Starting indie label

  • Thread starter Thread starter 47ronin
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47ronin

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Ok...I know the variations are infinite....but how much cash do you think it would take to start a small indie label with national or international distribution.....

how about if i could put together about 50 thousand US?

47ronin
 
What genre of music????

I believe it really makes a difference...
Also, What are your expectations of return in say, 3 years??

Graham.
 
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....................... I could spend a week on this post easily.......... First, anyone can start an idie label with little overhead... but your nothing unless you got distribution..... but before you can get distribution you need product...... before you have product you need artists & equipment................and if you got all that get a distributor to put your stuff in retail stores even though you've never sold a record... uh huh

Your comment of a "small indie label" with national and international distribution leads me to believe you should go to the bookstore and really start educating yourself as much as possible. (didn't mean that in a mean way)

If you got national or international distribution you are not a small indie label anymore. It is very difficult to obtain national distribution never mind international. However the easiest is Internet distribution & most profitable cuz of direct sale to the consumer. But it takes alot of online promotion work to get people to come to your site and buy large quantities of product....

A major distributor (one who distributes globally) would never take a product on if there is uncertainty if it will sell. You could talk to every distributor in the world and the first 2 questions out of there mouth will be this (1) How much product did your company sell last quarter/year and in what regions (2) How much money is budgeted for the promotion & marketing of this album.....

ok now for some advice. Use what the internet has to offer and do the grunt work of online promotion. Price your CD's low to push as much product as you can... If you can sell between 30k-50k cd's in a year you should be able to get a major distributor.... This is by no means an easy task though. Thats alot of product out the gate. You'll definately spend a few years building up to that 1-2years with hard work a motivated artist and a fan base from previous albums.

There is so much more I could say but your better off reading up and asking ???? on anything you didn't understand.......... ohhhhhhhh 50g's should be plenty to get you started
 
As far as genre of music is concerned, it would be something very niche market.....if it had anything to do with the music that I am trying to make it would be kind of electronica/indie kind of stuff like say tortoise, elliott smith or mercury rev, etc
So labels i am thinking of are like SST back in the day, or Thrill Jockey, Kill Rock Stars, etc. Definitely small indies....definite world wide distribution with no MTV and no radio play to speak of....


I think there is a much bigger market for this sort of stuff outside of the united states. For example, I live in a rural place in Japan, but i can go to the nearest city and find stuff by all kinds of relatively small indie labels. Like for example back in the day you could definitely get the earliest dinosaur jr stuff on homestead records probably in like twenty different countries even though that was definitely a small indie. Its all about finding the right bands which is obviously the biggest challenge, but I think I at least have the taste to pull that off. As far as marketing, for that sort of music I think its all about getting some coverage in the indie press and getting some good reviews. I think most indies have the problem of trying to make music that is similar to that of major labels but just not as good. The kind of music I am interested in kind of intrinsically has no chance these days of being on a major label. However, the audience for this sort of music is the kind of person who generally thinks commercial radio sucks and MTV sucks and 90 percent of the local bands in their area suck, which is usually the case.

Obviously you cant just immediately jump into international distribution but i think its possible if you have the right niche.
Take something fairly obscure like John Zorn's Tzadic label...they put out some absolute noise that cant possibly sell more than a couple hundred copies but you could probably be able to buy it at least somewhere in Europe, North America and Japan certainly ....

anybody agree...disagree

47ronin
 
Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with the type of music you're
talking about.
Niche markets are I believe the only place an Indie can thrive,
so from that point of view, I agree.
I know of a guy from Whitehorse, Yukon who is not known at all
in even Canada for his "Organic Ambient" music (nice niche,eh?)
but is a major star in Taiwan of all places...Enough to easily support his Indie Label...
I also started a thread a few months ago here telling of a bunch
of old time country music players who have an Indie label and sold
82000 units in their region on the county fair circuit in one year..

If you want to do this from Japan, I think you should look at this
from a business point of view and fill a regional niche whatever
it might be then move on to your personal interests once the
business is established.....

Graham.
 
As I understand it a Label's job is to record and promote an artist and sell their products.

If you can get stores or web sites to carry your albums and promo merchandise then you are a Label. Being a successfull label is another matter and if you find the secret to that then let us know ;)
 
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