Slashdot Mirror
Online Business Model for a Band?
Backes asks: "I've seen a lot of submissions about P2P, iTMS, DRM, piracy, and the RIAA, lately. Apparently everyone has an opinion on this and most seem think that the recording industry are a bunch of greedy people that stick it to the consumer as well as their own artists. After hearing some of the stories, I'm not even sure that getting signed to a label would be the best course of action for an aspiring musician or band. So what is a better option? What would you, the Slashdot community, do to make it big on your own using the Internet?"
"What kinds of features would a site need? Would you pay for downloads of MP3s from a band's site or not? At what price? Would donations work, or would everyone just freeload? How often would you need updates or new songs to keep you coming back? If downloads were free, would you then buy a full length album from the site just to get the CD? What special features should the CD include? How would you get your name out? What do you think is the best course of action for a band that wants to completely circumvent the whole music industry process and do it themselves?"
How to protect your music/lyrics from being stolen. If I have a band and we publish music on the web (for free, or a price, whatever) how can I protect them from being stolen and used by another band?
"After hearing some of the stories, I'm not even sure that getting signed to a label would be the best course of action for an aspiring musician or band. So what is a better option?"
Don't be stupid. If a label offers you a contract take it. If your career goes anywhere, you can renegotiate a better contract after the terms of the first have been completed
Vote for Pedro
It seems to have worked for some 'indie' bands recently, using viral marketing - offering demos or live versions of their songs via p2p, or even the full song to get publicity
After they get a name for themselves with fans who download music to check out new stuff, they make an effort to get signed, the problem here being the production of new material if they used their best to get a name for themselves online
I don't think the internet would ever top the playing in bars to get your name out, but if mixed with services such as download.com - while sharing live or demo versions on p2p, you could build yourselves a name quickly. A lot of things would also depend on the type of record label who would sign you, the 'indie' kind who give out songs online for promotion, or the big labels who try to stop download and have huge budgets for promotion
Business Voyeur
My totally uneducated guess type advice on how to spread the word you exist?
become friends with everyone at your popular music shop. they'd probably know everyone who's anyone in the local music scene.
From there get to know people from WELL KNOWN local bands that play similar music and try to set up some shows where you can open for them. Unless you're an amazingly awesome band I doubt anyone's going to pay to download your music.
There's a lot of places now that will do small runs of bulk cds, I know musiciansfriend.com does it or has ads for a place that does it. Once you get known doing shows, get a few hundred CDs pressed up and sell them for $5 at your shows.
If you did free mp3s (dont do ogg unless every major player supports it cuz how many of your nongeek friends even heard the word before?) then I'm sure if you were good enough you could move some CDs off your own website.
Don't halfass on the CDs, 4 track recorded songs can be made to sound good enough to play loud on home/car stereos. Digital recorders are getting very cheap now too. Put effort into it... no matter how good your music is and how talented you guys are, if the recordings are shitty so aren't your record sales.
I don't know all the details behind becoming a big band, but one thing is for sure: If you go on your own, and you suck, you're going to go nowhere. (Hopefully you would realize this, though.)
There have been 'big names' that were mediocre groupd/people that their labels hyped like crazy (and who also generally had looks to help them out.)
Anyone looking for wide recognition would do well to become local stars. Especially if you live in a bigger city, being a local star, with fans who will post on the internet, will help your career if you try to be independent.
If you want to try and succeed on the net, you have to get hits, lots of hits, more hits than you could probably get. For every million, there 100,000 that'll like your style, 50,000 that'll visit your site twice, 10,000 that'll be a fan, 1,000 that'll buy a cd.
Get hits is key, use internet as your main tool, everything else is too expensive. Find the indie radio stations, sites, genre related communities. It's your only tool but the best tool. You can get thousands of people hearing your music everyday, something you can't do very well with other methods.
Stick in the game for a long time, let your name build.
There isn't much more to it.
yes sell mp3s,cds,shirts whatever you can. If you are trying to make a living, then damn, you need more ways to make the money.
p.s. please visit my site. I'll have an album out in a month or two. http://www.pronobozo.com
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insert sig here,here, and here
Part of what the internet gives is number of different avenues for bands to get their music out. Getting onto Napster for its subscription service could be a really good idea as it allows people to relate your music to more established bands' music. For example, people won't necessarily check out a new band but if they see this new band is similar to say Korn they're gonna be more likely to give it a whirl and with the subscription service they're not out anything. If you don't like the idea of selling people DRM music, I believe you can just distribute it on these services as a subscription album not for individual sale.
I also think something like Magnatune is a good idea in that it gives you a more direct distribution channel. One of the advantages of smaller bands is that people tend to actually buy their music instead of getting it over P2P networks of a band that's on the radio.
I think something that's been mentioned too that is important is the idea of giving out certain tracks while selling others. Live versions could be given for free while the album version could be downloaded from a service.
What's most important though is creating a buzz and fans. Getting the music out there is relatively easy, its actually finding listeners and a group of loyal fans to preach the gospel so to speak is what's hard.
Only way to go.
Set up a monthly subscription plan whereby people who like your music can log on and see live (and prerecorded live) streaming video (and audio) of concerts and jam sessions on a regular (weekly, whatever) basis.
All the money goes directly to you (and your bandwidth provider, of course - somebody's going to take a percentage of your earnings, and that's a fact.)
Do NOT concern yourself about "pirating" of your content - it's irrelevant to your success. It's merely "unauthorized marketing" and will do you some good.
Secondly, do major marketing. Look at The Corrs - they went to practically every country on the planet, as they say, "selling each album door-to-door, country-to-country, stage-to-stage". They feel it's only right if someone buys your music, they should have the opportunity to see you live. (And the Net allows that without the jet lag.)
And they have a cameraman following them around practically twenty four hours a day, given all the documentary footage they're released over the last ten years. They have a good Web site. They log on to their fan sites and post messages (both Sharon and Caroline Corr logged on to the Corrboard in the last couple weeks to thank fans for birthday wishes). They walk across traffic to sign autographs. Treat your fans right - they buy your music.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I'm waiting for that first new act to realize they can make a ton more money selling $7 CDs themselves over the internet than going through a label selling them for $20 and giving up their catalog to the man. As soon as the first band is succesful making it work, the floodgates are open!
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Check out They Might Be Downloads. Their prices compete with iTMS, but you get high-quality, LAME-encoded MP3s without any DRM. You can also pay a little extra to get FLAC rips of selected albums.
Give away some songs for free (maybe enter Songfight! once in a while and link to it), but just let people know that the songs are for sale and that they're DRM-free for the customer's convenience, and that you trust them. Charge a reasonable price and make the site easy to use and you'll get customers.
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
There are quite a few successful online-only artists these days. First off, sell your CD's through CDbaby.com. They take a very small cut of your profits and will put your stuff on iTunes for you (you also get a larger cut than the standard artist there as well via cdbaby). Next, put free downloads on your site. The only way people will know if they like your music or not is if they can hear it, right? Now...I would suggest putting them in a slightly over-compressed format. Meaning, it's a high enough quality to hear your music properly, but not quite high enough for them to be satisfied with just that file. I'd suggest either a 96kbit MP3 or Q0(~64k) Ogg Vorbis file... Now they can proceed to buy your CD or download a high quality file from something like Mindawn.com. The next step, and it's the hardest one...is to get advertising of some sort. You can have the best music and the best site, but if no one knows about it, no one will ever see/hear it. This is the music industry's trump card currently, but it is possible. My current favorite band, Celldweller, does all their stuff themselves, sells primarily online, and are doing pretty well (they had a song featured in the Spiderman 2 trailers last year). They even have a small distribution deal to get their stuff in mainstream stores like Best Buy and whatnot. Good luck!
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
www.mindawn.com is pretty nice too. It's about the only place that sells songs in a lossless audio format (FLAC).
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
The recording industry ARE a bunch of greedy bastards that are just in it for the money, so any place they can squeeze out a few more bucks, they'll do it. And they know the power of Intellectual Property © ® and all the fists full of money that can generate, so they do everything they can to extend and expand copyright, so they can retain monopoly rights on something they paid someone to create but somehow they own.
But the real question is how can you make it. Well, to make it on-line as a musician, this is what I would do:
Make it easy for interested fans to find you, refer you to their friends, buy stuff from you. Make your website easy to find and accessible. If you're not so good with visual media or website design, you probably know of a geek or a family member who is good at that, you could have them make a site for you (Payment would be between you and them). Once you're big enough, see if you can setup some tour dates. Sell CDs there, give out business cards with your website URL on them. Give away CDs with a few singles on them. You can even have an introduction on the CDs and DVDs and direct them back to your website, especially on any CDs you give away. Put a data track on audio CDs and DVDs that has some promo material or music files for your band and a link to your website. Remember everything can be used to promote yourself/your band, so make sure you've got it there where you can. But don't be obnoxious about it. People understand self-promo
... And so it comes to this.
... It's a way for the fans to reach you, and for interested parties to find your music... But you won't be found if no one knows who you are. The only reason left to sign up with a label is their publicity machine; they would potentially get your videos on MTV, advertise in Spin and get your songs on TV and movie soundtracks (of course it's more than likely they'd just sit on your contract and do nothing, but that's another issue.)
So if you're going at it alone, you have to do more than put your music on P2P and your web site.
You have to TOUR, extensively and relentlessly. Get a good booking agent to find the prime clubs and team you up with bigger names. Hit the big cities as often as you can, particularly L.A. and New York. Make a lot of friends, because people listen to indie bands because they're "cool guys" as often as they like their music.
You're also in charge of your own merchandise, and I would tell you to go all-out to make it good. Don't just have your little brother who thinks he knows Illustrator make your shirt-- get a well-known underground artist, cartoonist or designer if you can, even if you have to pay for it. T-shirts are billboards, and if yours gathers attention just for being cool to wear people will seek out your band. Don't skimp on the CD design, either-- instead of duping your own and printing the label on the inkjet, have the label screened and the insert printed professionally (and again, designed by a pro.) It WILL pay off.
Consider doing a funny cover song or two. Not only will it get noticed on the P2P networks (by people searching for the real thing, of course), but it's a crowd pleaser that will draw people in to the rest of your music. Find a cheesy 80's or 90's song and make it good. This isn't for everybody, but when it works it works well. Along the same lines, it's kind of cheesy but consider having a "look" beyond jeans and a t-shirt. If you can, hook up with an aspiring fashion designer.
Image counts for a lot, and some sort of costume or theme goes a long way towards creating a memorable show. Make it look like you put a lot more money into it than you really did...
Finally, consider hooking up with artists in other mediums. Get your music into an indie film if you can, or a cool Flash cartoon.
On second thought, just sit in your basement and put your songs on KaZaa. I don't need the competition.
The Manual or
How to Have a Number One the Easy Way
by Bill Drumond and Joe Cauty describes how to have a number one hit in the UK and keep all of the profits from sales.
It works, they have done it three separate times with differently named bands.
Beg Borrow or Steal this Book - It will entertain, inspire and inform you.
It is pre internet P2P but it tells you how to get records on shelves.
If you sign with a label you may have fame but you will end up in debt after your first album.
Print your own records, fans will fetishize your commodities, the less made the better for rarity and collectibility.
Don't feer piracy embrace it. Embrace anyone listenening to your music, the wider your fanbase the bigger a platform you will have to launch each and every product you make. Right now this P2P is big fashion. If you don't want to give up your copyrite have a secret friend share it.
Get a website with downloads and get mentioned on slashdot.
Use bittorrent so your servers don't fall over under the avalaunch of geeks. Submit your torrents to loads of trackers.
Have your secret friend share your music on all P2p networks GNUTELLA, etc.
Get it on Itunes with CDbaby.
Forget sales, build your fanbase.. Sell later
1)Dump the concept of the album.
2)Songs are released over time as they are conceived and recorded.
3)Music on the website is free, however copyrighted and owned by the band.
4)You can order a custom compilation on DVD or CD for $5 plus shipping.
5)Band's main revenue stream is from performing their music, and merchandise at the venue and on the website. Tickets cost $50-$200, depending on the artist.
Remeber that music is a performance art. Most of what you pay for and not ironically the biggest whiners about downloading, are the distributors/middlemen in the music business.
With this model, the artist end up making more money, and creativity is rewarded by direct market forces.
Courtney Love's article on the subject
Producer Steve Albini's take
Long story short: Stay the fuck away from major labels. Even if 'nobody has heard of you' as an independent artist, you're still more likely to make money than by being shackled to the RIAA.
It is an exciting time for musicians! Digital signal processing has brought semi-pro recording to the masses and the internet has provided the opportunity for next-to-nothing-cost for world-wide distribution. iTunes is providing a nice model middle-gound, bridging the crumbling and desperate existing industry with the ease of use and selection of the web. However, the iTunes model cannot last the test of time. The Audience is playing along for now, but they are aware (future audiences will be even more so) that distribution is free. If it effectively costs the same amount to give 1000 people the music as it does 10000, what artist in their right mind would opt for the smaller distribution? You may say: the artist must get paid, and I will agree with you. However, the "pay per item" model is what is dying, not the abstract "record industry." Subscription services are arriving and competition is driving the $1/song price down. Next up? Quality control! The artist websites out there, even on Mangnatune or other mp3 labels cannot survive unless they start informing the audience on what to purchase. Bad-mouthing the record industry crooks is valid, but they still provide a service - they tell the listeners where to spend their money. Is someone else going to step up and fill that role? I would agree with most of what I have read here about putting out decent music as being the first priority. For the up and coming musician I would work hard on that, and trust that new models are arriving every day. Just watch out - there are a lot of bandwagons to jump on!
You can disagree, but you'll be wrong.
The simple truth is that, from the band's point of view, albums are advertising expense. Bands do not profit from albums.. even the tiny slice of royalties they're officially given are inevitably taken by the labels.
If all you do is buy albums, you are doing nothing, nothing at all, to help the band survive. It's not worth feeling guilty over it, but it is a good reason for the bands to find new ways to distribute their music... if they can actually make a nickel a tune selling it on mp3.com or whatever, that's five cents more than they get now.