Here's the typical situation. You find your music starting to make waves. Maybe just locally: but you are starting to get attention. Your manager makes some calls and important people start showing up at your gigs. The thrill of fame and fortune seem to be knocking at your door.

There is a change of energy in the air. Next thing you know: your band is on a airplane flying to New York. You get to play in front of some big label execs. How exciting!! Isn't this what every musician DREAMS of?? Or is it the beginning of a nightmare.

The Cold Side of the Dream

In the music business it takes a LOT of money to go big. Beyond the cost of manufacturing product and putting it on the shelves – there are promotional costs. You didn't think people get on the radio and MTV for free did you??

Launching an artist into the mainstream can easily run $2 million! If it was YOUR money: would you bet that much on a property that doesn't already have huge demand to back it up?

What if you also knew that 95% of new artists can't bring in enough revenues to recoup that initial investment.

How the Big Guys REALLY Make their Money

Here's an important truth. Music industry money isn't really made off of record sales: the REAL MONEY is in publisher's royalties.

KEY POINT: There is a difference between a song and a recording. The ownership of a song belongs to the writer. But someone else might record that song. Publishers invest in the ownership of SONGS.

How does it work? American Radio bills out millions of dollars in ad sales every week. A portion of this income must be divided up among the owners of the SONGS that are played on the radio. The recording artists get none of this income unless they also own the songs.

Organizations such as ASCAP and BMI handle the collection and disbursement of song income. So back to our original question. Why would a record company want to lock a musician into a contract – if going all the way was almost certain to lose money??

What if you already had put millions of dollars into your existing artists? You might want to pro actively keep new talent from diluting your investment.

Answer 1: By acquiring rights and options on new artists: the music industry is able to protect it's existing investment by keeping new properties from diluting the existing catalog of recorded material. In other words it often makes good business sense NOT to divide up the royalty pie.

Answer 2: By preventing other labels from getting their hands on hot new talent – big music business players are able to reduce competition for market-share on their own current artist investments.

Basically the dinners, the fancy suits, and the limo rides are often just a show to persuade you to let them acquire your rights – and put them on the shelf. Honestly: that's about the end of your recording career in most situations.

Deal With the Devil – How Options Lock You In

The scariest part of a big record deal is that the musician loses the right to use their own likeness. This means that you no longer own "you". Your image can't appear on albums, posters, and possibly the web, along with severe restrictions on your appearances in other forms of media: including live performances.

Recording contracts usually have a one-year term for the first album to be recorded and released.

BAD NEWS: Your album may be released – But what if nobody knows about it?? Releasing an album and actually promoting it are two separate animals. ( Read the article called The (NO) Airplay Opportunity to understand what we are talking about here.)

The contract will have a number of options that the record company can use to activate the second contract period, the third contract period etc. If your first experience was negative and you would rather not do another one, there is no way to get out of the contract. The label simply terminates the agreement, but the lock-out clause prevents re-recording of the material! Even if the record label has no interest in your music, they own all the recordings. There is no way to re-release an album on your own.

For a full break down of recording contracts and options visit – How Stuff Works.

Honest Questions to Ask Your Self

1. Does your music resonate with a such a WIDE market: right now - that you need the massive corporate music machine to handle your promotion and distribution?  If this is the case: read A Better Way to Go Big.

2. What is more important to you? Fame? or Making music ( and possibly a living doing so ) ?

3. If fame and exposure are your immediate priority: to what extent are you willing to risk your rights to perform and earn money from your own music?

4. Would you rather earn fifty cents per album (this is the typical big-music cut to the artist) – most contract recording artists never see this because it's totally consumed in advance, by managers and "expenses". ….Or would you rather bring in somewhere between $2 and $10 per album – this is what most independent musicians average in profit per sale.

5. Will you relentlessly pursue fame and fortune like so many other astoundingly talented people who moved to Hollywood and ended up being studio musicians with a day job. Or will you make it happen for your self. Will you create the personal freedom to make the music you were born for?

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A performer who I worked with was talented vocally, as well as on sax and guitar. He would show up at local shopping centers and play his own style of fusion jazz to the office lunch crowd and weekend shoppers. He simply pulled the backing tracks from his albums and streamed them from an MP3 player into a single powered speaker. He then joined in with his instrumental solos, and vocals. Occasionally he invited a bongo player to sit with him and add a little extra personality to the performance. A couple of times the mall management would ask him to turn it down a bit. But that didn't discourage him! On weekends when he played by himself he would typically sell between $400-$600 dollars worth of CDs in 3 hours. If his guest percussionist joined in, it would jump to almost a thousand dollars. His guest musician was happy to get an extra $60 and have fun at the same time! Occasionally he would also hire one of the cute girls who followed him around to handle the sales table. ( If you try this make sure she is friendly – not stuck up. This makes a BIG difference! ) Lunch hour performances brought him about $150-$300. He also liked to provide entertainment at large format record stores in the bigger malls. They put his product right out in front and rung it up at the register.

Another Performer that I read about provides live entertainment at dance clubs. He's a one man band who follows a similar strategy of pre-recording his backing tracks. The club pays him for providing something special compared to the others which only offer canned dance music – in addition club goers crowd around to buy his CDs between sets.

In Hollywood I attended a VIP cellphone product roll out party. The promoters booked a couple of musical acts to set the tone: including a solo DJ-drummer who spun the records and joined with his innovative drum action.

Another time I was walking on the weekend at a crowded outdoor shopping center where literally 20 different musical acts compete for attention. I actually bought a CD from an extremely talented classical guitarist. The cost was about $12. These were units he duplicated himself at home. Even in such a venue with lots of other competitors he was able to turn $180 with just 15 sales!

What Does it Take? In order to create a modest part-time income of $60,000 per year you must perform 3-4 times per week and sell an average of 20 to 40 CD's at each performance for about $10-$12 each. If you will read our analysis called Your Own CD Factory, you will start to understand just how lucrative this little venture can become. This does not include additional revenue from web sales that result from word of mouth and friends sharing your music with other friends. It also doesn't include payment for your appearances, from venue owners, once your demand and crowd-pulling value starts to grow. Even if you were only to play once every other week, alternating between two favorable locations – you could be well on your way to having a small side business for your music. An average of 10 units sold per event at $12 each – would put an extra $3000 per year into your budget.

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Anyway. This guy was way back in the ghetto section of the flea market – next to the junk sellers. And he confided in me that he was actually kind of lazy and had been coming to that exact same spot: on SUNDAYS ONLY for the past 15 years. (They are open on Saturdays too but this was too much sweat for this guy – said he didn't need the money.) **His regulars knew WHERE to find him.** He was making a comfortable part-time income of $600 every week, for just 3-4 hours of time.

Consistency Pays

Most people need to interact with a brand at least 5 times before they develop sufficient confidence and desire: to actually do business with you. You need consistent points-of-reference so that they can find you, and refer others.

This could simply be:

• Venue-presence regularity
• An easy-to-remember brand name
• Your web address. (A dot com name based on your unique brand name.)
• Direct access to purchase and review your product at the customer's convenience.

Strategic Relationships:

Regional Venue-Presence Regularity is as Effective as Airplay

It's important to develop a positive personal relationship with the management of each venue where you want to perform, and show up to perform at least once a month – if not more frequently.

We suggest making a map of all your venue options within a couple hours driving distance and planning an ongoing tour schedule for the entire region. For more on how this process can effectively take the place of Radio Airplay in your region please read Building Your Name.

Building Consistent Relationships with Your Audience

As the public gets to know that you will be there on a regular basis – this should start to actually drive traffic for the venue owner and friends will start telling each other to come hear you. Once the word-of-mouth machine is in motion, your business will grow and grow.

If a fan falls in love with your music, they will often go all-out to spread the word on their own. Remember to treat these people with kid gloves!!

Brand Development

Create a total-recall brand name.

It should be unique enough that you can secure the dot COM form of the website name. ( NOT .net, or .info or .biz) If people hear your name once, it should stick in their mind forever. This is crucial for the most effective word of mouth advertising. Only use normal spellings of words! Have your web URL on every CD you sell, and on a banner at your performances.

Click here to get your own . com name registered for $15 per year. You can point this name at any web page of your choice in three easy steps.

Making the Web Your Friend

By creating a web presence including CD sales & downloads, you make it easier for other people to find you once they happen to hear one of your songs through a friend. People who liked your performance can order more material and also purchase copies as gifts.

By creating a web-based mailing list, you can inform your audience when you will be performing in their area next. This adds to the crowd (and revenue) at the venues. It gives the audience time to PLAN on seeing you and invite others.

Cross Promotion

By networking with other musicians and featuring "quest appearance tracks" on each other's albums it helps everyone involved to improve their recognition.

Touring together also helps add to the performance value by featuring more than one entertainer per show. In this manner, the more established acts can be leveraged to help expose those that are up-and-coming. By booking together, you automatically open up more performance opportunities since all involved are able to tap into each others network of venue contacts.

Time is Money

You might only have that one opportunity on the phone or in person to make an important connection.

Always have a CD to give away, Color Business Cards, and be prepared to take an email address. You can then email an MP3 link.

They say: "The early bird gets the worm". You might want to show up to any meeting PREPARED lugging your own boom-box so you can simply press "play" to show case your demo. You may only get 3 minutes of attention and they may just throw your CD in the trash without ever listening to it. This is reality.

Selling Your Music on iTunes

Now you can sell your music on iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon, Emusic and Napster! Get started HERE. **BONUS** Includes UPC retail bar codes for your albums. If you will read our analysis called Your Own CD Factory, you will start to understand just how lucrative this little venture can become.

In summary, it's impossible to get any kind of serious radio airplay unless you are prepared to pay somewheres in the ball park of at least half-a-million bucks. In the industry these fees called PROMOTIONAL EXPENSES. 

If your major label recording contract doesn't include something to cover these costs, your releases are not likely intended to go anywhere except the shelf. 

Payola, Freedom and Monopoly

Yes there is a legal loophole that allows this practice – infamously known as "Payola" – to continue. Visit Wikipedia for an explanation.

Think about it this way. By monopolizing the airwaves and keeping out smaller competitors, the music industry increases the chance that big artist roll outs can break even. This status quo has been repeatedly challenged without any lasting success, so don't expect it to change in the immediate future.

HOWEVER It Could be Very Important for Your Music Career to see what you and your friends can do to help Save Internet Radio.

Recording Industry Demographics

Mainstream radio and music have a few well-defined target markets which spend enough money on music to pay for big business. However up to 80% of the public are unable to find mainstream musical products that FIT with their tastes. It may be partly because these people have outgrown the pop music that fuels adolescence.

Most of today's industries "grew up" during the baby boom years – a period of about 20 years when the typical American was a YOUTH. Successful business was typically trendy. Many business giants who succeeded in such a reality have not awakened to the fact that those baby boomers have long since grown up and their tastes have changed.

Alternative

Even among youthful music markets, there are many special niches collectively called "alternative" which don't fit into the mainstream commercial business model. Millions of youth fanatically support their favorite underground artists and often turn against them when they go mainstream.

Your Time to Shine

After decades of drowning in a sea of artificialism: Americans are thirsty for something REAL. By bringing your own unique musical statement to the world, you are serving a VAST untapped market of people just like your self, who want a FRESH and personal musical experience. A cornerstone of our philosophy is replacing a dependency on mass market radio airplay by bringing back the live-performance personal music experience.

Wouldn't you rather buy an album from a musician who just inspired you IN PERSON, and who also took the time to BS with you afterwards?? It's within Your reach right NOW! If you have read our other articles on marketing, you will see that it is fully feasible for any talented, motivated musician to Earn a (VERY) comfortable living this way.

Using the methods we recommend at Making Music Pay – you can create a highly marketable music product with a minimum of investment – AND – generate strong on-going demand.

Starting from the point of having demand built-up for your music – even if your market-base is only regional – you are in a powerful position. With this advantage, it becomes feasible to take your music all the way into the mainstream and keep much more of that creative control. For specific details on this process: please read A Better way to go BIG!

This gives you the advantage of being able to try out a whole variety of different arrangements and see if any of them resonates on a powerful level with the public. Find out if there is a creative chemistry that drives SALES!

THE TRUTH:

Well-written music always sells itself – even in the raw form – without a fancy production behind it.

A Dose of Reality:

I'm going to be starkly honest. If people aren't lining up to buy your material, you don't have it YET.

Either it does not have the right structure or it is already too watered down with the analytical side of the brain and you need to go back to the drawing board.

Properly structured music creates an instant craving factor that drives sales. We literally have a physical NEED to hear it again which causes us to purchase a copy.

If you haven't read our songwriting articles take the time to get fully oriented. These life-changing articles will empower you to take your natural inspiration as it flows and then structure it in the way that drives sales.

Have You Discovered Your Ideal Market?

There is also the possibility that you haven't yet found the right venue – or market – for YOUR style of music.

Go deep and ask your self WHO would resonate with your soul sounds, and WHERE you could go – to share them – with the RIGHT people.

Seeing Your Self Objectively

Get in the habit of taking video of your performances. Observe your work later on after the fact. Notice your body language, presentation, and audience responses. This information is crucial towards evolving your performances to the most optimal, and powerful level.

• Are you building mystique?
• Are you creating excitement?
• Are you building rapport with your audience?

Hearing Your Music through other Ears

Test out different song arrangements and phrases. Little kids are often great test subjects, for checking natural human responses. Let them choose the one that sounds the best to them!

The Numbers Tell the Truth

Ultimately your sales numbers will tell the story. Either your music has it or it doesn't.

It's extremely important to build your web sales store right from the beginning so you can see how much follow-up business you are generating. If your sales are strong at live performances but you have hardly any web sales activity, it may be that your sales are based on your live presence – but the music itself does not have the qualities required to drive sales: independently of your personal charisma.

Establishing Your Web Presence

These guys have some free Myspace Layouts for Musicians that look like actual normal web sites.

Click here to get your own . com name registered for $15 per year. You can point this name at any web page of your choice (including your Myspace page) in three easy steps.

**IMPORTANT** ONLY register a name that is sufficiently unique that you are able to secure the DOT COM form of the name. (Don't bother if only .net or .info etc.. are available).

Read about developing your own total recall brand name in Exposure that Pulls.

Now you can sell your music on iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon, Emusic and Napster! Get started HERE. **BONUS** Includes UPC retail bar codes for your albums.

HINT: Music Really starts selling once you have a clickable iTunes icon right in your Myspace Profile and in any comments you leave on other people's profiles.

Persistence and Passion

If you've got what ALL great artists have in common – Sincerity and Simplicity – you CAN make it happen. You just have to continually be learning and adapting your approach to reality.

If you know in the core of your soul that you have a gift to give, and you practice persistence – the whole world can be yours.

See "Your Own CD Factory" to learn how you can easily and affordably do this.

By learning some basic recording skills – such as how to operate a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) you can eliminate concerns about the high-cost of studio time – especially while you are in the songwriting stage.

A Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) is a program that runs on a computer and provides all the functions of a recording studio.

Chances are, that you can figure this out on your own in a very short time. But if you prefer, you can hire someone for a couple of sessions to help you set it up and learn to use it. Once you are empowered you are free to really get creative with your music.

Replace radio airplay by becoming a regional powerhouse.  If your numbers make sense regionally you may be able to take it all the way.  See A Better Way to Go Big for more details. 

By developing regular ongoing relationships with REGIONAL venues you can build an ample following.

These venues can include coffee houses, bookstores, record stores, nightclubs, malls, and open air shopping districts: which are often open to quality free entertainment.   A surprisingly strong market is the lunch crowd in certain business districts.

All of these places will typically let you sell your own CDs at performances. 

It would also be wise to build connections with party houses, party promoters, and event planners.

Campus Markets

Depending on your genre of music, it might be a great move to make inroads to some of the colleges and universities in your region.  

People to talk to include:

• The Event Coordinator of the Associated Students. (This is the student government – mostly run by students – that handles on-campus events.)   Student clubs are all registered with the Student Association and often throw huge parties, dances, and fund raisers.  These clubs include sororities and fraternities.

• The student programming coordinators of the college radio station.

Courting the Management 

Contact the management of venues where you feel your material might be appropriate for their setting.  Take time to visit, create rapport and find out what their agenda and plans are with regards to providing entertainment to their shoppers.  There may be certain rules to follow or licenses you have to get.  These are the right people to provide these answers.

Readiness

Don't show up to see these venue management folks until you are actually READY.  You may only get one real chance to win them over.  If you waste their time in the beginning, you may not get back in the door.  It's far wiser to start out in open mic situations where several artists perform and the stakes aren't as high.  Test market your material to be sure it sells before demo-ing your self to anyone who might be an important part of your financial future.

Checking Your Numbers and Spreading the Net

If you don't see improvements in a particular venue after a few attempts – try other locations.

You can also play a particular location over a 6 month period and build up your mailing list.  If you hit a point where your sales start declining in that venue – try reducing your frequency. 

Combine traffic from two slow venues by alternating between them.  Personally invite people from one slow venue to join you at the other one.  The owners of both locations will be impressed when you double their business.

Keep spreading your net to nearby locations within driving distance.  Take the time to build up demand in that area and then return once every three months.   

I went to college in the Valley of central California.  Near the campus was a pretty cool little club that regularly brought in well-known names.   A regional band (they lived about 2 hours away) would come up once every 3 months and pack the club with about 500 listeners.   They also brought an opening act.

They always put on an unforgettable show with their unique image and famous "Rude" attitude.