john

This model has been used by Adobe for the last couple of years. You more or less pay for what you want, for as long as you need it, which is pretty useful... but in the end it can cost you more. I like the model it must be said

Oh and on "specials", they are created for a variety of reasons: to test a market to appeal to a fringe market and draw them in to introduce a rarity or scarcity value to aid marketing and promotion, ie time or number or geographic limited releases for business reasons that require limitation (such as a contract to cross promote, or to work with artists/writers who ahve their own restrictions as a creative experiment (read marketing scenario in exec speak) for a marketing and promotion reason such as "cause marketing", ie releases aligned to a charity or cause there are others, but that just gives you an idea of the variation in justification.

It is true that they are sometimes conceived and released before an album, but I have conducted a lot of research on the matter, analysing the release patterns of almost 700 artists, ranging from emerging artists, to the largest on the planet, as part of the research for a special ebook on how to conduct a release for Songstuff members. It was quite revealing. What as really interesting was spotting things like the number of singles and EPs released, and other content like video singles and video albums, and promo content, release announcements, pre-release to radio, and the time of year for the release of certain kinds of albums/EPs/singles etc. Not all info was always available, but there was plenty of evidence to establish trends. While an album might not have been recorded, or even written, singles are not chosen in isolation. For example, when a single is chosen to be recorded, record company excutives are aware of the band's existing catalog of songs. They are also aware of the timing, and they will have at least a draft plan in mind for releases. This is especially true for new artists. At the point of signing, the record company excutive will have seen them play on several occasions or at least have heard the majority of their material. They will be aware of the artist's main fan base and their overall demographic appeal giving them an idea of the TAM (Total Available Market). So, before the first single is chosen they have a lot of the information they need to choose initial singles or EP. This includes limited releases to test market response and appeal. In terms of writing new material, for new bands this tends to happen more if either they just keep writing and new songs "appear", or if the record exec isn't entirely happy with their catalog, in which case they may ask for specific types of songs. Depending on the label, the artist and the deal, the artist will do this with varying degrees of artistic freedom. At any point catalog awareness is important. If new material appears, it is slotted in accordingly, either within the current album, or EP, or the next planned album or EP, depending on the length or type of deal. ie a 1 album deal or 2 album deal etc, will have an effect. How artists that are not signed handle this, in my experience, tends to be ad hoc. The more organised do tend to do much of what the record exec does, just informally, more from sticking their finger in the air to see what way the wind is blowing rather than by measurement and statistics. I say record company exec, but in truth it might involve people fulfiling different roles, from artist development to A&R. Just a quickie on mty research findings... the patterns of release, release timings etc are amazingly similar... for good reasons. Just as artistically, an artist can emulate those they respect and are inspired by, in part because of the success of their writing, production and performance, you can learn from their business approach and their marketing and promotion choices. Learn from those who are successful and emulate what they do. I have been tied up for a while, but I have made changes that have freed me up, and given me back a lot of time. The release info should be available for members very soon.