A
Adam P
Well-known member
Most importantly, you'll need a band that is looking to release a record. A band with a big local following or that plays out to new audiences fairly frequently would be ideal, because its likely that they will sell more copies of a record.
You'll need a minimum of a couple thousand dollars to get the record pressed, depending on the number of copies you want to do in a run. Starting with 500 or 1000 copies might be a good point, if you think the band can sell that many.
You'll need to spend pretty much all of your waking free time working out logistics and promotion stuff. You'll want to get yourself a domain name and some cheap or free webhosting, and get yourself a nice looking (read: devoid of cheap looking fonts and/or clip art images) website. Might want to get a Myspace profile too, but I wouldn't rely solely on that. Take out ads in magazines or fanzines that cater to the style of your release. Find a friend who is inclined in the visual arts and have him come up with an attractive looking print ad for you. Offer to pay him in records or beer, or your continued business should you achieve any commercial success.
Get a vendor's license, open a bank account, and set up a Paypal account, so that kids can order copies of the record from you over the Internet. Just add a dollar to the selling cost of the record and call it postage paid.
You'll need to work out how you and the band will split the revenue from the sales of the record. Many indie labels will split the earnings 50/50, so if you sell a CD for 10 bucks, you get 5 and the band gets 5. For the band to have copies to sell at shows, sell them to the band at wholesale cost, and let them be in charge of getting rid of them at that point.
You might want to get friendly with show promoters in your region, so that you can help get the band out there playing to new crowds as often as possible, because that's going to translate into more CD sales.
Obviously you will want to release music that you think is good, but also try to get involved with something that is at least somewhat commercially viable, at least to begin with. Save the recording of the guys playing all of the music on power tools for when you have a few extra bucks to throw around. It may be avant garde, but its probably not going to put much money in your bank account, and no money means you can't afford to put out more records.
Many indie labels' first release is a compilation of various artists. This can be a good idea in a number of ways. If you can find several bands that have recorded and have extra songs that didn't make the cut of their record, they may be willing to let you release them on a compilation. Or you might be able to find a band that can scare up a couple hundred bucks to record one or two songs in a studio to put on your comp. But the more bands you have on there, the more people you have out there pushing your product, especially if the bands aren't all from the same area. If you have 10 bands on the comp, and each one is selling 15 or 20 copies of the record per show, that's exponentially better than just one band selling 15 or 20 copies per show.
Once you've made your money back and a little extra, find another band and release another record. This probably won't happen right away. It could be as much as a year down the road. However, with the networking and promotional possibilites made possible by the Internet it probably won't be horrendously difficult to find a market for whatever it is you're releasing.
Have a lot of time to invest in the project. I've heard stories of guys that own successful indie labels who would come home after work every day and assemble 7" record sleeves and stuff envelopes with mail orders or promo kits to send to radio stations and record reviewers and do stuff like that until they go to bed at 3 or 4 in the morning.
If you can find the right band or artist, it can pay off quite well. Look what Dashboard Confessional did for Vagrant Records, or The All-American Rejects did for Doghouse records...they made them a lot of money. Hell, Doghouse wasn't going to sign All-American Rejects, but the owner's 15 year old sister-in-law took their demo to school after he'd thrown it out, and convinced him to sign them after telling him how all of her friends at school thought it was great. Dreamworks ended up buying out their contract. Now, the chances of something that huge coming your way are quite slim, but I would never say that its impossible. There are always great bands out there that no one's ever heard of. Who's to say you won't be the person that stumbles across one?
The DIY/independent music community is one of the most amazing testaments to the ambition and tenacity of inspired, motivated people that I can think of.
You'll need a minimum of a couple thousand dollars to get the record pressed, depending on the number of copies you want to do in a run. Starting with 500 or 1000 copies might be a good point, if you think the band can sell that many.
You'll need to spend pretty much all of your waking free time working out logistics and promotion stuff. You'll want to get yourself a domain name and some cheap or free webhosting, and get yourself a nice looking (read: devoid of cheap looking fonts and/or clip art images) website. Might want to get a Myspace profile too, but I wouldn't rely solely on that. Take out ads in magazines or fanzines that cater to the style of your release. Find a friend who is inclined in the visual arts and have him come up with an attractive looking print ad for you. Offer to pay him in records or beer, or your continued business should you achieve any commercial success.
Get a vendor's license, open a bank account, and set up a Paypal account, so that kids can order copies of the record from you over the Internet. Just add a dollar to the selling cost of the record and call it postage paid.
You'll need to work out how you and the band will split the revenue from the sales of the record. Many indie labels will split the earnings 50/50, so if you sell a CD for 10 bucks, you get 5 and the band gets 5. For the band to have copies to sell at shows, sell them to the band at wholesale cost, and let them be in charge of getting rid of them at that point.
You might want to get friendly with show promoters in your region, so that you can help get the band out there playing to new crowds as often as possible, because that's going to translate into more CD sales.
Obviously you will want to release music that you think is good, but also try to get involved with something that is at least somewhat commercially viable, at least to begin with. Save the recording of the guys playing all of the music on power tools for when you have a few extra bucks to throw around. It may be avant garde, but its probably not going to put much money in your bank account, and no money means you can't afford to put out more records.
Many indie labels' first release is a compilation of various artists. This can be a good idea in a number of ways. If you can find several bands that have recorded and have extra songs that didn't make the cut of their record, they may be willing to let you release them on a compilation. Or you might be able to find a band that can scare up a couple hundred bucks to record one or two songs in a studio to put on your comp. But the more bands you have on there, the more people you have out there pushing your product, especially if the bands aren't all from the same area. If you have 10 bands on the comp, and each one is selling 15 or 20 copies of the record per show, that's exponentially better than just one band selling 15 or 20 copies per show.
Once you've made your money back and a little extra, find another band and release another record. This probably won't happen right away. It could be as much as a year down the road. However, with the networking and promotional possibilites made possible by the Internet it probably won't be horrendously difficult to find a market for whatever it is you're releasing.
Have a lot of time to invest in the project. I've heard stories of guys that own successful indie labels who would come home after work every day and assemble 7" record sleeves and stuff envelopes with mail orders or promo kits to send to radio stations and record reviewers and do stuff like that until they go to bed at 3 or 4 in the morning.
If you can find the right band or artist, it can pay off quite well. Look what Dashboard Confessional did for Vagrant Records, or The All-American Rejects did for Doghouse records...they made them a lot of money. Hell, Doghouse wasn't going to sign All-American Rejects, but the owner's 15 year old sister-in-law took their demo to school after he'd thrown it out, and convinced him to sign them after telling him how all of her friends at school thought it was great. Dreamworks ended up buying out their contract. Now, the chances of something that huge coming your way are quite slim, but I would never say that its impossible. There are always great bands out there that no one's ever heard of. Who's to say you won't be the person that stumbles across one?
The DIY/independent music community is one of the most amazing testaments to the ambition and tenacity of inspired, motivated people that I can think of.
