I was having an e-mail exchange with another member of this community and the conversation was about how to market the music of a musician while putting a meal or two on the table of the musician who created the artwork.

I thought it would be interesting to see how others in this community would approach marketing a musician and generating some type of income stream for the efforts.  I have posted below a stripped version of my response to her after she explained why they offer only a few songs for free download without offering purchasing capabilities for the CD itself.

With that said, I still wonder if you have debated the possibility of providing sale of the music with the barrier being a "you pay us, we'll ship you the CD" perspective.  I agree that viral marketing can be a powerful force on the net but if you cannot convert these fans into consumers of the music, your artist will not be able to afford to practice his craft.  With the Jay Walkers, in January we set up a PayPal button for both CD's and t-shirts and although we have not generated any sales to date, it still seems better to leave such a door open.  He doesn't need to manufacture the CD's until after the sale and not everyone is download-savvy, such as myself.  I don't own an i-Pod and I don't burn CD's very often and tend to screw up a few before getting it right.

Many shoppers on the net expect a natural shipping delay, just take a look at E-bay.  They sell tapes and CD's without download capabilities and depending on the artist, these items do sell.  If you were to offer your CD for sale on-line without posting all of the materials, you leave the door open for people from across the world to become happy consumers of Shayne's music without giving it all away for free.  Samples are great but they aren't necessarily designed to put food on an artists table either.  One of my bigger pet peeves happens to be the small bar owners that tell you they can only pay the band $50.00 for playing, but they'll get "great exposure" if they do the gig.  It's not in their inability to pay a high rate, its the theoretical promise of "great exposure."  Most of these bars will not advertise and unless the band has a decent fan base/mailing list, only a relative few people will actually be in the bar. 

I hope you will forgive an aging musician who never pushed her skills very far to further debate the issue with you, but when it comes to the economics of art, I certainly carry with me strong idealistic opinions in favor of the artist somehow being able to feed and clothes themselves if their artwork is "sufficiently" appreciated.

There was a poet by the name of Vachel Lindsey who used to trade a meal and a bed for a live performance of some of his poetry works while traveling across the states.  His poetry was appreciated and he appreciated the meal and a warm place to sleep.  Win-win.  I keep wondering why we can't create these types of conditions using the Internet...

Any thoughts?  Opinions?

I agree that you need to charge for what you do..

Websites are a hobby for me, as the pay rate is around 1% of my day job

In contracting, people are forever suggesting that you build the garage addition for nothing, because their cousin is thinking about building a house. You'd need to have been dropped as a baby to buy that. Each "deal" stands on it's own merit or dies. It's a lot harder to adopt that attitude when you've less work than you desire, but you will arrive there eventually. The difference is, if you're young, you really do need the experience. Later on, you know how to do it and simply don't require additional "training".

Musicians, I know little about.

My instincts say you need to learn to "read" the environment. In other words, if you're unknown, and you can play for 500 people and the best deal you can make is $50.00, I'd take it. If you have 15 people, it costs a hundred (because the odds of making another "connection" are low). If you have a following and people enjoy your music, then you establish a scale with a little flexibility to make deals with. Musicians need to know how to entertain and they need to make the right connections..

Sort of like websites. If you build it, they won't bother to come unless you drag them, kicking and screaming by well developed, optimized pages that SE's have signed off on. It's just more complicated than you're led to believe..

Hey guys!  Thought I'd just put my few cents worth in    Basically, I agree with you both - however, it totally depends on what that musicians goals and intentions are.  For instance, if your goal is simply to make music and songs for other people's enjoyment, or for your own and they are professionally recorded and you don't care to make a career out of it, then by all means...  sell them - you may recover your expenses and then some.  However, I guess (in my artist's case), it's a bit of a different story.  He is wanting to make a career out of it.  I think if we offer 2 of his songs for free (which is what we are doing on his website), then it's far more likely that people will download and pass them on to friends. Heck, with something for free - if you like it - you're gonna tell others right?  Anyways, we did do some research on the subject to figure out which is best for us - and we came across the story of The Arctic Monkeys (big band from Britain that are fairly new), and that's how they did it - offered a couple of free songs....  word got out... they got a following...  people turned up to their shows - and in the end it was ALL because of the internet - the underground fans!!  The record companies were sitting up saying "how the heck did this happen without us"??!!!  LOL 
So, in our respect, it's more important to get a following and fanbase at this stage than to make money out of it.  If all goes according to plan...  then heck, we'll be ok
Actually, we just found out yesterday that 2 of his songs have been accepted into a very prominent music library!!  THAT alone is very exciting to us....  so yeah, we are exploring many avenues - the internet is just one of them

Dunno if you've heard about these yet........

the Arctic monkeys (google it) are a rock band from Sheffield UK. They had a smallish following at home. One of their fans decided to record a few of their live tracks and create a myspace page. This launched them BIG time. less than a year after the pages were created, the arctics had had 4 top ten singles and a number one album. won the mercury music award, Q awards and a Brit.
They are now one of the biggest bands in the country, all down to myspace. advertisers are clamboring over each other to use their tracks for tv ads.

They recentlystarted touring the states, but I doubt they'll "get" them over there (very english culture)

Now, you only asked for a meal, not super stardom, but I thought Id give you that little case study.

Now, you only asked for a meal, not super stardom, but I thought Id give you that little case study.

This band has benefitted from the always-present sharp economically turn upward when the audience volume gets turned up to 11.  This word-of-mouth strategy has been a core dream of every musician throughout the history of music, especially when technology explosively began connecting audience members directly with the artists.

You observed I only asked for a meal for an artist with this particular conversation thread and maybe this continues to remain too idealistic for such a selfish dream.  Generating buzz about a musician is different than the musician generating income derived from those finding worth in somehow attaching themselves to the artist and their efforts. 

For example, MySpace makes significant bucks through advertising because advertisers know their community is very active in the task of leveraging the tools on the site to make it "the" place for musicians to post their materials for free.  Do it here while I tell you a story about someone who made big bucks because their "fans" demanded the opportunity from those in decision-making positions in the music industry.  But this is a logistics game as much as marketing issue and most have their music never listened to because all of the auto-bot-added friends they accidentally accepted don't actually care about the people they be-friend.

It just continues to seem odd to have the cash flow an artist participates in generating seems to swirl just out of their reach...as if they were standing in one of those wind-blowing boxes with $5 and $10 dollar bills, but wait!  There is 1 $1,000,000 check floating somewhere in there as well! (gasp from the audience).  Quick!  Wave your arms like a maniac and open and close your fingers...it's somewhere in the box!  There it is!  Use your whole body and flatten it against a wall.  Now quickly try to scrape what you've trapped off of the plastic wall!  Damn!  You missed!  You walk away with a measly $15.00 dollars for your efforts and the organizers of the event walk away with thousands of dollars generated by selling ad space on the box you were just performing a "raining money dance."

Yes I asked for ideas on how to provide steady meals for musicians because I continue to severely lack ideas on how to bring about a certain level of economic predictability if an artist was to "follow steps A through G."  Granted if the playing field was to level out for musicians, there might be an exodus of web designers from the industry, but there are few true musicians that would not be at least tantalized by the idea that they can quit their "day job" and somehow know they'll "bring home the bacon" day after day after day because they picked up a guitar, a trumpet, drums or even a triangle and somehow convinced people to part with their money because what they do with the instrument is worth at least a meal...

Buyah to viral marketing and music, but I still don't think its the only way to feed a true musician.  In Adam Smith's book "Wealth of Nations," it clearly explains the economic value of ensuring each individual is somehow maximizing the biology they were given, because it is more likely these individuals will produce higher quantities and higher quality results than someone unhappy with their jobs.  The historic efforts of artists have never been treated as economic equals...just look at all of the painters that gained their "claim to fame" after their death.  Poets that couldn't sell a drop of their writings until after they were sent to some insane asylum or some other dramatic "tragedy" occurred in their life.  I have met many musicians who hung with the likes of Wolfman Jack, Styx, Muddy Waters, and it is the rare one indeed that still plays as a living.  Responsibilities demanded a more "guaranteed" income and nowadays relying upon the frequently fickle and hyper-short attention this augmented ability to connect with audience members has created is simply too risky to work towards building without a solid, step by step plan on what behaviors the musician must perform away from the stage, such as web site maintenance! ;>)

I'll take my soap box and go now... (falls while trying to remove the box before stepping off of it)

Nice thread, especially since I'm also a guitar player.

Money for music.... To make it steady? Impossible.

Music is a 'want' and not a 'need'. People will pay if the want it.

Most of your cash will come if the music happens to jive with the current mainstream. Other times, you might starve.

To be truly successful... You're going to have to go out and grab life by the nutz. Sad, yes... but it's the way it is.

If your musician wants to sit at home, write tunes, and collect money from the net.... then both of you will need to work a lot harder. You need to start locally. Grab some gigs. Find out if your boy can open up for another band... just a couple songs. Save up some money to make a descent recording, and slowly fan out around the area.

But you MUST do anything besides sit and wait for the paypal message - "You've got cash!"

MrStitch wrote:

To be truly successful... You're going to have to go out and grab life by the nutz. Sad, yes... but it's the way it is.

If your musician wants to sit at home, write tunes, and collect money from the net.... then both of you will need to work a lot harder. You need to start locally. Grab some gigs. Find out if your boy can open up for another band... just a couple songs. Save up some money to make a descent recording, and slowly fan out around the area.

But you MUST do anything besides sit and wait for the paypal message - "You've got cash!"

Trust me, like i said above - the internet is not the main part of what we are doing and the choices we are making - it's just a small part.  He has had a tonne of experience playing and opening for a couple of major bands here in NZ, but the music industry here in such a small country is very different to the international industry.  Rock music just does not have the popularity here as it does overseas (here in NZ, it's a lot of the R&B genre).  However, there has been a lot of noise about Shayne's music, and we have a producer in Australia who is a great supporter and has advised that it would go down well in America....  so yeah...  we not just sitting on our butts waiting to sell the music on the net - that would NEVER happen.  You have to have a passion for what you are doing, and work your ass off at getting it.... that is exactly what we are doing

Rock on guys...   

I'm a guitar player so this thread caught my eye. I think until a following is built a musician should capitalize on the nets power to get his or her name in the public eye. I'd post as much free content as possible inlcuding video if available. Besides determined people can find almost anything online free. Once your well know then I'd switch to capitilazing on popularity.

jimifan wrote:

I'm a guitar player so this thread caught my eye. I think until a following is built a musician should capitalize on the nets power to get his or her name in the public eye. I'd post as much free content as possible inlcuding video if available. Besides determined people can find almost anything online free. Once your well know then I'd switch to capitilazing on popularity.

Well Said

On the off-chance that the original poster hasn't solved the problems and is still reading....

*own website with one of two free download 'taster' songs; and integrated way to buy CDs (buy now buttons, etc)
*Ebay shop - people searching on ebay will find it too

Northie wrote:

On the off-chance that the original poster hasn't solved the problems and is still reading....

*own website with one of two free download 'taster' songs; and integrated way to buy CDs (buy now buttons, etc)
*Ebay shop - people searching on ebay will find it too

LOL!  I haven't solved The Problem but that is because I am too busy volunteering my time working on a newsletter as a favor to a friend.

Minor topic change:  Did anyone ever publish a list of changes that have happened here over the past few months?  And sorry for the extended absence, but the warm summer weather forced me to relinquish a few enjoyable habits such as reading and writing in this forum.  BTW, my excuse for checking out the forums today and basically hanging out is that it is a holiday weekend, darn it and I am going to do at least one thing I used to enjoy that I hadn't done in a while...

For I am but a mere flake of a musician, unique with my disappearance acts!