Know your Industry

KNOW YOUR INDUSTRY - Be realistic - Create payment Channels - Make Connections - Know when to let go

If you make music and you think that it’s good enough to sell, how do you go about making it available and is it really worth it?

Knowing your industry is all about understanding how other people in your sector earn their living. Learn the names of the main companies involved and finding out what they actually do.  If you want to put your track up on iTunes then there are services like Tunecore that will allow you to do it, if you want your music in the official charts however, then this option is no good for you.  To find out why this is the case you need to understand how the music industry is set up and what the advantages are to have a record deal versus ‘going it alone’.

A great place to start understanding the music industry is to know the difference between a ‘Major’ record label and an ‘Independent‘ label.  A lot of people tend to think that signing a major record deal is the ultimate goal and therefore orientate themselves around that goal.  Major labels very rarely sign act on the basis of someone sending them a demo CD or link to a MySpace page.  If you’re making hip hop tracks that all your friends love, then it doesn’t follow that Universal will have a deal ready for you to sign just a soon as they hear your music.  It normally takes tracks with exceptional production, artists with a lot of live performance experience and ultimately songs that will sell on the mass market for a Major label to be interested.  In most cases you’d be better off going to an Independent hip hop label to try and get them involved because in the end, if you outgrow them then the Major labels will find you if they’re interested.

So what about publishers? If a music publisher phoned you up tomorrow and offered to pay $1500 for one of your tracks, would you know what to say?  It’s sounds like a decent amount, but you'd probably want to see the contract. So do you know what details to look out for and even if you understand that contract do you know what percentage (if any) of your music you should be giving away?

It’s no good to just hope that someone will buy your music like a product in a shop. Making money in music is all about creating something that you own and then hedging your bets about what it’s actually worth.  There are plenty of stories about people selling all the rights to their music and then it being a worldwide success, but plenty more of people that fight tooth and nail to hold on to their copyright and end up worse off because of it. You need to learn what is acceptable as a standard and what you should get in return for signing any contracts.  The key lesson is to be realistic.