john

Absolutely. Well said. The 1000 dollars spent, from the diagram, is not the bands' share, but the breakdown thereafter is on the recording side completely ignoring that rather large share of the profits. Songwriters and publishers do get a share of the original 1000 based on license fees. The other bit the diagram misinforms about is that balance point whereby the label outlays all the cash, and the band has to pay that back before they actually make a penny more than their advance. Meanwhile if the band record sales don't pass that point the loss is the labels'. True contracts usually contain a section about what they can recoup and claw back from artists in the event that sales are that poor, however bands don't usually end up directly paying that back... Though if the band signs a new contract with another label you can bet it comes into negotiations. So the risk is really the labels. That is also why they get some of what they get. They have stumped up the money to pay for the party, including what the band lives on. If the record sales are poor, they lose the money. That said, because they tend to arrange many of the contributing services from graphics to videos to recordings and they do so through arrangements with external service providers or in-house people, they do stand to make large profits as it is more or less a closed market. So the label is the investor. They are also the main services provider. The band is the business. The liability belongs to the band. Sorry I haven't explained that very well, I am still shattered after all that server fixing lol

Welcome to Songstuff

What I did was... Sing everywhere I went. If I took the notion out shopping, or in work I sang. Sometime easy sing talkng volume, other times full concert belt it out volume. I just decided that I needed to get over myself and if people didn't want me to sing they would say. Sometimes I would get strange looks but mostly I hot a good reaction. It's all about confidence, and much of that is getting used to people looking at you. So my solution was a baptism of fire. Get used to as many people as possible looking at you singing, and you will get over it pretty quickly. Avoid too long a period between you being seen singing. By that I mean even 20mins is quite long. Additionally, take every opportunity you can to perform your songs, in front of family, friends, the band. Don't be timid, make your mistakes loud and proud. The more you do it, the more confident you will get, the more relaxed you will get and that will allow you to focus more and more on performance. As a frontman get used to singing with your eyes open. Pick a few specific people to sing to, and sing to them! It makes for a more convincing performance. Practice over and over and over. Get so familiar wit the songs you can do them in a hurricane without losing focus.

oh and session musicians, recording engineer and studio hire and a ton of other costs.

Also not included are manufacturing costs, promotion costs, graphics, fixed costs, admin costs, video creation costs, photography and publicity... all of which gets a slice of that $1000. Also not clear is how much of the label "share" is actually the band paying back their royalty advance or the costs laid out by the label that the band are liable for

They haven't included the songwriter in the same way they haven't included a publisher, because it deals entirely with the label / band branch of income from a recording but you are right in that it doesn't show licensing fees (which includes both songwriter's share and publisher's share) or how that relates to the assertion about for every thousand dollars spent....the musician gets $23 is rubbish based on that alone! LOL