New Artist Checklist

I've posted a previous article a few months ago about SoundExchange, the company that collects and distributes royalties for online and satellite music streaming. It's something that every musician should register for if you have music that's playing online, since that's the only way you'll get paid as a performer (ASCAP, BMI and SESAC only collect for mechanical and performance royalties for songwriters, not musical performances).

They've recently posted a New Artist Checklist that's so good that it deserves reposting. Even if you've been around for a while, chances are you missed at least one of the following. Check it out.

Register your copyrights Copyrights to your original creative works exist as soon as you fix the sounds or words or notes to a medium (written down or recorded). But to secure additional legal rights, you must register your copyrights with the US Copyright Office. Electronic registrations can be processed much more quickly than mailed registrations. Also, sound recording and music composition recordings can be registered together, which, if you own both, is cheaper than doing them separately.  Draft an agreement between band members In the glow of the creative process, it’s easy to forget to put things in writing. Write out an agreement in case issues come up at a later time (and they often do). The agreement should address the rights and responsibilities of the band members including who owns what percentage of the business, what property is owned or controlled by the business (including the band name, web site, and equipment) and who funds the bands and looks after its finances. Break out the percentage of ownership rights of each track – who wrote it? How will you split royalties? Discuss what will happen if band members depart, or new members join. Again, we suggest you consult a qualified attorney, to see if and when incorporation or a formal partnership would be recommended to help protect your assets. At any stage, it’s important to have some kind of written agreement in place.  Trademark your name and logo The US Patent and Trademark Office oversees trade and service marks. Make sure no one else owns the rights to your name and/or logo and if not, be sure to register it. It may be your only way to prevent someone from claiming he or she owned the name first, or claiming to be you later. Registrations can be made in different “classes” to cover recordings, live performances, merchandise and other classes, so make sure you cover the bases. Registration costs can add up in a hurry, but a band or artist name and brand may become one of your biggest assets, so it’s well worth it to protect it early.  Form a company (or companies as necessary) for your label, songwriting/publishing, touring, merchandising, etc.) It’s important to look at your work as a small business, not just a creative hobby, and to get all your legal protections in place. Forming a company, partnership, sole proprietorship or LLC and keeping separate financial records can help ensure that you’re compliant with taxes and can protect your interests. A consultation with an entertainment attorney and/or an accountant is strongly recommended.  Pick a songwriting Performing Rights Organization and register – ASCAP, BMI or SESAC If you’re a songwriter or publisher with a song copyright, you’re entitled to collect royalties from public performances of your musical compositions (for instance, the royalties that you are entitled to receive when the songs you wrote are played on the radio). ASCAP, BMI and SESAC take care of this kind of licensing, collect fees from them and pay them to you. They all cover the same copyright, so you only need to affiliate with one. Check out their websites and see which might be best for you.  Register with SoundExchange If you performed on and/or own the masters of a sound recording, you can collect royalties from anyone who streams that track digitally (webcasters, satellite or Internet radio, etc). SoundExchange is the only organization designated by the US government to collect and distribute these royalties, so register now to claim your money. It’s totally free.  Arrange for Distribution Set up an account for digital distribution with an aggregator like IODA, INgrooves, TuneCore, The Orchard or similar companies which allow you to make your music available to the public for digital downloading at popular sites like iTunes,Amazon and others. Be sure to properly enter all metadata accurately during this process since it will propagate everywhere after that. Understand the obligations, splits and commitments you make by entering into an agreement so that you know how it may limit other opportunities.  Embed metadata about each track into each digital file. If a music service opens your file or pops in your CD, and sees ‘Track 1’ and ‘Artist Unknown,’ you could miss out on royalties. While services and webcasters are supposed to report all the tracks they play, they’re busy, and you need to make it as easy as possible. Many millions of dollars have been earmarked for “promo only,” “self-released” and “artist unknown.” Include, at the very least, the artist or group name, copyright holder or label name, and track and album titles, and the ISRC number, if available. Most mastering software includes the ability to embed this data, and online services are available.   Buy/register your website address and social network domains  Start your online marketing and fan building by registering and creating your domain names. It’s common practice for vendors to buy up domains in hopes they’ll be able to jack up the price to sell them back to you when you need them, so pin down the names as soon as you can. Also, create your band’s official profiles on the various popular social networking and sharing sites such as MySpace, Facebook,Twitter, iLike and YouTube.  Check out organizations and associations which may benefit you  There are lots of groups out there doing great things for musicians. Not all of them will be right for you, but a few of them may be. Consider unions like the American Federation of Musicians and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which represent a wide variety of musicians and performers, at all stages in their careers. Check out what groups like The Recording Academy and musicFIRSTare doing to protect your work. There are also payment funds, including the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies and the AFM & AFTRA Intellectual Property Rights Distribution Fund, which may have funds to offer for certain kinds of work you’ve done. Many regional and local organizations are also available, and many of these groups offer member benefits and discounts on services you may use. Educate yourself about all the associations which may be open to you, and find out what choices can help you advance your career.   Build your web presence Use your site and social network profiles to sell merchandise, display a photo gallery, and dispense news updates and tour events. Keep the information fresh and interesting. Cross-link and expand your social network communications to drive fans to your website. Consider periodic email or other mass-blasts to keep your audience informed. Be authentic and consistent.  Get health and equipment insurance You want to be able to rock on for years to come, so don’t take any risks. When you’re on the road or at gigs, equipment can disappear, so find affordable but adequate insurance. In addition to private companies, some labor unions and organizations, offer health plans, but do your research to find the right plan for you. Check out the Health Insurance Navigation Tool (HINT) program—a good place to start looking, and get some free advice.  Build your team and assign responsibilities (merchandising, bookings, social media, accounting, licensing, publicity, email management, etc.) Build your business by having the right helpers in place. Assign those tasks to the person or group best suited to them. Many online enhancements or replacements for hired help are available (SonicBids, CDBaby, TopSpin,ReverbNation, Rumblefish, FanBridge, Nimbit and others) which allow artists to take on many of these tasks themselves.  Create great music!  There is no substitute for creative productivity. This is what artists do. So create often and let your audience know what you’ve been up to. It’ll take a lot of work, but before you know it, you could be living the dream.  ----------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business. Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Ariel Hyatt's "Music Success In Nine Weeks"

I was fortunate to finally meet Ariel Hyatt at the ASCAP Expo a couple of weeks ago, something that I had looked forward to for some time. Ariel is founder of Ariel Publicity, a PR firm that specializes in the music business (especially helping bands) and one of the few centered exclusively on online public relations (she calls it "Cyber PR").

A few months ago when I began asking around for recommendations for a PR agency for a client of mine, two people who I respect enormously, Derek Sivers (founder of CD Baby) and Bruce Houghton (founder of the influential music blog Hypebot), both told me she was the best in the business. Now that I've met her, I totally believe it.

Ariel and I spoke for about 45 minutes about the music business, social networking, and the steps that bands need to take to make their presence felt online. To say that I was impressed is an understatement. She's one of the few people in the business that totally gets it, but even better, knows how to use what she knows to help those that can't do it for themselves.

After the conference, I eagerly read Ariel's book, "Music Success In Nine Weeks," and totally loved it. It's loaded with information about navigating the online space, but it's also a workbook that takes you by the hand and shows you how to do your own PR (both online and traditional), establish and build your email list, get the most out of your website, how to set up a successful blog, and generally focus yourself and your energy to make sure you're aiming in the right direction to attain your musical goals. It's very well written and a quick and easy read.

How good is this book? I figured that I would just skim through the book since I already know a good bit about how the social media world works, but I couldn't put it down and wound up learning a lot myself since the book covers so much more than social media. Her information is concise, to the point, and easy to grasp, no matter if you're a social media veteran or just dipping your toe into the online waters for the first time.

The title is not hype. If you want music success in a relatively short time, read this book (and read Music 3.0: A Survival Guide For Making Music In The Internet Age too). If you don't have the time or inclination to do it yourself, hire Ariel's company. At the very least, check out her archive website and sign up for her email newsletter. I guarantee you will learn a lot.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Music Industry Looking Up A Bit

Go to any music industry conference or trade show and about all you'll hear is doom and gloom about the current state of the business. Of course, the pundits are correct in their assessment that things aren't like they once were - sales have declined about 54% since 2000. But in some areas, things are actually looking up according to the latest report by the IFPI (International Federation of Phonogram Producers), which represents the the music industry world-wide.

So what's on the rise?

1) Performance royalties on recordings were up 7.6 percent to $785 million in 2009.

2) Digital music sales have risen by 9.2 percent to $4.307 billion, which now account for 25.3 percent of all worldwide music sales.

3) The rate of decline on physical product (like the CD) has declined, slipping only 12.7 percent in 2009, which was down from the 15% drop in 2008.

4) 13 countries actually had gains in 2009, including Australia (up by 4.3%), Sweden (11.9%!!), the UK (1.9%), and South Korea (10.4%).

On a side note, the British Phonograph Industry's (BPI - the UK version of the RIAA) released their 2009 numbers as well, and while they're in the ballpark with the IFPI's figures, they are a bit different.

In the UK, digital sales are growing by a rate of 48%, the decline of the CD sales is 14%, and digital music revenues are 21% of the total sales.

The RIAA has not yet released the music sales figures for the United States, although that should be any time now.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

The Online Habits Of Teens

The last thing you want to do if you're a songwriter or band is to try to write something specifically for a particular demographic. Unless you're true to yourself, your art will always suffer. As I've said in many of my books:

Art is something you do for yourself. A craft is something you do for everyone else.

Still, knowing more about a particular demo can at least explain why something is selling or not. That's why the new study of 1000 boys and girls age 13 to 19 by Buzz Marketing is so fascinating. The data tells you a lot about how teens think in 2010. Some interesting points:

• When a new song debuts, most kids download the song on iTunes or listen to it on MySpace or Pandora.

• 74% of teens say they don't download music illegally.

• When asked 'Would you buy an iPad?" 64% of teens said no.

• Boys prefer blogs (63%), while girls prefer magazines (55%).

• 13 year olds still hear new music first on the radio, not on the Internet or from TV videos.

• Since 2008, popularity in hip-hop and R&B music has declined, while rock is getting a boost.

• 85% of teens said they cut down spending during the recession, but clothing and dining out were among the top cuts. Buying music is 6th on the list of spending cuts.

• 55% prefer albums to singles

• Facebook is the most visited site, followed by Google, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter and Flckr. In fact, 83% prefer Facebook to MySpace.

Kinda destroys some long-held beliefs about how teens consume media, doesn't it? Go to the Business Insider site to read the entire report.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Natty's Fan Funding - Brilliant Or A Scam?

As if we didn't need more evidence that the era of the major record label is over, now comes this. Atlantic Records is asking the fans of trip-hop artist Natty to fund a release. The company as teamed up with the fan-funding platform Pledge Music to try to make this happen.

My first reaction to this news was, "Is Atlantic (really it's parent Warner Music Group) in that bad a shape that it can't afford to fund a record?"

My second thought was, "The audacity of the company to even think of such a thing. If they can't even provide the budget for a record, why be on the label at all? What good are they?"

But then I examined the story a bit to find that this outside funding is actually not for Natty's second Atlantic album at all. It's for a separate stripped down collection of songs. Could this be a brilliant PR move?

Here's why it just might be a lot smarter move than the music pundits think:

1) I'm posting about it now, and it's been all over the music press this week. What better way to get some publicity before the album is released?

2) The press and the buzz will be on-going as everyone keeps track of just how much is raised. It's a no-lose proposition. If he doesn't raise enough, he's in the news. If he meets his goal, he's in the news.

3) Natty will have another set of songs to release as soon as the momentum dies down of the real album. He could release the songs as a collection, or he can release them one at a time online. Either way, it doesn't impact the real album at all except call attention to it.

4) It allows Natty to make a lot of other PR moves that he couldn't other wise. All of the extras that most artists do for a fan-funded record can be employed here, all keeping his name in the news. For instance, Natty will give a private acoustic concert in your own home for £600 - £5,000, all the way up to Natty remixing your track for for £1,200.

The downside - It's been reported that Atlantic won't be sharing any profit from the record with the fans that paid for it. Now that's a scam.

The Long Tail - It Works If You Work It

When Chris Anderson's book "The Long Tail" came out in 2006, it was immediately acclaimed as a brilliant new theory of how the new digital economy worked. By 2007 economists everywhere where blasting the theory as a false bill of goods, one that really didn't approximate the new economy at all. I've posted on this previously on my Big Picture blog back in May of 2009 (before the Music 3.0 blog that you're now reading was instituted), but I think it's time to revisit the subject since I recently spotted a thread on the CD Baby forum after a podcast by Chris that was pretty dismissive of his premise.

For those of you not familiar with The Long Tail theory as it applies to music, it states that a consumer will buy a lot more songs in an artist's catalog than he will of his hits if only the catalog songs were available, the catalog being "the long tail." In other words, if you get someone to come to a site to buy your latest hit, they'll stick around and buy even more of your older releases too.

Then came a study by an unnamed music service (speculation is it was the iTunes store) in early 2009  that stated that of their 12 million songs, 9 million didn't sell a single copy in the previous year, which flies against the wind of The Long Tail theory. At this point, economists who never bought the theory in the first place danced on the Long Tail's grave.

But wait. There's more to the theory than just having the catalog available for purchase. After having studied the Long Tail theory in depth for my Music 3.0 book, I've come to the conclusion that this study and most every other doesn't take into account 2 of the theory's 3 main points. These are:

• in order for people to purchase items in the Long Tail, the items must be easy to find and easily available.

• the items in the Long Tail must be priced attractively, something that iTunes or any other digital service hasn't only recently begun to do.

So you have to have all three items for the Long Tail to work. Before the naysayers dismiss this theory, they must give all facets of it a chance work. With variable pricing now in use by most digital stores, we should soon see how price affects sales. But even with the right pricing, it's that "easy to find" part that's really at the heart of all the debate. Only time will tell how accurate the Long Tail theory really is.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

3 Free Online Measurement Tools

One of the questions I received at the recent ASCAP Expo event was about the kind of online measurement tools that I used, so I thought that might make a good topic for today's post. Believe it or not, I think that some of the free ones are the best, at least for me. These are the ones that I use all the time:

1) StatCounter - This is by far my favorite measurement tool. StatCounter provides a suite of measurements far more detailed than what you get from your ISP, like not only the number of unique visitors, but the entry and exit page, where they recently came from, the keywords used used to find the site, the time on site, the number of return visits, and location information detailed enough that you can almost see into the visitors house. You just place a piece of invisible code on your website or blog and away you go. StatCounter only remembers the info for your last 500 visitors, and anything beyond that requires a monthly fee, but the free version is still great.


2) Tynt Tracer - Another tool that requires that you insert some invisible code, Tynt Tracer differs from just about anything else in that it measures how many copies of text or graphics were made from your site or blog. In other words, if someone copies a piece of text from your site and inserts it on another site or blog, Tynt Tracer knows about it, and then can track how many visits came to your site from that copied piece. What's more, you can also program it to insert a Creative Commons license warning when someone copies and pastes your content. The analytics are difficult to decipher sometimes, but it's certainly a cool and useful tool.

3) Google Analytics - There's no code involved with Google Analytics. You just register your site or blog, then leave the rest to Google. You get somewhat the same information as with StatCounter, but you also get some trending information that's very useful.

There are a ton of paid measurement tools out there, but why spend any money until you really need to? These 3 will get you started and take care of most of your measurement needs for quite a while.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

My ASCAP Expo Music 3.0 Talk

I was honored to be asked to do an interview and book signing for my Music 3.0 Internet Music Guidebook on Saturday at the ASCAP Expo in Hollywood. Click on the link for a short video excerpt of my ASCAP interview. I believe the full interview will be online shortly and I'll post the link, since the questions were great and I'm sure were representative of many of the questions my readers have.

I also presented a short workshop on Friday on IK Multimedia's T-RackS 3 mastering software in the West LA Music room. There were a lot of requests for my ASCAP T-RackS Keynote presentation, so I've put it online. As with most Keynote presentations, it's a lot better if you hear the talk that goes with it, but hopefully you'll get the idea.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Will Apple Reinvent Concert Ticketing?

As if being a leader in the computer, mobil and music businesses weren't enough, Apple is working on a new technology in hopes of revolutionizing the concert ticket business.

Apple's new iTunes Concert + utilizes the iPhone for buy tickets to concerts, amusement parks, museums, baseball games, and even assist with wedding invitations.

Once at the event, the Concert + ticket will also make additional purchases for parking, swag, and refreshments with the same account possible.

The concert business is in need of an overhaul, with 3rd party ticket brokers and even the bands and promoters holding back the most prized seats that will then command several times their face value in the aftermarket. Concert goers have long been fed up with additional service charges that can add as much as 50% extra to the ticket price as well, and are eager for any system that limits these charges. With Apple's system, the ticket will be personalized to the buyer, making it difficult to transfer to another individual, which keeps secondary ticket brokers out of the market. No word yet what would happen with service charges like those charged by Ticketmaster, but it's thought that they would be limited.

Right now there's no timetable for iTunes Concert + introduction, but it can't get here soon enough. The system we have now favors everyone but the one who matters most - the fan.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Music 3.0 - The Rupert Perry Interview Excerpt

One of the most respected and beloved executives in the music industry, Rupert Perry held a variety of executive positions with EMI for 32 years, from VP of A&R at Capitol Records and president of EMI America all the way up to the worldwide position of VP, EMI Recorded Music. During his time at EMI, Rupert worked with variety of superstar artists such as The Beatles, Blur, Duran Duran, Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd, Queen, and Radiohead and is the co-author of the fine book Northern Songs: The True Story of The Beatles’ Song Publishing Empire.

Here's an excerpt from an interview I did with Rupert for my Music 3.0 Internet Music Guidebook.

What’s the future of the major labels? Do you think they’ll survive?
I think they’ll survive because they and a lot of smaller labels have catalogs of recorded music and someone always wants to consume it. But they also have to consider what kind of business they’re in now. They’re not really into artist development anymore or signing lots of new artists like they used to in the past. What they’re really involved in is the business of rights management. They’re managing the rights in the same way that publishers are managing rights. The music publishing industry and the recorded music industry, two industries that grew up side by side, are now coming together a lot faster now because it’s a business of rights.

If you’re an artist, you will decide if you can manage your rights yourself or, if you’ve become successful, need someone to manage them for you on a global basis. Then maybe you go to one of these entities. Either way, you’re going to have a much greater degree of flexibility in how you deal with those rights going forward.

What would be the best way to break an act these days?
It’s back to immediately being able to build your website first, then communicating and interacting with your fans. Even if you only have 50 email addresses when you start, if you’re any good that will increase. Create your MySpace and Facebook pages because someone will see you and want to go to your website. When they get there you want them to be one click to anywhere they need to go. If they want to buy something, it’s one click. If they want a ticket, it’s one click. If they want to read the bio or see the photos, it’s one click. But in the end, it’s your songs and your performance that’s going to drive the traffic.

What you still never get away from is that it’s still about a song and it’s still about a performance of that song. Can you play that song in front of your audience however large or small and create the "WOW Factor?“

Is a CD necessary these days?
It still may be. People tell me that they sell 50 or 100 CDs at a show. If you control your content, sell X number of CDs, X number of T-shirts and merch, and stay on the road, you can make a pretty good living. You may not be a household name but you’ll have a really strong fan base, you’ll know who they are, and you’ll be able to communicate with them. The fan/consumer is the piece of the puzzle that you really need.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

The Cost Of Buying A Song

You have a lot of choices as to which online distributor to use to distribute your music, but you're going to make more money on iTunes than anywhere else simply because they charge more.

As the chart on the left shows, of the 6 most prominent music download distribution sites, it costs the consumer more to buy 10 albums from iTunes than any other site as reported by Ed Bott on ZDNet.

But despite the better deals from other distributors, iTunes still holds a commanding lead in market share, with 69%. That used to be because iTunes had the largest selection, but that's no longer true. According to eMarketer in a January report of this year, iTunes had  roughly 11 million tracks in its catalog, Amazon 10 million and Lala offered 8 million (Lala is now owned by Apple). Rhapsody, eMusic, and the Zune Marketplace each have 6 million tracks to choose from.

Even though iTunes holds the lead in market share, that doesn't mean you should discount the other distributors. It's likely that iTunes will continue to lead in the near future, but you may see the others begin to catch up as consumers become aware of their benefits. Cdbaby and Tunecore are still your best bets when planning your distribution campaigns, since it's the easiest way to reach every distributor, both online and with physical goods.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

6 Tips On How To Grow Your Online Audience

Here are some great tips from Bill Flitter from a recent Mashable post about growing your online audience. Although his post wasn't entirely on that subject, I thought that the following part of the post was especially poignant.

6 tips on how to grow your online audience (my comments are in italics):

• 1) Use Hashtags: If you are posting to Twitter, add a hashtag to improve your SEO value. We've discussed this in a few recent posts. Check out this post about hashtags if you're not familiar with the concept.
• 2) Use Strong Headlines: Spend extra time writing great headlines. Pack them full of topical words that search engines will find (but don’t overdo it). But make sure that your keyword phrases are still relevant to your post, which is the hard part.
• 3) Recycle: With the amount of content flowing in the stream, something is bound to go unnoticed. Send out your most popular content again. Add a label to it, like “Most Popular Today…” It may attract someone new. It's best not to send too many posts or tweets, but this does work.
• 4) Use Paid Distribution: If your budget permits, take your most popular content and syndicate it outside your personal networks through paid promotion. We'll spend more time on this topic in an upcoming post.
• 5) Use Widgets: Widgets are an easy way to display popular content across different sites and remind your audience which social networks you participate in. We'll spend more time on this topic in an upcoming post.
• 6) Use E-mail: Don’t forget about e-mail. Some people still prefer to get messages that way. Once again, this is a topic we've discussed many times before. Email should be your #1 way of reaching out and touching your fans. Here are several posts about email to check out: 4 Reasons Why Your Email List Is Still Important, Email Service Providers And Why They're Necessary, and 5 Tips For Building Your Email List.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.