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Promoting Musical Artists in the Post-RIAA Music World?
Mattcelt asks: "While we're all discussing the eventual demise of the RIAA and the triumph of the MP3, what should a small independent music publishing company do to sell a new artist to the public? My publishing company recently ran a $4,000 advertising campaign on a local radio station (107.9 the Link in Charlotte, NC). Despite reaching an average audience of more than 10,000 during peak times, we netted *0* sales. That's right, absolutely nothing. I've made the entire album available in MP3 format on the Ephelian Records website to facilitate adoption, and I know some people have downloaded the songs, but I can't figure out why no one has pre-ordered the CD. How does an indie artist make a living when gig prices for unknown artists will barely cover the gas money and CDs won't sell? Are we really wrong about the availability of MP3s affecting music sales?"
I've made the entire album available in MP3 format on the Ephelian Records website to facilitate adoption, and I know some people have downloaded the songs, but I can't figure out why no one has pre-ordered the CD.
Er, dude...
Sorry to be so harsh, but as someone who has sent good money to indie artists just because I liked the MP3s I downloaded for free, if the talent is there, the dollars will follow (well, some at least).
You could've hired me.
Not sure, but how many people preorder anything except what they know is going to be hard to get when it first comes out, like software, consols & games, and certain books.
Unless the band is extreamly hot and popular in the region, why would anyone bother to preorder, when they can just pick it up whenever it comes out, if they want the CD?
Well, I don't know the answer for other bands, but it seems like getting linked on Slashdot is a good approach.
Solution to blink tags: wrap them in another blink tag, with a javascript delay loop, so they cancel each other out
How does an indie artist make a living when gig prices for unknown artists will barely cover the gas money and CDs won't sell?
Get a job.
You put up MP3s of your CD on the web, of an indie band, and then expect people to buy your CD?
Not to sound like a troll, but I fail to see your logic. The point of having a few mp3s is to give them a sample of what the rest sounds like. (Or in the RIAA's case, the few good songs on a CD). Also, my experience with indie bands is, well, that they suck. My cousin was part of one, and it wasn't what I would consider remotely stellar.
I buy CDs for music that I downloaded the MP3s of and found good, but that music has all been Good music.
I've made the entire album available in MP3 format on the Ephelian Records website to facilitate adoption, and I know some people have downloaded the songs, but I can't figure out why no one has pre-ordered the CD.
.nfo describe the release, a .sfv that verifies the checksums, and all packaged in a nice RAR file. Now put it on Kazaa, and share it on "release" priority on eMule on the eDonkey network.
I suggest you encode it in pristine ogg VBR @ 320kbps. Also, include scans of the album cover and back, a nice
Oh, did you ask how to make money off it? Err, nevermind...
Well, one way to make sales would be to post on slashdot mentioning that you might be wavering on your belief that MP3 sharing may not be all it's cracked up to be... Ahh, I see, you're way ahead of me!
"Post-RIAA world"? Quickly, quarentine Cliff - he has Jon Katz disease!
(Actually, this being Memorial Day, I must admit I actually miss JK sometimes..)
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I would ask this: Is your album available in stores, or only via on-line ordering? If it is only available on-line, how easy to remember is the URL?
Consider where people listen to the radio - I would say mostly in their cars. Now, here I am, driving along, and on comes your ad. First of all, my ad filter wetware comes online - I hit the button to skip to a new station, or I blank out what is going on.
OK, so let's say your ad plays a snippet of the music in question, and I listen to it and say "Huh, that's kinda cool. Who is this?" Then your ad says "That was a sample of Scab - Now the Puss Flows Freely, available for download and purchase at www.fbq39x34.com/~tqxir/49912/pxj36.asp". Now, even if you said that slowly enough I could copy it, I'm not going to whip out a pen and paper and copy that while weaving through downtown traffic.
That's part of why the RIAA is still pertainent in this world. If all I can remember is the group name (and maybe not even that all that well) and if the group is in Worst Buy, I can find it. But if I have to find them online, and if all I have is some common words that don't lend themselves to Googling....
Last but not least: how does your website handle orders? Do you hid things behind layers of Flash and Javascript? Do you work only with Exploiter? Do you not accept credit cards?
Ask yourself this: if I wanted to buy that album, how many impediments are in my way?
www.eFax.com are spammers
...and take some of those gigs that barely cover gas and food, just to get your music out there for people to listen to. Most of the indie "success stories" (Big Head Todd & the Monsters, Ani DiFranco, etc.) based their reputations on their live performances, with album sales being just another means of helping to support that primary occupation.
You can't just throw your music at people who've never heard or seen the band before, and expect them to gladly fork over $10-20 on the chance that it could be good. Until you have some "known" artists, (i.e., they can attract a crowd on the basis of their name and rep for their shows) the label itself isn't going to be a good promotional vehicle. Once one or two of your artists have started to attract some attention, though, the label's name can be an attractor for new talent, and for listeners looking for more of that kind of music.
It can be done -- my father has been making a living as an independent musician for a number of years, and after establishing a sizeable local following for his live shows, has managed to self-publish and sell out several 1000-unit batches of his recent CDs. However, it took at least 3-4 years of low-paid live shows, interviews and solo accoustic sets on local radio stations, etc., before he was able to do so.
The music sucks? Just a shot in the dark, there. I just checked out one mp3 posted on your site and it was pretty bad - much worse than the kind of dreck that usually makes it to the Top 40 playlists, in fact. But, there IS a market for just about anything, so let's think about some other possibilities.
What was the nature of your 'advertisement' on the radio? Was it a sample of some songs? Or was it just "we have good music - come here to buy it"?
Did you advertise the right kind of music to the right radio audience?
Are your prices out of line?
Are your CDs available in stores? Many people don't buy stuff online, and if it can't be found in a 'real store', they're not gonna buy it.
Do you even know what your target audience is LIKE?
Just some thoughts.
Big record companies spend millions on advertising and promotion, all done by experienced professionals. And they still sometimes lay an egg. Spending a few thousand dollars is no guarantee of anything.
If you want to make a place for your music, there's no substitute for the simple hard work of developing your art, finding your audience, and gradually making a place for yourself. This doesn't always work out, and it takes time and effort in any case. But there's no magic shortcuts.
At the same time, you've got overworked, long intros (leave that for the live album 20 years down the road), several insturmentals (which almost never do well - how many of James Taylors insturmentals can you recall?), and a singer that sounds like he's been training in high school chorus for the solo for the spring musical. Yes, I can say that, as I've had albums that flopped, and I sound nasal and grating.
Plus, having listened to the first half of all the songs, none of them really caught my attention and stood out. Sorry - it's *hard* to push albums. Live gigs? Sure - even I can fill a local venue. Selling albums across the country? You're competing with thousands of other bands, mostly comprised of veteran performers who are band-mate swapping every year or so, hoping to mesh with somebody for that next great hit. Plus loads of semi-successful or career artists like Throwing Muses and Men Without Hats, both of whom just released new albums and are trying to push their own stuff in the exact same way you are - with pre-built in name recognition.
To sum it up - making music is easy. Making good music is hard. Selling your music is the hardest thing of all and involves some amount of luck. There are bands that gave up, only to have their album suddenly take off two years after they gave all the copies away at live performances.
Incidently, I *assume* you're performing, pushing your stuff with at least two gigs a week. If you're not, you're not doing the work. Regardless if you make it this time around, constant gigging vastly improves your ability to perform, and if that's what you want to do in life, you have to work at it.
Incidently, while I ripped apart the *album*, you've got some decent songs. I'd sit and have dinner with you performing somewhere. And that's where 98% of all artists will spend almost all their careers. That's the music biz.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
People can and do travel this way. Good musicians don't starve. If you can't make a living by busking you're not good enough to be a professional musician. Be honest with yourself, could you survive like I've described above. I know several people who have done it, not all of them play music as a profession, but all of them could if they chose to. If you can't survive like that then don't give up the day job.
You say that gigging barely covers the costs, but every story I've heard about a succesful band almost always contains a variation on the following quote:
"...they built up a a dedicated following through a hard schedule of concerts..."
Unless you're groomed beforehand by the big labels, that seems to be the way to raise your profile and make some sales: hard work.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Firstly, take any advice from me with a grain of salt, I'm not a successful indie artist... I'm just an indie artist. Firstly, you've done something good. You're on slashdot. You have managed to get free marketing in a venue where people "get" the idea of sampling a product before purchasing it, and many see the value in paying for a product they already have for free. This is a good thing.
However, for a pre-order scenario to work you really need to add value to pre-ordering it. You can do this by giving it away before selling, but the only ones who will bite are the ones who only want to listen to your music on a manufactured CD delivered at some point in the future, or wish to contribute based solely on the music they already have for free. So far, from your account of the situation, this number is zero. Now, if you relase a few of the tracks and make it so the rest aren't made available until a certain number of pre-sales are placed, then you're getting somewhere. Put some documentation on the web as far as how close you are to your goals. If you make it less expensive to purchase the CD on a pre-order, that helps too. I have 2 CD singles with mixes completed, the current plan is to release one outright and not release the second until sales of the first and pre-sales from the second will cover my costs.
Another plan for my music is to see if there's any chance in hell I can get it covered on slashdot. Perhaps your $4000 wasn't wasted, it just got funneled into sales in a way contrary to your expectations.
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Digital music distribution will only take off once we ditch the CD format. In a post RIAA world (may that day come!), the only way to ensure that piracy of music will stop (and i dont care what you tell me, it IS stealing. youre getting music that you didnt pay for, period.), is to distribute the music in a DRM enabled format..and i mean DRM enabled, not DRM castrated..fair use is the key. When people move away from physical CD based distribution, and we all use solid state/HDD based players, or whatever the technology is at the time, then it will be fair. BUT, there are flaws in this that will still leave customers angry, fustrated, and ripped off. thats corporate greed...the whole music/copyright problem will never go away, unless we are either tied under a yoke of draconian measures (just look at the US...peoples rights are slipping away right from under them...corporate greed has infested politics and now law), or the music industry changes to use digital music the right way. its only a matter of time untill we move away from CD and to fully digital storage, playing, distribution etc. we can do that now with iPods and the equivalent. I just hope Apple ports iTunes to windows and linux (please!), and the iStore music store before microsoft does. Id rather see the money flow to Apple than microsoft. Then again, if Apple were in microsofts place, would they behave any different. Greed comes with power.
That your music sucks? Just because you recorded it (no mater how hard you think you worked and no matter how good you think it is) doesn't mean anyone else likes it.
I mean no offense by any of this... hopefully you'll take it constructively.
First, I listened to the ad on the website... I'd assume it was produced by the station itself and frankly, it's horrible. It generates no excitement and it isn't catchy enough to stick out of the crowd of other ads. In short, few people even heard the ad. I did radio work for many years and I think you were screwed by the station production people. That ad could have been formatted in a dozen other ways and had more impact.
Second, you're advertising on the wrong station. "The Link" looks like a hot AC station and your music just doesn't fit into that demographic. Have you tried a college station? Send them a gratis CD and see if they play it.
Find a station that plays something similar... I'd call it easy listening or maybe even jazz if I had to put it in a genre, but maybe you know better where you want to head with it. Once you've found your station, toss out some teaser ads and see what gets caught in the net.
Good luck!
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
"... I can't figure out why no one has pre-ordered the CD"
You're asking people to pre-order a CD? You're asking regular, average, CD-buying people to preorder a CD?
Average Joe does not preorder anything from an unknown entity, much less for music that they've heard maybe 5 or 10 times in their life. Pre-orders work for groups that have dedicated following, who are willing to say, "Here's my money now - you can pay me with product later." You are trying to go backwards and develop a following by having non-followers preorder a CD.
I wouldn't do it, myself, unless I felt passionate about the music, and I doubt your music causes much feeling in me at all, nevermind passion. Even if I really liked the music I would say, "Well, I'll visit infrequently over the next few months - if they have anything they can ship tomorrow then I might buy it." But since the MP3s are freely available, I might not even check back.
Going back to your original question:
what should a small independent music publishing company do to sell a new artist to the public?
I suspect, but don't know, that a publishing company will have to take a hit on a few albums before the artist takes off. Like a web site it takes years, not months, to gather enough followers to make ends meet, without breaking a profit. Some artists biff, some make it big, but you have to hold onto them, develop them, produce two or more EXCELLENT polished albums, get some regular airplay on several stations, and put some blood, sweat, and tears into your work.
How about this:
Quick, easy/cheap, profitable.
Pick two. The RIAA does quick and profitable by pouring money into it. You will never be able to compete on their field, so don't try.
-Adam
is this a plant by the RIAA to make us think we need them?
.. be sure your name shows up in the little alternative newspapers and such. Put up stickers and shit. Figure out how to get all the hipsters to know your name and drop it when chatting with their hipster pals. It doesn't matter if you're singing gospel music or you play folk music or you use a laptop to make techno, there's a "scene" were you need to make a buzz.
.. viral marketing anyone?
.. Yeah, just like EVERY OTHER MUSICIAN .. and lose the glossy promo pictures.
.. you get the point.. there's a lot of work involved. For $4000 some musicians could've come up with a lot of cool stuff to promote themselves!
so many things wrong with this..
1) I listen to the radio to LISTEN TO SOMETHING. If you're talking about something else I can listen to, and it costs money, I'm going to tune it right out. Would you put an ad for bottled water on a Coke can?
2) People are up to their armpits in music. Your music won't "sell itself" (*especially* to the 107.9 audience). I haven't listened to your music but I'd imagine it sounds a lot like a whole bunch of other music I've heard. You gotta have a "story" and a "personality". You gotta PLAY LOTS OF GIGS.. at least for a few years. Create a buzz in the underground version of whatever music scene you're into
Just remember this: no matter how much you love your music and how much you put into it, the audio waveform itself is just a commodity.
Unfortunately you've already left a bad taste in my mouth (I live in Charlotte) so I probably will associate "Matthew O'Reilly" with "guy on slashdot", rather than "guy with cool tunes" from now on. Oops!
3) PRE-ORDER???? I'm sorry, pre-ordering a CD is like pre-ordering a head of lettuce from the supermarket. Forget about it. Have the damn thing ready to sell. AT YOUR GIGS!
4) Don't put your CD on your website for download. That costs you money with no return. Just put 1-2 songs or snippets up there. Let your fans swap it at their own expense
5) Lose the crap promo page with the cliches: "It sort of defies words and seems to evoke something different for every person."
Put some stuff on your site that makes people want to read it. Like some funny stuff or essays about what inspires you.
6) You have any musician friends? What do they do? Do they play live? Are any more successful than you? Can you get in some of their gigs (for free), just so you can show your name and face around town?
Blah blah
Good luck man. I tried this once in the pre-MP3 era and failed miserably cuz my band didn't have the time and energy to play live often.
Well, it's not a paid placement, but I can't say that I'm disappointed that people are checking out my site.
/. community thought about my ideas, and where I went "wrong". And I've gotten a lot of great feedback.
Honestly, I did it because I wanted to find out what the people in the
You're right, this has been a priceless set of links for me, but I think the real value is in the suggestions, not in whatever sales might or might not derive from it.
Matt