Record Label Secret
Written on January 3, 2008
Towards the end of my days gigging and playing music I had, what seemed to be then, an unfortunate encounter in Nashville with a girl who worked as a front desk clerk with Sony Music Nashville. It wasn’t that her time was spent reviewing and
chucking band press packets before they reached anyone even remotely up the A&R chain that was discouraging or that someone with seemingly little knowledge of the music business would be able to have that responsibility but rather the criteria in which they screen music. How much money do you bring in with CD, merch and door cover sales.
I was under the impression that if you looked good, wrote catchy songs and had polished website that label’s would see the potential and invest in you. Well, that is based on the assumption that label’s want to do the legwork because they “believe in you” , well, they don’t, it’s a group of strangers wanted to make money, not your mom. This is pretty much common knowledge now but I’m writing this for whoever may not know just to be safe.
So, here it is, your CD/iTunes sales should be through the roof before thinking of looking for representation. When they look at your one-sheet their eyes will go directly to the dollar signs and the numbers following them. Invest in a good CD, a great CD, and sell it. It doesn’t matter if you can play one show every 6 months (Kid Rock did when he started out) if you can sell your music your good to go. Upload your music to every possible profile and/or website and let it sell itself as people stumble upon it.
But you’re gonna ask me “Ben, if I’m doing all the legwork, bringing in a lot of money, why would I want a record label to step in?” Well, that’s the kicker. If you think even more money can be made with their help then sign on the dotted-line otherwise just stick it out, do the work, and keep all the profits.
The point is, no one told me this, and I’m gonna assume no one told you, either. Granted with the internet, the appeal of the almighty record label has diminished but I know, somewhere, kids are under the impression that good-looks and half-ass recordings with get them onto MTV, and maybe that’s true if your K-Fed, but your not, so go make a good CD and sell it.
As in all cases there are exceptions to the rule, some labels will go the extra mile to develop an artist or band that hasn’t proved anything prior but even all the major pop stars of today spent some time on the mouseketeers or nickelodeon wearing plastic ears and getting slimed.
Side Note: The trick to playing free shows is to have CD’s and merch to sell, that way, maybe the venue isn’t paying you but your still making some coin off of fans. My only opinion towards the free shows debate is: If your doing alot of free stuff then no money is going into your band bank account to make a good CD.
Filed in: blog.
Point well taken, as it’s pretty much an established fact that in order to get real record label interest, you pretty much have to be financially viable on your own. They’re not interested in development, they want to take a product that already makes money and get their cut. It’s the same way for the radio, who just wants the payola from the record labels, as well as the venues who could care less if you sound like the death of a thousand screeching cats if you can pack the place and sell booze. There are precious few exceptions and as an artist you come to accept that everyone in the music industry sees you as a dollar sign and the only people that will actually care about your music - if you’re lucky - are your fans.
The Internet is supposedly the great equalizer for independent music - sell your CD and downloads to anyone from around the world. As a band we end up giving away a lot more CDs that we’ve sold. On a good night at a venue we’ll sell 5 CDs. Our average is more like 1 or 2 a night. Our music is available for sale through CD Baby, from our website, downloadable via pretty much every service there is, yet we have less than $100 in total online sales. We are certainly “out there” for people to find us, but no one really does. Do our sales suck because our music sucks? It’s possible. But independent reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, and we almost always hear good things from people who have heard our stuff, friends or not. So if the music is good and professionally recorded, it’s available online, and we promote the website/CD online a lot (MySpace, etc.) then what are we doing wrong? That’s really the more interesting question to me.
We are a rock band - at face value there is nothing unique about our band. We don’t have a klezmer player. Our songs aren’t about anyone named Coheed or Cambria. But we have excellent musicianship and we write catchy songs. Our upcoming album also features very high production value with string arrangements, etc. Our songs don’t have that quality where they all sound the same (I could name a few bands but I think everyone can conjure up at least one on their own) - in fact in the same review we have been compared to both Tool and The Police. That seems to be enough for a lot of bands you hear on the radio - sometimes less than that. So the question is why don’t we sell more CDs? How are consumers supposed to find us in a sea of alternative rock? I’ve researched a lot of the top sellers on CD Baby… and most of them are very niche, oddball artists. A guy who writes kids songs, someone who releases CDs all about sailing, a Black Sabbath tribute played on medieval instruments… in order to sell CDs successfully do we really have to go write/perform music that no one else is playing so we can stand out? We could certainly do it, but we would be selling out… and it’s not the music we really love to write and play.
I have read plenty of articles and e-books on the subject and I always come away with the same generic advice… work hard! Play live shows! MySpace! Word of mouth! We’ve tried the same tactics (as well as some more grassroots “indie” ideas) and nothing seems to really be effective. We put in the time and effort, but the returns have never justified the investment. For once I would appreciate some answers as to how independent artists with relatively few unique attributes are succeeding in overcrowded genre markets. Anyone?
I play in a wide variety of settings, and have noticed big fluctuations in CD sales according to the venue and audience. Over time I’ve noticed that those fluctuations follow a pattern, and I’ve developed a “business plan” around that.
The venues I play (or have played) include coffeehouses; pubs/bars; concerts; festivals; and special venues (museums, ElderHostels, private groups). Here’s my experience in a nutshell:
Coffeehouses: great place to polish your craft/act, but you’ll never make money here. The venues don’t pay because they don’t make any money. The audiences are often appreciative, but they don’t buy CDs because they don’t have any money, either. Hey, they’re here because there’s no cover charge, and they can sip a 75-cent cup of coffee all night, read yesterday’s paper without sticking a quarter in the machine, and hear you for free. My CD sales are almost zip here. I occasionally still play these for fun, but I’ve got a family to feed and bills to pay, so this isn’t where I try to make a living.
Bars/pubs: not noted for listening audiences, but if you do some rowdy sing-alongs (which I do) you can win them over. The pub makes money hand-over-fist (especially when you’re singing), through cover charge and the profit level on $4 pints of micro-brew. Demand a healthy share of that money “up-front”, because the pub can afford it and you’re not going to sell many CDs here. The audience may like your music, but they’re here to drink and be social, not add to their disc collection. On a good night I sell 2-3 CDs. Since I know this and factored it into my fee schedule, I have charged the bar enough to make the gig worthwhile even if I sell no CDs at all.
Concerts: If your music is reaching people, this should be your “bread and butter”. You should be earning money from the door, and making good CD sales as well. CD sales tend to vary according to the age of the audience and affluence of the community. The affluence issue makes sense — people with money buy, people without don’t — but the age issue is a little harder to explain. I think that younger audiences have less disposable cash, and they’re used to sharing or downloading music for free; audiences my age and older have more disposable cash, and they grew up in the era when if you liked somebody’s music, you went to the store and bought the LP. If you’re playing concerts to fans who follow you, you’d better keep recording, because you’ll reach the point where everybody has your old stuff, and your sales will drop to zip if you don’t have something new to offer.
Festivals: Some of the festivals I play pay a little money, some don’t. CD sales CAN be great. I’ve found that total exposure time has a big impact on sales. There’s one festival I play that pays me nothing, but gives me 4-5 opportunities in front of the audience (sets, workshops, panel concert, etc), and I consistently sell $1500+ in CDs. Other festivals offer me $300-400 to come and play, but give me a single 25-minute set…I can’t afford to do it, because the plane ticket will eat up the fee and a single set won’t generate enough CD sales to make the trip worthwhile.
Special events: I do a lot of traditional music centered on historic themes, and have found audiences in “special” venues, like museums, ElderHostels, and private groups (most of whom met me through one of the first two). These events now make up a significant part of my business, for three reasons. First, I enjoy putting together a special, focused concert for them; second, because the venue can afford to pay a decent wage up-front (based on their admission, tuition, or membership fees); and third, because the people buy CDs because they have an interest in the topic and sufficient income to travel and attend the event. If they like something, they buy it. I almost fell over the first time someone said “I want one of each of your CDs” — I have six in print– but that’s not unusual in these kinds of settings.
So I guess my concluding statement would be that if you want to make a business out of selling CDs to your audience, then:
Play at venues where they listen (and make sure you get enough opportunity to be heard).
Play for audiences with enough resources to buy your CD if they like it.
If your music is catching on, keep cranking out CDs — reinvest in yourself!– so that as your fan base grows, you have sufficient product to meet the growing demand.
Keep the music coming–
Hank,
Thanks for the tips. We generally don’t play coffee houses as we’ve noticed the same thing. For bars we usually have a similar arrangement - we get up front money but we mostly play a lot of covers and act as a “house band” as we’ve realized that no one at a bar is really interested in hearing our original material there (we do force some of it on them regardless). We usually just take this money and stick in the band account to go towards our next recording sessions. The vast majority of our gigs fall into the “concerts” category, when we’re not in the studio we usually play at least one of these per month. But CD sales here are still usually lower than 5 units per show, despite new faces coming in. Part of this can probably be attributed to the same fans coming who already have our stuff (we put out at least one release per year), but the new people who see us mostly aren’t buying in either. Sounds like festivals would be a good way to go, but we haven’t gotten too many of those opportunities so far…
I’m not necessarily surprised that CD sales aren’t higher given the moves towards digital media and other factors. But I am surprised (and disappointed) we don’t have more sales online, including digital downloads. That’s the one I’m really trying to figure out…
- William