Do I Need A Record Deal?

 

You’ve calculated what it’s going to cost for recording studio time, mixing and mastering your song(s).
What studio you will be using, hopefully you’ve picked us :). You know if you’re going to hire a producer, buy beats online, use an up and coming producers, etc. Congrats! That’s part 1.

After you record your masterpiece how will you be selling it to your customer? There are a lot of avenues to do this. You can sell it on your website, iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby, etc. You have a plethora of options. In our example we’ll use iTunes since it dominates this space.

Let’s create a breakeven analysis. A break even analysis tells us how many songs and/or albums we’d need to sell to make our money back, our investment. We will use the numbers from our previous post.
We know that a 5 song recording project is going to cost us $625.

Of course this will vary a bit if you go off budget but it’s a pretty good estimate. Let’s say you decided to use iTunes as your means of distribution. iTunes albums range in price but let’s use the average. The average price a 5 song album sells for is $4.99 or $.99 a song. If you were to sell the album for $4.99 then you’d need to sell 126 albums to breakeven or, 632, $.99 Singles.

Single Price	$0.99
Album Price	$4.99
Breakeven	Albums	125.25
	Singles	631.31

I’ve over simplified this example so that you can understand how to effectively choose your recording services and means of distribution to maximize your investment. Choosing which services to use is a moving target and they need to be analyzed on a per album basis. Keep in mind that going with the cheapest is not always the right choice either. The better the quality the more you can demand in the market place. The lower the quality the less of an attraction you’ll have. If you put yourself in the iTunes pool you’re competing with industry giants which means you need to sound as good as they do.

Best of luck.

I Want A Record Deal

I Want A Record Deal! 

“I have talent and my friends and family say I should be a star. How can I get a record deal?”
This is a great question one with many variables it is not a “one size, fit’s all” response. The reason is because there isn’t one simple answer. I believe we need to ask better questions and start with the end in mind. Let’s outline the steps. (Remember we’re starting with the end in mind.)

1. I want a record deal. Question to ask yourself: Which record label? The more specific you are about answering this question, the less overwhelming it will be to chase this monster.

2. Present project to label exec. Question to ask yourself: Which exec handles the signing of NEW artists? This position is known to have a high turnover rate and it’s in the your best interest to stay up to date on who handles what at the label you are trying to get signed to. A few ways to do this is to join an industry related forum, subscribe to the trade journals, follow the labels social media, and be part of a music publishing house.

3. Create a buzz. How? We know that social media is at the forefront of creating exposure. It’s free and easy. Yeah but everyone is doing it. I’m all for being tapped into the network but the tried and true best way to create a sense of value is to show face. Let your potential audience know that you are real and that you don’t just exist in cyberspace somewhere. Create people connections in addition to virtual ones. I’ll be writing more articles on how to create a buzz with specifics in the future.

4.Create a budget. There’s nothing more discouraging than starting something and putting a complete stop to it because you ran out of capital. Proper planning and budgeting keeps momentum and spirits high during the process of achieving a record deal. Isaac Newton, regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time states “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” Don’t let proper planning and budgeting become an unbalanced force to stop you from achieving your goals.

5.Record the demo professionally. Why? High quality recording equipment has become affordable to everyone. The labels expect to hear a demo that sounds professional and can't be differentiated from a multimillion dollar facility. Your potential fans want to enjoy the experience of listening to an established major artist as well as your track without a change in quality. What will make your recording stand out? It’s not the equipment per se, it’s the experience behind the boards. You want to hire someone that will get the best performance out of you. There’s a notable difference between what you hear and a trained professional hears.

In summary, record your demo professionally, find out where you’re going to record it at and how much it will cost. Create a budget for the recording. Once you have a project that you’re proud of, do the market research by engaging fans and gathering feedback. Build a strong fan base while pounding the pavement and getting connected with the A&R you have researched within the label you desire to be signed too. The steps sound easy but they take a lot of work. If you fail get up and continue. I leave you with this quote: “Failing to plan, is planning to fail”