Making Money In The Music Biz

[musicnomad]

Bands/Artists have more ways to make money then ever before but have to WANT to work their ass off to make it happen. Fans are not going to line up without you bringing them to the door but there are more ways to make that happen now. I mention some cool companies I have come across that may help you, some are obvious.

1. Get you music on all digital retailers like itunes, amazon, etc. Use a digital distributor like CD baby

2. Get web presence thru your own website on MySpace, Facebook and your own basic site. When you update it use an automated software such as FanBridge and ReverbNation so when it updates all your sites. Make sure your sites have the same branding messaging (look and feel). Then you have to use social networks to get new fans such as twitter, Bebo, imeem and MOG.

3. Sell your ringtones, MySpace let's you do that or use a company like Myxer

4. More companies are looking to license music from indie bands then ever before as they don't want to pay the big bucks for mega bands and they also want to stay hip and relevant. Services such as Taxi.com and MusicGorilla offer ways for your music to get in front of music supervisors for TV/Commercial/Movies.

5. Touring, Touring, Touring - This is still a growth business. Make sure you sell your merchandise at shows and offer bundle deals like Shirts and CD's for a discount. Make sure you get word of your show to online promotion houses like Eventful which is a free service. Build your fan email list and where they are located and tour where they are, make sure you email them when coming to town and offer them a reason beyond your music to come to the show, like a $5 off your merch table. Always when you send your fans an email, put something in it for them, such as discount on your new CD, etc.

6. Sell your live shows - there are some pretty cool new technologies out there that allow you to record your live show and then post it for sale. Simple thinks like Mikey from Blue Microphone for $79 or Aderra or All AccessToday who have USB wristbands you can sell to your fans after the show. There is investment up front for doing this so may not work for everybody.

7. You can enter musician contests and some do have some nice payoffs, plus you get some fans along the way. A couple that are legit are Our Stage and FameCast.

8. Use influential Music Bloggers to find new fans and promote your shows. There are hundreds of them, so google where you live and music bloggers to see who you should approach. There is a good article here on how to approach them http://www.musicnomad.com/Advice?adviceid=21

9. Need to use online radio to find new fans who can buy your music. Pandora, Last FM and Jango all have ways to get your music on their station, some are free, some are nominal charges like $30 for 1000 plays.

These are just a few suggestions did not hit every one. More power is there for indie musicians to make money. Hope it helps.

http://www.musicnomad.com

[roxhythe]

Good stuff. Thanks.

joe

[john]

Nice rant, John. It is too bad virtually no file-sharer is likely to read it.

I would dispute the claim that you need production to put on a show for any kind of crowd. I don't. I can put on a show of three hours of my stuff easy--solo--and have the audience thoroughly entertained all the way through. It does sound better with a band--and the last 2 shows I did were with a band, and the next 2 shows will be, too. But I'd let the Big Boys--the ones on the verge of going bankrupt--do the fancy shows with huge production. I can get by with a small, competent band and nothing fancy. People will pay to hear good writing.

And there, I think, is an opportunity the Big Boys can't take advantage of. (They may not even be aware it exists.) We have a Depression on, and one of the hallmarks of the last Depression was a public craving for cheap entertainment. And there had to be a lot of it. I see folks not going any more to the $50-to-$200-a-head concerts in the Big City--but they will (and did) pack a $5-a-head concert by local musicians at the local Arts Center. I intend to ride that trend as far as I can.

Joe

had to get it off my chest

[roxhythe]

Thanks for bringing that up, John. I'd forgotten I said that. I think I still agree with me, though.

joe

[john]

it's no the ability to put on a show, but the scale of show and perhaps the quality that will be hit most. for the fan prices will generally go up as revenue from recordings goes down, or quality really will nose dive. Pink Floyd reduced to using a torch for a light show in order to make their tickets affordable . Not a huge effect on amateurs or even semi-pros except where it effects their aspirations. Lets face it for many aspiring bands the success of their recording hopefully brought in money... now it just brings other opportunities (instead of as well)... still useful but it hardly pays the bills.

If, as you say, cheap entertainment rules the waves, then bands are about to have one of the two pillars currently propping them up ripped away (gigs and merchandise) and as I say, just wait till the merchandise pirates get on the job....

[AlexDuncan1974]

Excellent discussion so far, nice to get into something meaty. So many thoughts I would like to share but basically I think that yes, the music industry as we know it could be doomed. And not just for the reasons explained above. Also because of the way some people are listening to music.

5 years ago or so I bought an iPod. In a small way it changed my musical life. Prior to then, I was stagnant, and thanks to that little black slab of sexiness I was back in the flow. Music was pouring into my ears again. It turned me back onto music. It became so easy to get new or old music as downloadable mp3’s via file sharing (not purchased) and via iTunes.

Then a mate lent me a hard drive with 80 giga of mp3’s on it. This was 4 years ago and I am still working my way through it. I have discovered several new artists (LCD Sound System, Hot Chip, Zero 7 etc.) that I would not have come across otherwise due to lack of time and motivation. To support these artists, I have made a point of paying for some of their stuff via iTunes, mainly out of a sense of duty and guilt.

I was getting into Spotify and liking the ability it gives to discover new artists that are similar to stuff you like or know about already. This sort of feature of the computerisation of music distribution is interesting. I really liked what was said above about the whole ritual and value associated with going into town to buy 1 album, and all that that involved. The whole thing really was a special occasion. I used to buy 1-2 albums a month (1990’s). Post-iPod days I can go for long stretches where I buy nothing, desperately seeking a true new love affair with a new artist that I genuinely like. When I do come across something, I tend to get a selection of their music (for free) then eventually, if I want to listen to them regularly, will buy something from them off iTunes.

Spotify is the way it will go I think, once mobile networks and WIFI networks are everywhere. Currently, I cannot have mobile streamed music since I live in the arse of beyond in rural France. But if I lived in a city with WIFI everywhere, I would pay 10$ a month or so for Spotify. And it seems clear to me that no one other than big cheese will make shit via streaming royalties.

So where does that leave us?

I agree with you other folks who say that money is to be made with the ‘experience’, the service you provide, not the product. The potential to perform for a live for a human ordinance must be roughly a function of the number of people on the planet versus the number of capable live acts on the go. I guess this is a reasonable stable equation, and that providing humans wish to continue to shake there booty to some good grooves, will probably be the safest bet in the long term. After all, before all of this music industry thing was about, what did musicians and composers do?

But back to my first point, that I am concerned about how we are listening to music. Now that we are at least 5 years into the iPod/mp3 generation, have you noticed how ‘young people’ actually listen to music? Skipping to a new track before the old one is out? How many teenagers will listen to a whole album by their favourite artist? My kids go onto YouTube and will pluck their favourite tracks to dance too. I even know someone who watched ‘The Wire’ (HBO cop series) on VLC player on double speed!!! What the f**k!!!

So to sum up, and excuse the monologue… play for the music and f**k the rest. If it takes you somewhere, so be it. Professional means you make a living from it, it does not mean you are a good musician. Strive to be the best, or better. Share it if you like to.

But despite having written this post, I still feel a sense of hopelessness and senselessness to my whole musically, even my whole life… and then, one second later, I feel totally at ease with it all. The making of the music, the shiver down my spine when it comes together, or when performing live… that is a buzz, but I don’t just live for that. Buddha Dharma and that Jazz.

Now, I’ll leave some place for others…

Alex.

[Gijs]

What we need is a collective. There are so many decent song-writer, composers = musicwriters out there that are trying to be independent and try to make it on their own. The trully great will succeed, I'm sure. And so will a couple of lucky ones. But for the rest of us it's an endless battle trying to earn some money with our mediocre products. I'm not bashing 'the rest of us', I'm just saying the average music-writer is mediocre, since that's what average means.

I think we should focus on the possibilties of our internet-generation, instead of the negative points. In the past the average music-writer was doomed. No record-deal = no money. Today even mediocre music can bring in a lot of money, but not on their own. We need a collective. A place where new music is concentrated, without the promise of quality. There are a lot of people interested in new music, but who has the time and possibilities to search thru the enormous amounths and diversity of it. Let's not forget the countles platforms it is presented on. We need a couple of platforms that present this new music to the audience. A few places people will know to turn to if the want to find new music.

The question is how do you organize such a place?

Edited January 15, 2012 by Gijs

[john]

Gijs, I sort of agree with you. Yes a collective of sorts, but not in the way that you suggest. Yes positive steps, not dwelling in the past.

Since I orginally made my post internet music has evolved and developed. Being a good, mediocre or bad songwriter or performer is also a fluid thing. Things change.

My notion of a collective would be along the direction that Songstuff is going (of course! ). A site that enables by knowledge and more. The reason? One collective 'site' in the way you suggest limits exposure of your music to one site (or group of sites) and one type of patient fan. Far better to keep the exposure end open and instead enable better distribution and promotion, a sound understanding of legal issues, a collection of other writers and performers who can collectively exchange skills.... AND effort. For example, promotional teams working to collectively promote each other's songs. Fully armed with techniques and contacts of course.

[pskains]

John, I agree with you in regards to musicians working as a collective to solve this problem, and we stand in a better place to do it now more than ever with the internet undermining the big dogs. Most musicians work against each other which makes no sense.

I used to get frustrated with the lack of support towards local musicians. Radio stations don't even help promote their own, but that all goes back to payola and all that (and don't think for a second that isn't still happening).

As for internet sales, any one of us can open an tunes or cdbaby or whatever store and make albums right now. The hard part is driving business to it. I've had difficulty in getting people to even take the time to listen to a track at all because, well, people just do not support independent artists. I do not care about getting sloppy filthy stinking rich. I would just like to bring in a little money to enable me to buy a little freedom from a" job" to make more (and better) music. As it is, I struggle for time to create between working, wife, kids, etc... and my wife doesn't try to help me make the time because she doesn't take it seriously simply because I don't do it for money. If I could make a little, then id have the" right" to do it. I sometimes give lessons, but I do that for free as well.

I think there needs to be a collective of independent and online musicians to create an awareness campaign for the public to support their local and independent artists. Music isn't on the radio because its popular, its popular because its on the radio. People have the illusion that they make choices about what music they like, but most people are conditioned to swallow up anything the radio says is good.

I don't want riches, I just want to buy my freedom.

/rant

[Gijs]

Gijs, I sort of agree with you. Yes a collective of sorts, but not in the way that you suggest. Yes positive steps, not dwelling in the past. Since I orginally made my post internet music has evolved and developed. Being a good, mediocre or bad songwriter or performer is also a fluid thing. Things change. My notion of a collective would be along the direction that Songstuff is going (of course! ). A site that enables by knowledge and more. The reason? One collective 'site' in the way you suggest limits exposure of your music to one site (or group of sites) and one type of patient fan. Far better to keep the exposure end open and instead enable better distribution and promotion, a sound understanding of legal issues, a collection of other writers and performers who can collectively exchange skills.... AND effort. For example, promotional teams working to collectively promote each other's songs. Fully armed with techniques and contacts of course.

I understand what you're saying about one site limiting the exposure. The issue is often that these type of sites attact people who want to sell, not buy. The question therefor is: How do you organize the marekting around the site in order for it to attract people who are interested in buying and not just selling. Or can you think of other ways to ensure an income (advertisments?).

I came across an initiative in which all types of people worked together under one psynonym. The made all sorts of products and marketed it as iff it was all done by one person. That might work for this site... (Just trowing something out there..)

Edited January 15, 2012 by Gijs

[pskains]

My wife continually joins these" pyramid" schemes regardless of my warnings, but maybe we can get this one tiny thing from it. Suppose an organization was formed based loosely on multilevel marketing, in which the members are musicians. Say, each month, a different artist or album would be the product, and everyone in said organization is to try their best to bring it exposure or sell it. The next month, a different artist or album would be featured. Maybe it's a flawed idea, I don't know, but I guess I was just thinking instead of joe blow pushing his album by himself all the time, perhaps a hundred people in various places push it for a straight month.

[Prometheus]

Ultimately my strategy is to die and become posthumously successful.

That's exactly my plan too...

[realfanback]

Great advice John you are doing a good job. Please keep us informed.

[Tyjon Hunter]

Great topic, I agree that making money in the traditonal since of the music business is all but impossible. However luckily since the internet has been around it is much easier for people to carve out a niche or a sub niche and make good money. Although as an independent you may not make millions of dollars you can certainly do very well for yourself. Best of all you can keep creative control of your music. The record label are not stupid since they no longer make the kind of money they use to with physical album sales they do their best to lock you up in contracts if you don't produce for them right away. So the best thing to do is not get caught up in the hype of thinking you are going to be the next lady Gaga unless you are ready to open yourself up to getting your creative control taken from you and potentially setting on the shelf never to be released.

There are tons of way as an independent you can make money, but ultimately you want to build an asset of list of people who support you projects and keep that list growing by engaing those people over and over again. When you can do this you can not only promote your own music but you can promote other peoples projects an make money in a partnership deal. It is all about being creative. If you build a list of local followers you can promote local clubs and make money that way. It really just depends on who your list is and how you want to promote yourself.

Tyjon Hunter

[independentmusicpromotions]

Artists with very well-produced albums should research licensing libraries (just by Googling) and choose a few to send your music to. Read artist reviews on them and make sure generally good things are being said. Often artists wonder how to "make money" and get unnecessarily overwhelmed, when all it takes is often $20-30 of postage and following a few instructions to send your music for approval with some of these companies. It's a solid starting point.