Realistic Expectations of an Indie Manager
Today’s guest post is written by Jonathan Sigmon, aka “Sigs”, founder of Signature Entertainment:
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Many artists and bands looking to take their music careers to the next level are looking for an artist manager. Putting together the right team around your band can be the difference between being a very talented local band or being able to actually tour and sustain a living. So what should you, the band, be looking for in an artist management company/representative and what are realistic expectations from them?
The answer to the first question is fairly easy. Simply look to see the results the manager has delivered in the past. Every artist manager is going to drone on and on about their connections to many industry executives (which can be legitimate or not), but the question you should be looking at for every person on your team (band mates included) is, “What can you deliver?” This sounds very business-like, which most artistic people want to run away from, but it is the reality of the situation if you are trying to make a sustainable career.
As for the realistic expectations of the manager, I think that both sides must spell this out during the contract and negotiations stage. For every manager it looks different and each one is going to have areas of strengths and weaknesses. However, there are some key questions about personal attributes and connections that you definitely want to explore, including:
- What is the past experience and reputation of the manager?
- Do they believe in your vision and are they willing to become your advocate?
- Is there a connection to a recording studio that can produce the kind of sound your band is looking for?
- Can the manager find you a booking agent?
- Does the manager have business and contract negotiation experience?
- Are there connections with a merch/graphic/web designer? Is there knowledge of your key music business websites and how to create a solid SEO for the band?
- Does the manager know of a place for the band to practice?
- Can the manager help you define and achieve your goals, as well as help decide where to invest your limited money?
- Does the manager know how to find good writers for press, websites, contracts, etc. (i.e. publicist)?
- Does the manager know how to get your songs published and ensure your royalties will be paid?
- Does the manager have connections with a photographer and videographer?
- Does the manager have relationships with any record labels in which you are interested? Do they at least have good phone conversation skills in order to discuss matters concerning your band?
Obviously, you may not need your artist manager to fulfill all of these duties, as you may already have some of these needs met (such as a practice space or a recording studio where you feel comfortable). As a band, it is important to prioritize the needs of the group and search for those attributes.
An Online Metronome for Practicing Musicians
I got an email recently from MusicSupervisor in which they pointed out this sweet website:
No need to actually buy a metronome, just go to their site, click on the beats per minute you need, and magically you have your tempo. Awesome. As long as you are sitting near a computer! Rock on.
Sure beats the old version.
Pump Audio Reducing Licensing Payments to Artists by 30%
Yo yo yo. Any of you guys using Pump Audio to license your music may want to pay attention to a change they’re rolling out in their artist agreement.
Beginning July 1st, 2009, Pump Audio will move to a 65/35 split with artists, instead of their existing 50/50 split. This means that licensed artists will see a drop in their take from each licensing fee by 30%. Awesome.
I was alerted to this Wednesday by an existing Pump Audio user. I followed up with their Artist Relations contact, and unfortunately the bad news is true.
Here’s what they said:
“…this move is being made to support the growth of our business on a global stage…”
“We believe and will work tirelessly to insure that Pump Audio continues to be the top music licensing company for real artists. As we grow and succeed, you will grow and succeed right along with us. Pump Audio has always been, and will always be one of the biggest supporters of independent artists, and our intention is to see all Pump contributors make more money with us in the coming years.”
Make Music, not T-Shirts
Today’s guest blog comes from Chris Wochagg at Wildscreen.tv, an online video portal for artists and musicians.
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I’m tired of hearing the suggestion that musicians just have to cross finance through merchandising, ringtones, more gigs and expensive VIP tickets to their gigs. This may work for some bands - call it the Arctic Monkeys Bands – but it ignores a great field of composers and musicians committed to the studio and artists who aren’t willing to perform a rock’n’roll show every night and sell t-shirts, because their “fans“ may have outgrown the age of wearing band t-shirts.
Not every artist is able to entertain crowds nor is sorely tempted to be the focus of a photographer‘s lightning storm, but - and that’s the point - can be an appreciated musician/artist. So there is an enormous number of musicians out there who do not benefit from a “share everything and get more concert visitors” precept. It makes me believe that the idea of making money with additional goods should still be a great possibility to have a greater income and promote the artist, but not the only chance to survive.
This doesn’t mean that we should support DRM, set restrictions on the consumer or try to save the CD as a medium and the exploiting businesses of the majors. The era of the digitalization won’t stop, we’ve already passed the point of no return. Do we have to believe that nobody is going to pay for music anymore? Don’t think so. What we would need is transparency.
Tips for Evaluating Music Licensing Opportunities
We’ve looked at a ton of different music licensing services here at themusicsnob, and today’s tips on music licensing are a guest blog by Kevin Breuner, musician, blogger, and CD Baby employee.
Licensing Companies - What to look for and what to avoid
This past week, I had a number of artists ask me about potential music licensing deals that they had on the table. The common concern was whether or not the deal they were being offered was legit. This is something that could be discussed in great detail on a case by case basis, but I thought I would give a few brief bullet points on some things to considerbefore getting involved with a licensing company.
Are they a licensing company or a music library? - The lines can be a bit blurry here, but a general distinction between the two is that a licensing company will pitch individual tracks, where a music library might supply clients with a searchable hard drive of music with thousands of tracks. In general, a licensing company will get higher fees.
What rights are they asking for? - At a minimum, you have to grant a licensing company the right to represent your music, but there can be varying levels of artist involvement for each placement they negotiate. Some contracts are pre-cleared(Meaning they don’t have to get the artist to sign off on each individual placement), and others give the artist the right of refusal before the deal goes through. Most indie artist will encounter pre-cleared contracts. Another thing to look for is if it’s exclusive or non-exclusive.
Guest Bloggers & Music Industry Journalists Wanted
TheMusicSnob has been sidetracked the past several months, as evident by our lack of posts. Our site has a large readership of music industry professionals and independent musicians, and many posts have spawned great discussions on marketing tools and music licensing opportunities. We’d like to see this continue…
If you are interested in writing a guest post, interview or article on the music industry, music marketing or something else related, please get in touch with us. We are as interested as ever in learning the latest strategies for successful independent musicians.
Email brian@themusicsnob.com
Paid Music Downloads Increased in 2008
There’s an encouraging article at WebProNews entitled Online Music Purchases Increase. It appears that digital music consumers were willing to pay for music in 2008. So while we can all lament the demise of giant record labels and massive blockbuster releases, the independent artist may be better off. Here are some interesting points from the article:
- The number of people buying music online increased by 8 million people, for a total of 36 million, in 2008
- 13 million fewer buyers of music in the US last year
- Online social networks are playing an increasingly important role in shaping music listening. (duh)
Check it out if you feel like it…
Ha ha ha. Or, I like your style…
This brief post is just a late-night acknowledgment. I noticed an email I’d gotten a long time ago back when I was trying to actively review other people’s music but ended up having very little time to actually do so. This guy had sent me a review of one of his band’s songs and it rubbed me the right way as I read over it tonight. Here it is:
Song: Wasted Time by The Dead Letters
Listen, motherf*ckers, prepare to have your shit rocked. Oh damn, is that a quietly building loop? Fuck that is genius, IS THAT REVERSED? Hold on to your seathole, because that’s not weak-ass Chan Marshall, that’s f*cking Ashley Bullock, aka BullROCK. Listen to those lyrics! Thoughtful as a motherf*cker.
OH SNAP! Is that a guitar/bass break? Yes, you pussy, that is. We don’t fuck around with weak ass shit, we go straight - BUILDING, SLOWLY BUILDING. I AM SO PUMPED RIGHT NOW! - to the ROCK OOOOH WA AH AH AH.
Now that you’ve been skullf*cked by this masterpiece, you best be snifflin. You’re right, that WAS the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard in your life!
Tell your friends. If they can handle it.
My comments:
What got my attention before I’d even listened to the song was the line: “Is that a guitar/bass break? Yes, you pussy, that is.” I just love how direct and antagonistic it’s trying to be, given how asburd the use of “p*ssy” here is in the context of someone’s reaction to a bridge in a song.
The “marketing” of the song is probably the most interesting thing about it here. From the writer’s tone you’d think the song was this over-the-top melodrama that tries to destroy the listener. I was pretty surprised that it turned out to be a melancholic, introspective haze, because that’s pretty much the opposite of the review’s attitude. So that was disappointing.
The song is thoughtful and captures a mood of youthful indie rock revery, but I wouldn’t consider it for “greatest song in the world”, as the writer refers to it, because I don’t really think of it as a song, more of a state of mind or something. The words are not entirely intelligible and I couldn’t find lyrics on their website. That doesn’t bother me, really. Production a little too sparse on the build, meaning the orchestration wasn’t full enough to back the force it was striving for.
I like the vocals, makes me think of the film character Juno, but a kind of deteriorated version of her that got detentions and practiced harmless forms of vandalism. Or Mazzy Starr in high school, getting pissed at boys who can’t hear how beautiful her voice is because she won’t sing to them, and she just walks past them in the hallways in a dark-colored hoodie with a silver metallic zipper down the middle.
The intro section is very Godspeed You Black Emperor, which I like too.
Anyway, thanks to the Dead Letters for their song. Best of luck!
Don’t Confuse Technology with Marketing
Or: Don’t Confuse Supply with Demand
The use of music marketing technology is not in and of itself an act of music marketing
In my own errant quest to get people to hear my music (and pay me for it), I’ve made an understandable but large mistake. I thought that by using the millions of digital music distribution tools out there, one of them would “stick”, and I’d somehow move forward.
Typical thought process: “If I put my music on MySpace, Reverb Nation, Facebook, etc., then set up my own site and embed my music download widgets everywhere, put it on iTunes and Rhapsody, etc. with Tunecore, blah blah blah, then something’s gotta happen.” Well, I was wrong. Putting a shingle out there with your name on it may be called “marketing”, but it’s so passive that it doesn’t really even qualify.
Why I Could Not Sell My Music
I became more interested in the means of delivery than the process of actively winning someone over with my music. It’s easy to find the details of technology interesting and consuming when the daunting tasks of real success are terrifying.
This train of thought was spawned tonight by a musician who asked what I thought of Audiolife, a company I hadn’t heard of but which offers another turnkey solution for indie musicians to create embedded widgets of their music and merchandise.
Don’t Miss the Forest for the Trees
With sites like Nimbit, Musicane, and from the looks of it, Audiolife, you can have some great technology that allows any crappy musician to have some incredible tools to conduct all sorts of online “business”. And since my interest in music marketing has morphed primarily into the tech side of things, I can really appreciate these turnkey, embeddable solutions that people are putting out. Each empowers artists like never before, in different ways. From my very brief scan of Audiolife’s site, they look to be similar. They’ve extended the functionality ever further, but still depend on artists to actually sell things to make their money. They operate on a commission basis, meaning if artists aren’t selling music and merchandise, then Audiolife doesn’t make any money.
If We’re All Starring in Our Own TV Shows, Who’s at Home to Watch Us?
My general “feeling” is that the entire model is a losing enterprise. In my narrow experience, no one wants to pay for music anymore, and no one cares about the merchandise of some unknown artist. Especially in today’s era of American Idol and Facebook, where everyone wants to and can be a celebrity in their own way. A company like Audiolife may be able to stay in business by taking a tiny piece of a tiny piece from the millions of amateur musicians out there. But for these amateur musicians, whether they choose Audiolife, Nimbit, or Santa Clause isn’t going to change the lack of demand for their “products”.
The Question to Now Ask Yourself
Can you can create demand sufficient enough to warrant the time and energy in setting up an online merch widget?
Update: Revenue Model Abandoned?
I just went to Musicane’s website, and noted that they now have generic banner ads on their site. Which tells me that their revenue model isn’t working. The ads are for auto insurance and checking your credit scores. This smells of desperation. I can relate. But encouraging people to leave their site isn’t going to improve their business. In my opinion…
