Thanks to Lori’s help and to a much easier schedule since moving into Center City Philadelphia, I’ve got the road map for all new updates to my series of music business books in 2011: Grow Your Band’s Audience (“Tenth Anniversary…
Giving yourself the space to shine.
Pamela Slim writes that it’s easy for creative people to fool themselves into thinking that their strengths can overcompensate for environmental variables. Have you ever watched yourself spiral downward with something that’s usually a cinch? It happens to musicians and…
Scoring Big on the Secondary Concert Ticket Market
Jay Frank and I were chatting not long ago about concert ticket pricing and margin for large touring acts. He and I have both managed bands, booked bands, and booked venues, so we’ve seen this from both sides: Nearly every…
Putting the Wolf at the Door: Setting Hard Goals for Your Music Business Career
At the start of every new year, plenty of us resolve to lose weight, to get our finances in order, and to generally get our asses in gear. Ian Ayres, author of Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to…
Why You Should Own Your Band’s Website
Delicious is dying. And if you’re not a hardcore web citizen, you might not know the reason why so many folks have become so upset about it. In short: a beloved, free service that thousands of people used to automate…
Four Rules for Artistic Success
James Danziger offers four essential rules for young photographers to “survive” in what’s becoming a challenging line of work. It strikes me that all four rules apply to emerging musicians and artist managers, too: 1. Have talent. Danziger says, “Talent…
Make Space to Leave MySpace
The alarm clock woke me up with the news that a senior News Corporation executive hinted about the possible closure of MySpace within “quarters, not years.” Even if MySpace manages to avoid a total shutdown, independent musicians should worry whenever…
Music Management Skills: Act as if you’ve already got the power to make your artist a star.
“Fake it until you make it.” That’s frequent advice in the music industry. Just look at Lady Gaga. Folks that know her well can tell you about the tipping point when she went from another New York singer/songwriter to a…
Who will your music influence?
There’s a long-running trope about the Velvet Underground that goes something like: “The Velvet Underground only sold about a thousand copies of their first record. But every single person that bought that record started a band.” It’s funny to me…
Music Management Skills: Network in person, not just online.
For most of the past few weeks, I’ve been offline more than online. And those moments I’ve been online, I’ve been working exclusively on client projects instead of mixing in networking and promotion. I’m not intentionally becoming a social media…
How Much Do Musicians Really Make from Record Deals?
After yesterday’s mailbag entry on royalties, our friend Ken Muse pointed me to a great breakdown of the current record deal math done by Cord Jefferson at The Root. By the math in the article, the average “signed” musician makes…
Mailbag: Royalties vs. Publishing
From the mailbag, Mark wants to know about different kinds of royalties: hey whats the diffrence between royalties and publishing revenue.. Cashmoneyrecords sighned a deal with Unviersal Music They keep 85% if tge royalties 50% publishing revenues and all…