It seems the way money flows at a record label is largely a mystery to most artists who haven’t worked in the music industry for an extended period of time. It’s always interesting to lift the veil a bit on an unknown. Let’s take a look at one side of the economics of an indie record label, getting a new release to market. Below is a summary of the actual expenses an indie record label incurred for a new release:

Recording advance: $15,000
Tour support: $2,100
Mastering costs: $934.96
Marketing: $13,433.23
Advertising: $2,067.50
Publicity: $5,153.34
Manufacturing: $16,581.04
Artwork / photos: $200
Misc: $587.71

Total: $56,057.78

Here is an overview of each of the line item in a little more detail:

Recording Advance – The money for the recording advance is used to cover the cost of recording. Including studio rental, mixing, session musicians, sound engineer and producer.

Tour Support – Artists have traditionally sold more overall units when they tour so record labels will often times financially support a tour. Tour support money can help pay some of the expenses of touring such as gas, insurance, hotels, food and supplies.

Mastering – Mastering is a post production process that takes the final mix of the recording, edits minor flaws, adjusts volume and stereo widths, equalizes tracks, etc. It’s usually expected that the person who masters the recording will be different from the person who mixes it so there is typically a separate line item in the budget.

Marketing – The marketing line item is entirely for retail co-op marketing expenses. Co-op marketing dollars are expenses distributors incur from retailers for special product placement, in-store promotions, listening stations or advertising. The amount of co-op marketing dollars the distributor (and ultimately the label) are willing to spend on a new release has a direct correlation to the amount of product the retailer orders.

Advertising – Advertising expenses can include any print, radio and online advertising the record label incurs to promote a new release (outside of retail co-op dollars).

Publicity – It’s fairly common for a record label to hire an independent publicist for a 90 day period to help promote a new release to press, print and online media, bloggers and anyone else who can help influence music fans.

Manufacturing – The manufacturing costs for a CD with jewel case can vary but is still around $1.00 per unit for a distributor or label with measurable volume.

Artwork – The cost of custom creative and / or photos for the release.

Miscellaneous – Just like the name implies this is the catch “everything else” expense category related to a new release. For example, legal fees or video production expenses charged to a new release could end up here.

For this particular release to break even it must generate $70,072.23 in gross sales ($56,057.78 + the 25% fee of sales paid to the distributor ). The typical deductions a distributor takes on sales including return reserves and breakage (to name a few) further impact cash flow on sales back to the record label.

It’s important for artists to fully understand how the basic economics of an indie label work since they will not get paid any royalties from sales until the record label recoups all the expenses incurred in getting the record to market. This is true of both traditional record label agreements and even “50/50” licensing agreements. It is very common for artists to never receive royalties on sales from their record label since many new releases never fully recoup their expenses.

Being signed to a record label is no guarantee of sales success. Artists need to carefully weigh what a record label is going to spend on a new release to determine the level of sales that will be needed to achieve profitability before signing a recording contract. Even though the artist might sell a lower number of units on their own there is a very real chance they can actually earn more money without a record label being involved. 

Most indie record label owners are simply trying to get music they love heard by fans. They aren’t in it for the money. In addition to the above mentioned costs of getting a new release to market they have to cover multiple other expenses such as insurance, rent, payroll, travel and mechanical royalties . Making money as an indie label is no easy task. Needless to say, label owners give it a great deal of consideration before signing a new artist and committing to releasing their music.

It does take a lot of money and resources to get a new release to market. However, real transparency in accounting for these expenses is still largely lacking. Inevitably this leads to conflict between the record label and artist around recoupment of expenses and payment of royalties. Hopefully, as artists better understand the economics of record labels they will be able to make more informed decisions about when it makes sense to sign with a record label and when go it alone.

David Harrell  is the Editor of Digital Audio Insider and has blogged about the economics of digital music since 2006. With his indie rock band the Layaways , he has self-released three albums. The latest, "The Space Between," is now available for free streaming and download from Last.fm.

The best I can remember, the class was called something like "the scientific method." A graduate biology seminar, it consisted of meeting once a week to watch an old science fiction movie, followed by a discussion about the treatment of science in the film. For the students, it was a low-stress way to add a couple semester hours to our schedules, and for the tenured professor who "taught" the class, it seemed like an incredibly easy way to pad his course load.

But unlike most of my college classes, there's something specific that's stayed with me. It was the professor's contention that there is no such thing as a truly repeatable experiment, at least not for biological sciences. The classic scientific method depends on the notion of repeatable results -- running the same experiment again should give the same results as those obtained in previous experiments. His point was that no matter how careful a researcher was, there'd always be some alteration in a small detail, such as a different batch of food for the lab animals or the health of the laboratory personnel. He wasn't implying that most scientific research wasn't valid, just that there was no such thing as a perfect do-over for most experiments.

Why am I yammering on about science experiments in a music business blog? Well, as anyone reading this post knows, over the past few years, the music industry -- from the largest record companies and the biggest selling artists down to the level of self-released artists -- has been experimenting like crazy. Free music, pay-what-you-want music, "360" deals, exclusive deals with Wal-Mart sans digital distribution, iTunes exclusives, etc. And after every large-scale experiment (Radiohead's "In Rainbows," Kid Rock's no-iTunes strategy, AC-DC's current Wal-Mart exclusive), music industry analysts, the news media, and bloggers attempt to assess the relative success of the approach.

Yet in all of these cases, "experiment" is probably a misnomer --there's no "control group" receiving the placebo treatment. Absent a trip to a parallel universe where you could buy Kid Rock's last album (or the single) from the iTunes store, we really don't know for certain if Kid Rock helped or hindered his total sales.  (It's possible, of course, that some record companies have been using control groups of some sort. You could make an album available in iTunes for a specific country or region, and compare sales to those in non-iTunes regions. Though the demographics and fan bases probably aren't identical across regions, so you're still guessing somewhat…)

And even if we knew for certain if an individual experiment was a relative success, it's not necessarily transferable. Just because something worked for Radiohead doesn't mean it would work for R.E.M. Further, in addition to the non-interchangeable nature of audiences and albums, the music retail environment itself is changing on a daily basis.

Yet music is art, not science, and even if these different business tests aren't controlled, repeatable experiments, there does seem to be a few obvious takeaways. One thing that seems certain is that for acts of a certain stature, deviations from the standard sales approach will result in increased attention, perhaps enough to generate additional sales. Offering free music certainly seems to have helped Trent Reznor SELL a lot of music, music that is readily available for no charge. And maybe AC-DC's new album wouldn't be selling as well without the promotional push behind the Wal-Mart exclusive.

One problem, however, is diminishing returns. Radiohead got the attention it did for its "In Rainbows" experiment not because it was the first act to offer its music on a "pay what you want" basis. Rather, because they were the first act with that level of name recognition and artistic credibility to do so. Post-Radiohead, a similar experiment by a well-known act might not get the same attention.

What's less obvious, however, is if free or pay-what-you-want music has the same impact on the other end of the scale. That is, for self-released acts like my own, who are all trying to figure out how to compete in an environment of seemingly endless listening choices.

If you spend some time on the CD Baby message boards, you'll see that some self-released musicians that are quite indignant over the idea of "free music." They'll point to the both hard work that went into writing and recording their music and the hard-earned dollars that funded the recording, mixing, mastering, and manufacturing of their music. They simply want a chance to earn some of that money back.

But offering free music doesn't mean you don't expect to get paid for it. For musicians at ANY level, the fundamental challenge is twofold. First, you need to get people to hear your music. Then you have to convince them to buy it. For relatively unknown artists, without access to commercial radio and the mainstream music press, offering free music along with paid versions of it seems the easiest way to increase your listening audience and, eventually, your paying audience.

Anecdotally, there are plenty of examples of how free and paid music can co-exist. A few years ago, when the Strokes released their second album, they offered a free 192k mp3 of the lead single on their website. Yet that song remained their top-selling track on iTunes, despite the existence of a free equivalent. And when I look at our cumulative iTunes sales, the two tracks we've sold the most copies of are songs we've made available as free downloads.

These examples don't necessarily prove anything -- there's no way to know if the Strokes would've sold more (or less) iTunes downloads if they didn't offer a free version of the track. Nor do they reveal why some consumers are paying for music they could have legally obtained without purchasing it. Maybe some purchasers of the iTunes tracks were simply unaware of the free versions, or maybe they are deliberately choosing to support the artist by purchasing the tracks.

For our new album, we're taking the free music plunge, inspired in part by a post by David Rose on this blog. For their 2004 release "Conductor," the Comas had a level of critical and promotional success that most small bands would kill for -- things like an 8.0 Pitchfork review and strong support and airplay from KEXP (one of the biggest/best known CMJ-reporting stations).

Yet they sold less than 6,000 total units, including physical CDs and album downloads. Would the Comas have done better with a free strategy? Again, without access to a parallel universe, there's no way to know to know for certain.

But in our case, given our very modest sales, the upside seems to outweigh the minimal downside of potential lost sales. And while it won't be a controlled or repeatable experiment, there are plenty of things we can quantify over the next few months: our number of Last.fm listeners, web traffic, friend statistics for MySpace and Facebook, and -- we hope -- increased sales over our previous release.

Terry McBride is the CEO and one of three founders of the Nettwerk Music Group , which includes Nettwerk Productions (Canada’s largest independent record label), Nettwerk Management (artist and producer management), Nettwerk One (publishing), and Artwerks (graphic and fashion design). Founded in McBride's apartment in 1984, Nettwerk has corporate offices in Vancouver, Boston, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York, Hamburg and London. Nettwerk Management’s exclusive client roster includes Avril Lavigne, Barenaked Ladies, Dido, Stereophonics, Sarah McLachlan, Sum 41, Jars of Clay and Jamiroquai, among many others.

So what is a "song"? Is it a copyright? A melody and lyric?  Who owns that "song"? What rights do the owners have to control its consumption?  These questions are at the heart of today’s debate within the music business. On one side there are the record labels, publishers and a great number of artists, on the other side a large number of music consumers. I have spent a lot of time listening to the opinions of all parties and have expressed a lot of my own points of view. So as this debate evolves, what do I think today?

Well, all parties are correct. Each has a valid list of reasons and a deep passion for what they believe. So rather than keep myself in this ongoing debate, I took the summer off the public speaking circuit with the exception of doing a fun artist brainstorming session with the UK based Musictank group. I left the debate thinking that all perspectives are "right".

During this time I immersed myself in various psychological, scientific, and wellness books as part of my own personal journey. I did a lot of yoga, listened to a lot of Kirtan music, and traveled back and forth to Asia a few times. Understanding how the brain works made me more and more curios about music and the neurological science behind it. What does music do to us on an emotional level? Looking at how we bookmark our life’s journey to various emotions with music being one of the strongest sensory marks.

The more I soaked this in the more apparent to me is that a song is in fact an "emotion". When a listener relates to that "emotion", they attach their own personal emotions to that song. In a sense creating a new emotion or a co-collaboration. This neurological wiring within the brain creates a conscious sense of ownership within the listener based on the emotional level they have infused into the song.

Today such collaborations are seen on many more levels than just a few years ago. The ability to do music mash ups, video mash ups, remixes, perform the song in a virtual space with friends. The personal and social emotional connection is now even more amplified than it ever has been.

I see this emotive impact in how music is used in movies and TV shows. Some music placements have little to no effect on sales, yet others have a profound effect, even if it’s the same song used both times. If the song connects to the emotion being expressed within the visual, it amplifies its effect on the viewer, and the emotional glue now has multiple sticky points. Sarah’s McLachlan’s song “Angel” a 5-minute piano ballad became a #1 hit single at top 40 radio. This would never have happened without its placement in the pivotal part of the movie “City of angels”. Sum 41’s “With me” saw a placement in an emotive scene in Gossip Girls, which caused digital sales to explode over night and help drive the song past 175,000 sales in just a few months as the clip spread through Youtube.

Clearly, the future is not the ongoing debate on control and ownership of copyrights, with the big stick approach of suing fans. Music, along with all the other forms of rich media, is going into the clouds where it will be pulled down from servers when and how the consumer wants. The new values reside in what is behind this media; the meta data. The quality and increase in value of this meta data will have a profound effect on the future. Digital maids will be cleaning up your media locker, moving files to where they belong and propagating your custom and peer based playlists. Digital valets will be pulling down media from these cloud servers and prepping it for the consumer’s consumption. Songs will not only be just the music, but will contain data that will allow foreign lyric translations, edited versions, sheet music, instruction on how to play the song and so on. Future economic models will be based on monetizing the behavior of the consumer by adding true value.

This thought process is not a huge step from what I have been publicly talking about, but it is a key shift in my perception as to music and its psychological effect on us.

 

 

 

Steve Spiro is the VP Marketing at Myxer.com, the leading provider of mobile content. He has over 30 years of marketing experience, having worked at both global corporations and technology start-ups. He spent 15 years at Motorola in various senior management roles both in the U.S. and Japan, and also helped lead 4 Internet start-ups over the last 12 years.

 

How many of your fans have cellphones?   It’s almost a rhetorical question these days.  There are over 250 million cellphones in just the U.S. alone (over 3  billion worldwide) so there’ a real good bet that it’s close to 100%. 

ringtones create great word of mouth buzz every time a bands’ fan phone rings.   Similar to word of mouth buzz, mobile content can create viral online buzz by sharing widgets and links. Ringtones, wallpapers, mobile videos, etc. can be offered from your website, your MySpace page or sites with large communities that focus on offering mobile content to their audience. A vital part of a bands success depends on their ability to direct their fans to their physical, online, and mobile offerings.

Beyond just online and word of mouth buzz, artists can promote their mobile content on all of their flyers, promotional items, stickers, T-shirts, album covers and more. You can create customized text codes for each of your ringtones or wallpapers and promote those codes directly from stage or on any of your printed materials.  This has a great impact on the fan that is just discovering your music for the first time because they can leave the show with your music on their phone to take home with them. A great guerilla marketing campaign would be to create stickers that only feature customized texting codes for free ringtones, then place them around you local area in bars, on stop signs, and hard to reach places on college campuses; then see how many hits you get.

Traditionally the ringtone industry only dealt with the hits thus providing a market where $1.99 or $2.99 ringtones were the only way to get new ringtones to fans’ phones. As more artists begin to offer ringtones and fans find new ways to create their own ringtones we have found that the promotional value of the ringtone can outweigh the money generated from just sales alone. You may choose to give free ringtones either as part of your promotional efforts, or as means to build up your list.   You can even use the free ringtones to help drive sales of digital downloads from iTunes, Rhapsody, Amie Street, etc. or to help sell other merch.

Speaking of lists, indie bands are also creating their own mobile fanlists so they can access their advocates right on the day they are performing to get additional people to hear them play at the venue. New trends in the online and mobile music industry have all pointed to the ability to engage your audience with updates and announcements as a very valuable tool to work with other online and mobile businesses. If you have the ability to get your core fans to download your new release or buy tickets to your shows just by keeping up on your email and text messaging updates you will have the power to run successful publicity and marketing campaigns very easily.

It literally takes only a few minutes to get your MP3’s converted into ringtones and many services are free.  Plus, your fans---virtually on any phone on any carrier worldwide will have access to your content.   You don’t have to try and fight to be on a carrier’s “deck”.   Why not take advantage of this excellent marketing tool?

The future is a mobile future and it’s here now

• Legitimize your band as cutting-edge and ready for advancing mobile technology.
• Interacting with fans via the mobile phone will start to create awareness of the mobile phones’            potential to close the gap between artists and fans.
• The mobile phone will become a place where artists can handle fan education, sales, publicity, promotions, street team management, and more.

 

 

Martin Atkins has a 30 year career in the music business that includes touring with the bands Public Image Limited, Killing Joke, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails and Pigface, owning an independent record label celebrating its 20th anniversary with over 350 releases, and is an instructor at Columbia College Chicago teaching The Business of Touring, Applied Marketing, and Indie Label Management. He is also the author of the book Tour:Smart.

 

No, not shellfish philanthropy - SELFISH - what I mean is this - GIVE of yourself - open up and HELP someone other than yourself - it will PROBABLY help you way more than spending the same amount of time doing the same old stuff you have been doing and not getting the amazing results you read about on the side of the cereal box.

Lets look at a tiny example - putting up posters........you could put up another 50 of the same posters that no-one has really been taking any notice of for the show that you haven't sold many tickets for - OR, offer to help another band (maybe an out of town band you've connected with through the internet) don't try and hash out some quid pro quo deal before you do it - I LIKE the idea that I'm allowing someone the option of totally ripping me off - that's the best way you can see very quickly what they are really made of - and, when its only a few posters and a few staples (and a parking ticket and a trip to the emergency room because you stapled your hand to a telegraph pole) - then its a pretty cheap litmus test of personality - ok?

So, what might happen - well, the out of town band might also ask if you know of a place to stay - do you?, they might also ask if you know where they can get their mellotron fixed, or they might think that here is a guy that's DOING SOMETHING in a city they need help in - and what would happen if you were actually on the bill???
Maybe, after doing this for ten bands you meet the promoter(s) in town. Believe me the ones that are really doing this will NOTICE someone who is running around putting up posters - instead of talking the talk and then binning them! They will see you here and there and register this activity - so that, when they have a problem with a show that needs some extra work and all of their street teamers are off touring with their band or sick or sick of touring or whatever - you will get the call. Maybe you'll just get to know the people at Kinkos and get a discount or meet your new guitar player (been there, done that). 

I'm not saying, hang on tight cos next week you're joining the fucking BEATLES!!!!!!!! I'm just offering up some different ideas.

 I'll be in New Orleans on Monday sept 15th at Loyola - a free Tour:Smart lecture open to the public at Nunemaker Hall from 5 til 6pm - come and get a flyer that gets you in to my dj spot later that night for free! Then I'll be at the Baltimore Music Conference, New York City (Film Screening and Art Show), Philadelphia and Virginia - come and say hi!

Peace Love Respect

Martin Atkins

Since co-founding Bloodshot Records in Chicago in 1994, co-owner Rob Miller
has dirtied his hands in all aspects of keeping an independent label afloat
in a world beset by American Idol, illegal downloading and a collapsing
economy.  Before that he lived in and around Detroit where he was a middling music writer, college DJ and Production Manager catering to the demands of
everyone from GWAR to the Pet Shop Boys.

 

Since you've asked me, the owner of the lowly but scrappy Bloodshot Records what we look for in a new artist, and not David Geffen or the CEO-of-the-month at DynaMusicTechNet Global LTD, I will assume that we all understand my advice and taste and goals all come from the staunchly independent perspective. We don't have to worry about shareholders or making sure the CFO's housekeepers at the Caribbean island getaway are paid, nor do we deal with pie charts, Venn diagrams, oily A&R men and focus groups.  We don't care how many MySpace friends you have (I actually heard some VP flack at SXSW say somewhat haughtily into his cell that he doesn't even LISTEN to a band unless they have x number of friends on their MySpace page). I am a lifelong music fan who got lucky and gets to put out records I like for a living.

To start, there are a few questions you need to ask yourselves before even approaching a label.  What are your goals? Expectations?  Be brutally honest with yourselves.   Why do you even want to make a record?  Seriously.  It seems like a basic question but one that needs to be asked.  Is it for fun?  Vanity?  Cuz it'd be "neat" to have one?  Because you sell out the local watering hole and everyone gets drunk and has a grand time?  That's great, I love bands like that, but put the record out on your own and be happy to sell a few hundred.  If you have a full time job, familial responsibilities and no intention or ability to do the road work, leave us out of it; be content to play for local friends and fans, there's no shame in that.   If you look to the label deal as a magic bullet for your band, think again.  Countless bands over the years have told us in effect "once we have the deal and are selling records we'll be willing to go on the road and support," or "we are ready to finish our songs once we have an agreement." Thinking that the label deal puts you on your way is like thinking that putting some greasepaint under your nose makes you Groucho Marx.  Making a living in this racket is hard, dirty work; nothing can replace that.  You need to have the confidence, arrogance and awareness to overcome the unceasing obstacles that'll come your way.  Oh, and it's not a meritocracy, either; many a great band gets shunted aside in favor of some couch potato-friendly pablum.   The septic tank metaphor (usually only the really big chunks rise to the top) is all too apropos.  What we are looking for is a band or an artist that HAS to create, HAS to perform, that is committed to their art regardless.  We want to see an unstoppable drive.  We cannot care about your career more than you do, nor should anything like a lack of a label prevent you from your craft.

Okay, you've answered all the above questions truthfully and determined that you, yes YOU have the goods and the guts to pursue this, how do you then get the attention of a label?  The one and true and all encompassing answer to that is quite easy: be good.  We have to LIKE the music. We have to totally believe in what you are doing and get behind it 100%.  We have to be able to care enough about it to evangelize when no one is listening, to work on its behalf in the face of commercial indifference, and fight trench warfare.  Life is too short, and staying in business in the venal snake pit that is the music industry is too grinding, maddening and frustrating to go to the mat for something that you just don't like very much. 

It's as simple as that.

If that sounds too glib or too vague, let me explain lest ye get too discouraged by your inner- voice yelling "How the hell should I know what they like?"  Indie labels are, by their very nature, products of their owners' idiosyncrasies.   Since we don't have to answer to anyone but our own whims, it is in your best interest to do your research BEFORE sending music---you would hate to end up on a label that doesn't "get" you or doesn't care deeply or wouldn't know how to effectively promote you just for the sake of having a deal.   To whit, think of several bands that track well with what you do, or artists you've admired or been influenced by.  Are there any labels or outlooks on the biz or attitudes that tie them together?  If so, follow the leads.  Learn about your prospective mate.  I mean, really, you don't Internet date without seeing the picture first, right?  Without finding out some pertinent details?  If they describe themselves as a Masterpiece Theater watching animal lover and you are a snuff film watching dog-fighting impresario you wouldn't go and get married would you? All I ask is that you put at least as much care into a potential artistic partnership with a label as you do finding a date.

From this basic research, you should be able to find a manageable list of labels to intelligently approach.  I'll stack my love of Motörhead against anyone's but that's just not what we do.  If that is what you do, DON'T send us a CD anyway with the attitude of "yeah, but WE can be the exception;" it's just a waste of your resources and time.  I have filled a dumpster with such "exceptions."

Once you have whittled down your A-list of labels, what should you send?  Back to the first point, send the BEST you've got to offer.   Don't be clever with sequencing or packaging.   Thick packages with quotations of lofty praise from the Traverse City Nurses College Gazette and the door guy from Cooter's Bar who thinks you rule, or lists of bands you've "shared the stage with" (we ALL know that means "opened for") are annoying fluff and promptly get recycled.  Fancy vellum cover sheets sent by a lawyer REALLY get shuffled to the bottom of the pile.  Don't tell me who has influenced you.   Hell, Rush influenced me as much as the Cramps.  One influenced me to shave my head and start digging around for Charlie Feathers records, and the other influenced me to never like drum solos or go to arena shows---they almost turned me off Canadians altogether (but John Candy brought me back to my senses).   Truthfully, it's a crapshoot that we'll even listen to it at all.  It may sit in a box for two years, or it might only get noticed because of an obscure reference to Raising Arizona in the bio.   Just the other day I opened a package that had nothing but a CD and a hand written note on a torn scrap of paper that said "Rocks" and a myspace address.  Turns out it was just some Iowa Doom Metal, but still, I listened.  Again, the maddening and endearing vagaries of the indie world.  Don't let it get you down.

What to do in the face of this?  Continue on.  Don't wait for us.  Keep playing.  Learn something from every show.  Develop your material and hone your live show.  Come to Chicago and let us know.  Nothing gets things rolling faster than a killer live show.  Get on the bill with our other bands when they come to your town and impress the hell out of them.  Have them pass along another CD to us.  Walk that thin line between persistence and annoyance.   Nothing is more attractive to a label than a band whose music we love who comes to us with a built in fan base and a massive email list, a track record with clubs, accumulated goodwill from folks in their town or region and an organically created sense of momentum.    

With all this said, and with all the caveats and limitations endemic in a tough environment,  it always goes back to point one:  if we love it, we will ignore all the common sense in the world and all our own rules and figure out a way to make it work.   We have always regretted it when we didn't.  Heart over brains.  It's what makes independent music so great.

Good luck.

 

 

 

 

           

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 IV: Good Marketing and Bad

Things get a little tricky from here, because marketing and promotion needs context: what’s right for one person could be very wrong for another, at any price. Everyone has a different idea of “success,” so what is “success” to you? Do you want to:

• fill the local bar every third weekend with forty or fifty happy drinkers, sprinkled with a few die-hard fans?
• fill a football stadium and tour the world on a private jet?
• remain perpetually “alternative,” always outside the mainstream, attracting fans that despise Top 40?
• record and sell your church choir’s concerts only to the congregation?
• see your music up in the biggest, most powerful music store of any kind in the world (iTunes), and don’t care if anyone listens or buys?

How about sales? Is this your hobby or career? Do you want to make back the cost of your instruments or buy a mansion in every major metropolis in the world? Are you supporting a family with your music, or a drug habit, or a charity, or are you hoping for a bit of mad spending cash reserved for fun purchases only? Are you dead-set against MP3s, or compact discs? Are you vinyl only, or compose exclusively on software for DJs to download and mix? Are you against the idea of selling music at all?

TIP #3: Define Your Own Success

Before looking into any kind of marketing and promotion, ask yourself:

• Who do you want to hear your music and why?
• How do you want them to listen?
• Do you want them to buy your music, and when, and how?
• Where do money, fame and your own musical career fit in?

Notice the first question—why should you ask why? Your music is good, right, isn’t that reason enough? And why should it matter how they listen? Isn’t it understood you want them to buy your music? What does “buy your music” really mean? These questions all highlight a trap, and if you don’t ask why, right at the beginning, you’re going to fall into it and exhaust yourself pursuing the wrong marketing and promotion.

Everyone markets and promotes for a different reason. A toothpaste manufacturer is wholly interested in making money (or perhaps branding), and selling toothpaste is how they plan to accumulate it. They promote their toothpaste to encourage people to buy it, they market their toothpaste to drive desire, to build demand. Music isn’t always so commercial: in fact, most people feel contemptuous towards music produced solely to sell or brand. Many consider it crass consumerism, or devoid of art. When you bring in beauty and art and even politics (if you don’t think music can have political aims, listen harder), the goals of creation are often very much at odds with making money.

So get a good idea of what you want your music to do. You wouldn’t be reading this article if you didn’t want it to get into at least a few hands, and presumably you’re not averse to making money when they get it. So now you have to ask “who, when and how,” and each of these has a value. Here are a few scenarios:

I want my music in EVERYONE’S HANDS, IMMEDIATELY, and in EVERY POSSIBLE FORMAT. I’m sure you do, since that means the most people will have the greatest opportunity to become familiar with your music, come to love it and buy it, in whatever format is easiest for them. Making things easy on the consumer means making it rough on the distributor. Are you really unwilling to disappoint the guy who insists on buying your album on 8-track? It’s going to cost you a fortune to make 8-track tapes, and fulfillment is going to be a nightmare (be prepared to ship them one by one). You can have all these, but you’re going to spend millions and millions of your own dollars on TV, radio, print ads, billboards, promotional giveaways, a full blitz. You’ll have to sell more than the Beatles and Elvis combined to make all that money back. No label is going to take that kind of risk on you, and unless your measure of “success” is to get your music to everyone and hope it’s liked, this isn’t a good strategy.

I want my music in AS MANY HANDS AS POSSIBLE as SOON AS POSSIBLE in THE MOST POPULAR FORMATS. Better—now you don’t have to make vinyl or reel-to-reel tapes, you are willing to let it grow a bit (what does “as soon as possible” mean?) and you’re willing to give up on some potential customers. This would still bankrupt any but the biggest labels, and unless your music is so beloved it outsells Cher and Pavarotti, this is another overoptimistic goal.

I want my music to reach AS MANY TEENAGED BOYS IN AMERICA as possible BEFORE THE SUMMER SEASON ENDS as UNENCRYPTED AUDIO FILES. Finally, you’ve reached something that’s actually reasonable, but it’s still wildly expensive. That demographic (teen boys) is heavily exploited, especially in summer. That’s also the group that tends to patronize music pirating software, so you’re running a higher risk by insisting on DRM-free audio formats. Labels target teen boys all the time, as do movies and the snack food industry and just about everyone. It’s possible for you to wade in, but again, heavy on the wallet.

I want my music to reach EVERY CIVIL WAR RE-ENACTOR in RICHMOND, VIRGINIA in time for CHRISTMAS on COMPACT DISKS and MP3s.Christmas is a long way away (I’m writing in August), and there are plenty of services who can help you in time for Christmas, as it’s a common demand. Richmond, Virginia, is a big city, but a little hard work with fliers by you and your friends could probably reach the few physical places where re-enactors gather, and they perhaps have a Website whose administrator you can reach out to. Just about everyone can play a CD these days in America, even if they don’t have a computer, so very few will be disappointed. In fact, you probably already know much of this crowd already, because why else would you be writing music that would appeal to such a narrow group?

Hidden in these scenarios are the keys to understanding not only the right kind of marketing and promotion, but also how to value it, put a hard dollar amount on it, and ultimately deciding where to put your marketing resources.

In Part V, Finding the marketing and promotional sweet spot!

Martin Atkins has a 30 year career in the music business that includes touring with the bands Public Image Limited, Killing Joke, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails and Pigface, owning an independent record label celebrating its 20th anniversary with over 350 releases, and is an instructor at Columbia College Chicago teaching The Business of Touring, Applied Marketing, and Indie Label Management. He is also the author of the book Tour:Smart.

Before we delve into the wonderful world of touring logistics, strategies, great ideas that can help, bad ideas that won’t, and a few stories along the way; perhaps we should ponder if, with all of the technological advancements every day AND (for f’s sake) the price of gas!, If it’s even necessary to tour anymore?

Yes it is, you know it is, stop smoke-screening you lazy bastard and get with it!!

You don’t need to look far for an example of how important it is to get out there. Do you think for one second that, if it wasn’t essential, that politicians ever leave home? Most of those guys can’t even bring themselves to think about other people, let alone touch them—(unless it’s on the ass). So the only reason they are out there is: 1. More ass, or 2. Their advisors told them that they had to, showed them the evidence, and pushed them out the door. Think about this the next time you see one of them getting on the ‘truth bus’ or whatever crap they are selling this week.

Every single element affecting your career and your ability to continue is helped by touring:

• Anyone anywhere is more likely to check out your MySpace page if they see you are coming to town.

• Any promoter in any other city is more likely to give you a gig if they see you are performing in other parts of the country.

• People on the web write about things that happened at shows they went to, not shows that didn’t happen, that they couldn’t go to…

• Your manager, if you have one, will prioritize you over another (maybe better?) band because you are working harder (unless the other band is Radiohead).

• You can be the eyes and ears for your label, if you have one... or for other bands too lazy or frightened to leave their home base. You can tell them where responses, crowds, sound-systems are good or where ‘promoters’ are baaaaaad.

• Your agent, if you have one, will pay more attention if you show him you are prepared to perform seven shows a week. That means if he can get you to a point where you are earning $1,000 a night, then he could earn $1,000 a week.in commissions. (good job agents don’t care about money huh!)

• The record store (if you can find one) is more likely to stock your music and put up a poster.

• Everyone from the local blogger to the local paper is more likely to review your CD or mention your show.

• You can leave behind promotional beacons… t-shirts etc, put up stickers in bathrooms, graffiti in the dressing room and generally ‘leave your mark’

• Your album (or collection of songs) will be better because you’ll have direct and immediate feedback from a real, live audience; either smiling and jumping up and down because the songs you thought were great really are, or throwing things because you are delusional and your songs are shit. Either way, this is way more valuable than a bunch of people on your MySpace page plugging their own albums.

• It is a great opportunity to triumph over your shyness (eventually without the aid of alcohol) and polish your people meeting skills.

• This is stuff YOU can do – (while you are waiting for all of the people who said they were going to do something to come through for you.)

• You are creating more of your own content, audio, video and mythical…. you can’t release a Live in Paris (Texas) album if you don’t go and play there!

And, very importantly:

• The more you play, the better you get!

• You can meet GREAT, enthusiastic people who can help you next time around

• You can discover wonderful things in other town’s thrift stores

In addition to all of this – many other things will just become blindingly obvious to you as you begin this journey. You will realize when the guitarist pukes on you for the fourth time that maybe his drinking is becoming a problem – you can reflect further on this as you pull out pieces of sweetcorn and carrots from the pockets of your jeans at the laundromat.

What does all of this mean? How will it really help you? Well, all of these bits of information are little bricks in your wall (I use that analogy a LOT) but, here’s an example of what you’ll be getting from this column to leave you with:

A simple decision for a band in the mid-west – between heading out to the west coast or staying closer to home but still hitting major markets – the difference in gas costs alone - $1200. That’s the tour support that the label that wouldn’t sign you, wouldn’t give you!

Ok, now, do I have your attention???

GREAT – if you want to start reading up on this, taking control of as much of your career as you can – then there is a great deal on my e book here or you can go to Amazon and get it here.

Coupon Code: KNOW
Gets 25% Off anything from the Invisible Web Store… including the Tour:Smart book, or the eBook, or even for a discount off admission to the Tour:Smart seminar at the Invisible Records offices on September 6th.
Expires September 15, 2008

P L R

Martin Atkins

 

There has been tremendous excitement over the past few years about the new technologies and services that help artists directly connect with their fans.  I’m personally a huge advocate of this trend and the opportunity it presents for both artists and music fans.

However, I’ve recently noticed just how many artist websites are still lacking the primary thing music fans are interested in today; downloadable music in MP3 format. Some in the music business blame the rise of the MP3 on the demise of the music industry and reject its use. It’s clear today’s music fans have wholeheartedly embraced the format. Ignoring what your consumer clearly wants in a competitive marketplace is extremely perilous. It’s the consumer’s preferences and desires that drive any market.

In a very unscientific test, I selected 10 of my favorite albums that have been released in the last year or so. I then checked the websites of those 10 bands* to see if they had a MP3 download store. Surprisingly only three (Big Head Todd, Kings of Leon and Matthew Ryan) had any MP3’s available for download at all. A quick check of the websites from several popular independent artists in my area found none of them had MP3 downloads available. Unfortunately several of the local artists didn’t even have their own website. 

Competition for the attention of music fans has never been fiercer. Artists now have to spend more time, energy and money than ever before just to get noticed. Spending countless hours emailing and texting fans, building social networks, writing witty / insightful blogs, or creating contests is largely a wasted effort if fans can’t find what they want when they finally do arrive at the artist’s website. Music fans want downloadable music, in MP3 format. If fans don’t quickly find what they are looking for they will simply abandon the artist’s website. Highly motivated fans might check iTunes or LimeWire as an alternative but there is much less value for the artist in the indirect relationship.  

Having the ability to offer MP3 downloads directly from the artist’s website is a great tool for building a direct, long-term relationship with fans. Regularly providing unreleased tracks, alternative versions of songs, live recordings or acoustic tracks will keep fans engaged and coming back for more. Once the artist / fan relationship has been established (with music) blogs, videos and emails can then help deepen the interest level of the fan.

The question of if, when or how much to charge for downloads is a complicated one and there is certainly no “one size fits all” pricing strategy. Personally, I’m always happy to pay for music from artists with which I already have a strong fan relationship and for music from a new artist that has really gotten my attention.

There are numerous, very good, inexpensive solutions that allow artists to easily add a MP3 download store to their existing website including Musicane , Hooka and Easybe. Nimbit provides the ability to sell MP3’s directly from the artist’s website plus tickets, merchandise, CD’s and DVD’s, all integrated into the same storefront. There is also an option to private label the Nimbit storefront for an additional fee.

Every artist should have their own website. For those artists who haven’t yet taken this important step towards building and protecting their brand BandZoogle offers a full feature hosted website solution that includes an MP3 download store. Their most expensive plan is only $19.95 per month.

With all the music marketing information, strategies and tools being pushed at artists today it can be easy to overlook the one thing music fans are most interested in, the music. It’s critical for music fans to easily find what they are really wanting when the visit an artist’s website, downloadable MP3’s. Hopefully as more artists embrace MP3 downloads it will help them to create strong direct to fan relationships and the opportunity to build a long-term, sustainable career.

 

*American Princes , Austin Collins , Bell X1 , Big Head Todd & the Monsters , Black Rebel Motorcycle Club , Drive-By Truckers , Kings of Leon , Matthew Ryan , Silversun Pickups , Tegan & Sara .