Technology has leveled the music industry playing field. It used to be that an artist had to make a demo, submit it to many record labels, and hope and pray they were at least called.

The next best thing to getting a record deal was starting your own label but doing so was expensive & risky. There was no guarantee of success and all the rules still applied for a traditional business: most of them fail within the first 5 years. Let’s not even talk about “Industry Rule #4080″ and the shadiness that exist with some of the people in the industry.

There are countless stories of artist who have gotten jerked in the music business. From poor money management to getting robbed of publishing rights, it’s all happened.

In comes the Internet to change the music game forever.

Most music websites in the beginning of the Internet were static webpages. You had sites that allowed you to put up a picture and some words. Then came websites with sound bites and finally the ability to upload songs. Later the ability to upload videos was developed and the game changed.

With services like PayPal, artist could sell songs and beats directly online. With sites like YouTube, artists could post videos of themselves online to widen their fan base. The Internet kept expanding and sites like MySpace were created to help music artists get massive exposure. MySpace and other social networking sites allowed artists to get worldwide exposure and seek out people that would be interested in their music.

It was like putting your marketing on steroids! Regular Average Joe’s started popping up on the Internet and getting major deals because the big labels started coming to the Internet for the next big thing. These artists basically had a built-in fan base and this made them easy to market and promote because essentially they had already done the initial legwork.

Some artists even got smart and decided to diversify and figure out other ways of making money online. In addition to selling songs online, some artists began to sell music information products, sell website advertising space, affiliate marketing, and offer web design services.

Let’s look closely at these other ways of making money off the music industry online.

Selling music information products online include things like eBooks and video courses. There are courses on everything from songwriting to how to market your beats online. Information products are cheap to produce and they can be sold over and over very inexpensively.

Many artists have written about what they have done to be successful in the music business. There is no shortage of people trying to get into the music business and people will gladly pay money to learn how to the get ahead of the game faster.

Another way of making money offline in the music industry is create a website or blog and sell advertising space. If you have a high traffic website you can place ads throughout your website that are targeted to your fans. There are companies that will pay you to bring traffic to their sites by clicking on special links that you have place on your site. The more people you send to their sites, the better for you.

A different and popular way of making money online is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is when you sell other people’s products and services. You do not create the products or services but you get paid a percentage of every sale that comes from your special affiliate ID. There are plenty of music affiliate programs all over the Internet. Most of them are free to join.

You should do you homework when picking out products to sell. There are different programs and rules for each merchant. Read up on any merchant that you like and find out as much as you can about their company and product.

Last but not least, some artists not only sell music on and offline, they also sell other services like web design. Most businesses online hire web design professionals to carry out the company’s vision for the future. A good freelance web designer can make a living building quality websites.

The online revolution has definitely changed the music industry. An artist who once would not have had a chance to get exposure in the music business can not only get that exposure online. They can also generate money online as well to help them advance their career and allow them to do what they love more easily.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mello Melanin is the force behind http://www.RapBeatCreator.com A site specializing in teaching new producers how to get started creating rap beats. He is the CEO of What’s Hot Media, Inc. Some of his greatest accomplishments include, performing at the world famous Apollo Theatre in Harlem, New York and performing with Grammy Award winners The Roots and Hiphop legends like KRS-ONE. For more information about creating rap beats, check out his site at http://www.RapBeatCreator.com

The secrets of success are known by a select few. There is more to music than just making beats or producing music. If you are serious about creating rap music, you should also learn the music business. Learn the ropes, make connections. Learn the complete business cycle from A&R and duplication to promotion and distribution as you bring your music to market. Target your music, see what the fans are listening to. After all, its the sound on the street that ultimately decides. Producers, Major and Indie Label A&R may be too far from the street to hear whats popping. The trend may be past by the time it gets to their ears. The streets often dictate what is heard in the clubs and what is heard on the radio.

You should build a website and ask fans what they like. They will give you truthful answers and speak from their hearts. Getting objective, detailed feedback is priceless. What does this have to do with making beats? Well, most artists want to share their music and be heard but its not easy getting radio airplay. Fortunately, there are numerous places to post your music on the Internet. iTunes and Broadjam to name a few. With iTunes obviously being the largest. Fans are not hesitant or reluctant to buy from these sites. You may also get points for having your songs listed and get known for producing rap music. You can then use your account to direct fans to your website. This is a good way to build a fan list.

If you wish to succeed in the music industry as an independent artist, you must become your own Personal Manager. You must represent yourself and oversee all aspects of your career. You must become a Booking Agent to find performance engagements. You must possess good communication skills to sell your talent and develop contacts in the music industry. You must develop contacts at radio stations. You will be speaking to program directors, and DJs in a local market. You must be available to socialize frequently to help improve the chances that a radio station will add your song to its play list. You must also be aware of the legal side of creating and marketing music. You should have a good understanding of copyright laws. Also, don’t forget accounting. You have to know where the money is coming from and where it is going.

Anyone considering a career in music should examine alternatives to the traditional means of distributing and marketing music. They should also explore scenarios and uncover opportunities that the new digital reality offers. Whether you’re on the road, or just getting ready to cut your first record, you should be armed with as much ammunition as possible. You definitely need to understand the business and legal elements of the music industry. The music business is often a mystery to most bands and more than making beats.

Nolos Quinn has had a long interest in both sides of the Music Industry. Producing music and running a indie record label. If you have any questions or want more information, please check our website at Produce Rap Music. Thank you.

Most people who have been in the music industry will never tell you how to correctly promote your music. It’s competition out there and they don’t want to give up all the music promotion secrets. Many simply want to sell you something so they tell only half truths about promoting your music. In this article I will tell you some of what I’ve learned in over 15 years as a rapper. I will attempt to tell you only the things that work and bust up a few myths that many have told you.

First of all you need to understand that this is an industry that thrives if you are willing to learn all you can about it. I never thought that I knew it all so I still read, listen to audio books and watch videos everyday to sharpen my skills. The hip hop industry is not a thing of talent only, it’s a thing of business. You need to commit yourself to learning about marketing, branding and things like presentation. These are areas in music that if you get great in these things you will be able to sell many records. Even if you don’t become famous to everyone worldwide, you can still make a considerable amount of money doing what you love.

Notice I said sell records not making music or making friends but selling records. I notice that the better I get at internet marketing, the more I can sell. The same thing goes for making beats, the more you make means the more you study the sounds. (This means the better your music sounds.) Most musicians got the talent part licked but very few take the time to sharpen their business skills. I’ve met producers with over 1000 beats on their computers, but not one of them are getting heard.

I also have seen that it pays to branch out into other fields because this gives you longevity in the industry. I may have started as a rapper but I also wrote books and put my hand in independent films. This is how you further your brand. As I said in another one of my articles think of yourself as a brand when it comes to promoting your music. When you’re engaged in music promotion, I strongly suggest that you follow the lead of major companies and not your peers on the corner selling their music with you. Be consistent with your brand. It sounds odd if you’re M.C. Ace and you’re also working as a sanitation worker. Maybe M.C. Ace also hosted a talent show, this sound more like it.

The most important thing you can do to promote your music is to plan. Let me say that again, plan, plan, plan. It’s so many avenues to take during the music process that it’s easy to get sidetracked by something that sounds like a great deal. I don’t fall for something in promotion if it’s not in my plan. Questions to ask while promoting your music would be, Who will I reach? How can I reach them? When will I reach them? Make a reaction statement simply stating what you want your audience to do. Another important step is to write down everything about your audience that you can. What stores do they visit? What clubs do they attend. What do they eat? Everything so you know how to reach them.

A few secrets I’ve found is that you can actually get on television through cable ads. You can also create your own show on DVD like I did or your own magazine. You want to do something that would make you stand out. Think about it, what if you saw a green pig at a farm? Would you tell someone? Would you remember that? Be a green pig when you promote your music but remember to still be yourself. You are unique all by yourself and never forget it. Do things that are interesting to your audience. Giveaway things that make sense to you as a business person and to them. Be careful about this because it could diminish your brand.

Remember when you make a plan, still plan again and stick to the plan and don’t get sidetracked. Your music is what you have, but it’s not all you’ve got so use everything you have in you to promote your music.

Da Author Trete Lo has written street fiction and produced indie films outside of hip hop. Check out his resource for underground rappers that want to become major. www.UnderGroundSouthConnection.com plus his personal website that features his music http://www.TheAuthorTreteLo.com

I have a friend, initials “A.M.,” who works in the entertainment business in L.A. He worked for Motown, Capitol and some others before starting a few of his own, too. People ask him all the time about starting their own record labels. Then, too, he says, he runs into people all the time with business cards that say they already have one. Over the past few months he has explained the whole “record company game” to me, and I finally get it. In fact, I get it enough that I can now tell others about it (without damaging my pal’s seminar business at a few hundred bucks a head). Based on his 40+ years in the trenches, I’m going to tell you what having a record label in today’s marketplace really means.

First of all, just because you have a business card that says “XYZ Records” does not mean you have a record label. It is a very, very complex thing. It requires a team of people who have expertise in the various aspects of the record industry, just like in any other business. You have to have a chief financial officer, a chief executive officer, someone to head up the marketing, someone handling promotions, then there’s legal affairs, business affairs, public relations and all the rest. Each one of these people needs to be competent (or better!) in their particular job descriptions, too. If you are going to be a one-man or one-woman operation, you had better have broad skills, acquire them all or find people you can rely on who do have them. (Got money to pay ‘em all? Thought not.)

Above all, to start what we recognize as a conventional record label in today’s market would require a tremendous financial commitment. Sometimes people have a tendency to fool themselves into thinking that they have a record company because they trot out a song and album that they think is so good that it is going to catapult them into record label status. That is totally incorrect due to the fact that record labels are based solely on the financial ability to compete in a marketplace, and that requires a tremendous amount of financing. Internet or no Internet, not everything you do can be “virtual” and “by download only.” That does not inspire confidence in anyone, consumers or investors, and will peg you as one of the 30 million wannabe’s.

What happens these days is that artists, or people who have so-called record labels, think that they have a music product (an act, a track, or both) that is so good that a company like Universal or Sony or Motown is going to come along and sign them and give them millions of dollars. This dream has them becoming “a force to be reckoned with” within the music industry. Where people seem to make their biggest mistake is not understanding how people at these major labels think and work, what their mindset is, or anything else.

One of the first things that you have to understand is that record labels are staffed by accountants and lawyers, so more than anything they want to see that you have a solid team that can make them money. You have to have the right professionals in the right places, and a business/marketing plan that shows how you can make a profit. This needs to happen way before getting into the musical product. That’s right: The plan, and the work, is more important at this point than the music. 

Frankly, if I were going to start a record label in today’s marketplace, the first thing I would forget about is manufacturing promotional CDs or printing flyers. To the real pros this makes no sense whatsoever. With the advent of the Internet, a technology that’s available to everyone for reaching everyone else, you can reach out to people without incurring all of the expense of manufacturing CDs or producing printed throwaways. I don’t understand why people run around and give away CDs and print up thousands of thousand little flyers and hand them out at music conferences.

This boggles my mind, because all they’re doing is wasting tons and tons of money. Those giveaways, those CDs and flyers, can get thrown in the trash very easily. Plus, it takes 10 to 15 impressions to make a sale, and one flyer impression is not going to be enough. So you spend all that money on flyers and spend all that money giving away CDs and T-shirts, while that money could have gone into your marketing plan. It is just a tremendous waste of money but it seems people have been doing it that way so long, even big labels and artists, that they don’t want to change it for some reason. It is embedded in their minds that this is the most effective marketing and promotional tool, and that you need to do all this and put up signs on telephone poles, too. I suppose this makes some people feel like they’re out there working, promoting their product or project. But there are much easier and more effective ways to reach the masses than to waste all that time and money.

Your “company” is not a card, or a plan, or a goal. Your company is the sum total of all you are doing to get that music heard. Therefore, don’t get caught up in building empires, or setting up offices, or printing corporate letterhead. All that will come together if and when you start building a buzz, generating interest and hearing about people asking DJs (live ones, radio ones, all kinds) to play your tracks. Take it one step at a time, and make sure the steps are mapped out as well as you can map them out. Of course there will be surprises, missteps, mistakes, unforeseen things both good and bad, but you just stay persistent.

If you start making some waves, keep on learning how to ride them, get help when you need it and never be afraid to get back on the board if you wipe out. I never knew surfing could be such an appropriate metaphor for the music business, but there it is!

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After founding his first security firm in 1990, Scott McQuarrie built several security-related companies into regional and national powerhouses over the ensuing years. Since 2000 he has focused his sales and marketing efforts on the Internet, which opened up a virtually unlimited, international market for his flagship product line, EZWatch Pro.

The EZWatch Pro brand has come to stand for world-class expertise in electronic security, video surveillance and the myriad technologies involved in both fields. From small houses to gigantic international airports, there is an EZWatch Pro solution to meet any and every residential, business, commercial and government security challenge.