For years now, aspiring musicians and artists thought the only real path to success was getting a record deal with a major label, and for me, as a recording engineer / music producer, I believed that the only way that I was going to get paid well was to work with an artist who had a recording contract.

The Music Business has Changed, the Internet and low-cost recording technologies have created a profitable do-it-yourself Indie Music movement with endless options for recording, mixing, mastering and music production, which has changed the recording business forever. I regrettably have to report that I have talked to many songwriters, artists, producers and engineers who still believe the only road to widespread acclaim can only be achieved through a record deal.

Word to the wise, “The Music Business has Changed, What about You?”

I know from experience that one of the best ways to approach a career in the music business as a musician who writes and performs original music is to take control, get your hands dirty, and market your music yourself. I know that one of the best ways as an engineer or producer to approach your career is to be flexible and able to go from a commercial recording studio, to a project studio, to a home studio (I call it making house calls).

Please understand that no one will ever feel as strongly about your career as you do! Which means you and only you are the best person in the known universe to spread the news about you and your craft. Sure, promoting your own music and or your craft takes a lot of effort, there is no doubt about that, but it’s well worth it. And despite what you may have heard, it can be profitable.

Ralph Sutton is a dynamic Recording, Mixing, and Mastering Engineer with over 28 years experience in Recording Engineering & Music Production for the world’s brightest and most exacting artists.
Ralph Sutton’s Music Production Blog is about recording, mixing, mastering, music production, and the indie music movement, and how to best succeed in today’s music business.
http://ralphsutton.com/blog
http://ralphsutton.com/blog/2009/12/%E2%80%9Cthe-music-business-has-changed-what-about-you%E2%80%9D/

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.