap, and I had no way of telling what they were doing or if it benefited me, I’d call them crazy!

 In Part IV, telling good marketing from bad, and how to measure your money’s worth!

Artists no longer have to wait for a record label deal to get their music recorded or distributed. Self releasing one’s own material is now a very viable option. However, if you are self releasing there are a few business items that will need to be tended to before making the music available for streaming or purchase. Please note that this information is for USA based releases.

Determine Songwriter Ownership Percentages

Anyone who contributes lyrics or melodies is technically entitled to an ownership percentage of the song. It’s always best to work out the ownership percentages in each song before making any of the work commercially available. The best way to avoid any misunderstandings or disagreements is to fill out a simple Collaboration Agreement that spells out the authors and ownership percentage of each song in writing. See a sample Collaboration Agreement here: DOC or PDF

Register Your Work with the Copyright Office

The only real way to protect your work is to register it with the US Copyright Office. Artists have been telling each other for years all that’s required to copyright a song is to mail a copy to yourself and keep the date stamp on the envelope as proof of the date the song was written. If you don’t want anyone else to exploit or misuse your work fill out the required paperwork and pay the fees. It’s well worth the effort to protect your songs. To register Musical Compositions fill out Form PA and for Sound Recordings fill out Form SR. There is a lot of helpful information on how to fill out these forms online and even several YouTube videos on the topic. To learn more about music copyright check out our wiki on music publishing.

Obtain a Mechanical License for any Cover Songs

Any cover songs that have been recorded and will be included in the new release must be licensed. A mechanical license can usually be obtained from the Harry Fox Agency . If you plan to manufacture and distribute less than 2,500 copies, HFA now offers an online licensing option called Songfile which can simplify the licensing process. Any reputable CD manufacturer, distributor or online music retailer will require you to have these licenses before they duplicate your recording or offer it for sale.

Order a UPC Code for any CD’s or Vinyl that will be pressed

A UPC Code , commonly referred to as a bar code, uniquely identifies the manufacturer, label, artist, catalog number and format of a particular release. A UPC code must be obtained and attached to the packaging if the release will ever be sold through retailers. UPC codes can be obtained directly from the Uniform Code Council but it can be much easier to just obtain them through the manufacturer or distributor.

Have an ISRC Code Created for Each Track

ISRC or International Standard Recording Codes are unique identifiers or digital footprints for each track on a release and are used by digital retailers to track and report digital sales. ISRC codes are typically either encoded into the recording during the mastering process or on the physical products during manufacturing and can also be provided by distributors. Digital retailers will require that each track has an associated ISRC before they make the track available for purchase or streaming.

Submit the Metadata

Metadata is all the collective information associated with a particular track, release or band, summarized and available in a digital format. Metadata typically includes track titles, track lengths, ISRC codes, album art, genre, band bio’s and publishing information. Digital retailers, MP3 players, computer based media players, radio (online, satellite & terrestrial) and mobile phones all use metadata to provide their users with information about the songs and artists that are playing. It’s very important that the metadata information for any new release be readily available. Not having the track titles of your CD show up when it’s being ripped to a computer certainly gives an amateurish impression. Be sure to register the metadata information with the three primary companies that manage metadata databases for the industry: Gracenote, All Music Guide and Muze. All three companies have different procedures for accepting metadata from directly from artists. Check out each of their websites for details.

Register with SoundExchange

SoundExchange collects and distributes digital performance royalties from satellite, cable and online radio stations on behalf of recording artists and sound recording copyright holders in the United States (the artist typically controls the sound recording copyright when they are self releasing so they will need to register for both ownership parts). Each time a song is played on stations from XM, Sirius, Pandora, Last.fm and the like SoundExchange collects royalties and pays out directly to the recording artists and sound recording copyright holder. Satellite, cable and internet radio continue to grow at a rapid pace and these royalties are an important way artists can actually get paid for their work.

Sign up with a Performing Rights Organization

Performing Rights Organizations collect royalties from terrestrial radio stations, restaurants, bars, TV / cable networks, retailers, online services or any other establishment that plays / streams licensed music heard by the general public. These PRO Royalties are collected by the major performing rights companies ASCAP, BMI or SESAC and paid out to the songwriter or their publishing company. If you are a songwriter be sure to sign up with one of these three organizations. Please note that PRO royalties are paid out on “estimates” instead of actual plays and it’s fairly common for artists without regular airplay to not receive PRO royalties.

  Heather McDonald is a music journalist and press agent. You can read more of her work on About.com's Music Careers website.

Even for a cliché, the saying “it’s not what you know, it’s who know” is pretty overdone. In the music biz, however, it’s worth repeating. You can be sure you’re sitting on the next number one song (or you can be sure you’re managing the band with that song, putting that song out on your label or any other music industry shaped scenario), but if you can’t get your foot in the door, you’re going nowhere. And if you don’t have any contacts, that door isn’t going open wide enough to get your little toe through. So, the question becomes, where does one get these “contacts” when they’re just starting out? Enter the Musician’s Atlas.

If you’ve been involved in music for any length of time, the name Musician’s Atlas won’t be new to you. The print version of the Atlas – which is roughly the size of War and Peace, but easier to read – is chock full of contact details for everyone from record labels to promoters, magazines to trade shows. It has long been required reading even for music industry folks who are themselves listed in the directory and no doubt has been the matchmaker behind plenty of deals. But times, they have a-changed, and the Musician’s Atlas has changed with them. No need to break your back carrying around the book anymore (though many do). Now all of that info you need is a mouse click away with Atlas Online. But is it really the same? And more importantly, what can the Atlas Online do for you?

Atlas Online – You, Except Organized and With Better Contacts

There’s one thing the print version of the Atlas can’t do for you – it can’t get you organized and motivated to actually follow through with your plans. Now, given that we tend to be a little, well, organizationally challenged in the music business, that can be a problem. Atlas Online does everything but wake you up in the morning and put the coffee on. Members, who pay a monthly fee for access, can use the site to set up a list of tasks with reminders about phone calls that need to be made or promos that need to be sent, manage fan databases, create a mail merge and more. Managers can even keep track of their expenses on their private profile. You can log into your Atlas profile and send emails to contacts you find there that will appear to have come from your own Gmail or Yahoo account, so you don’t end up with any branding but your own on your message. All handy stuff that might just help you stay on track.

But what about the contacts? After all, that’s really what you’re here for, right? Your luck here is going to depend a little bit on who you are and what you’re looking for. For instance, if you’re a manger looking for a promoter in town X or a label looking for media outlets for promotion of your new release, you’re golden. You’re going to find everything you need here. Record label policy being what it is these days (don’t send me your demo – I’m afraid you’ll sue me for copyright infringement later), bands looking strictly for label addresses might end up with mixed success. However, you can find plenty of other good things on Atlas to guide you through the delicate demo stage, like studios, producers, media contacts and more.

Atlas Navigation – Guided Tours

Checking out the Atlas for the first time might make your eyes cross a bit. There are so many options, just finding your starting point is a little overwhelming. The best plan? Dive right in and start clicking. The good news about the site is that when you get the lay of the land, it’s easy to navigate. If you get stuck, however, or if there’s a feature you’re not sure about, the Atlas provides video tutorials to walk you through the steps. These guides are great – they take over your screen and show you exactly where to click when and what different tools are for. Even if you think you understand a tool, it’s worth checking out the tutorial. For a few minutes of your time, you might discover a new shortcut to help you blow through your tasks faster.

The bottom line on the Atlas Online? The book is good, but the interactive subscription service offers so much more. Put a little time into using it, and your contacts – and your opportunities – will be booming.    

Musician’s Atlas is graciously waiving the $30 activation fee for access to the interactive Musician’s AtlasOnline and offering 35% off the Musician’s Atlas print edition for KnowTheMusicBiz.com members. To learn more click here.