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"Talent" is not required! A properly MANAGED business IS! WHAT WON'T WORK! - "Waiting to be discovered" and signing your soul away in a shelving/sweetheart contract. If you're idiotic enough for either, then the Industry wishes you a very sincere Good Riddance! The damned lies of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC notwithstanding! The particular Field of Music (Rock, Country, Pop, Blues, Jazz, Blue Grass, Rap, Gospel, Folk, Filk, Classical, Dixieland, Alternative, New Wave, etceteras) really doesn't matter! The Rules are the same for everybody. The damned lies of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC notwithstanding! You have to be Industry Literate, and as promotion-rich as you are session-rich! If your music is really worth a million bucks the burden of proof is on YOU to document it! That takes both Industry KNOW-HOW (A properly MANAGED business!) and MONEY! It doesn't take a lot of either, but it does take a total lack of paranoia and half-cocked emotional tangents. The damned lies of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC notwithstanding! Manufacturing copies and shipping them is the absolute stupidest thing you can do! First, the instant you manufacture you've totally destroyed all anti-counterfeiting possibilities! Second, all the Industry-Idiotic Blunders you've made will follow you for a lifetime: and there are a multitude of them! Improper credits - long-running times - clobber-copy - and the list goes on ... and on ... The damned lies of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC notwithstanding! Before you even begin to record you need to have a Record Release contract of some kind, the best being an "Executive Producer's Record Release Agreement" that doubles your mechanical royalties, eliminates charge-back, and lets you retain all rights to your Masters and just about everything else. The only compositions that are tied up are those actually in the project! And, you're going to have to spend some money. The damned lies of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC notwithstanding! Production advice as to HOW make a commercially acceptable record is free from the Record Company once you're ready to do business. And the links just below will give you more information than you ever knew existed, and tell you where to go next to get your music out in the Real World where it stands a chance to make money. The damned lies of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC notwithstanding! Take the time to study this entire site - there's more information in this one site than all the other sources put together! There is solid and very factual advice in many web pages, some of which are linked (see our linkpage) here, but none tells the whole story from songwriting and publishing to international promotion, distribution and licensing to getting paid while avoiding the Turkey List in the process. The damned lies of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC notwithstanding! Without any paranoia attached, once you're ready to do business, contact any of the Super Seven General Licensers and ask for an "Executive Producer's Record Release Agreement". If you get any run-a-round at all, it's probably because that Licenser is buried in buy-back of unsaleable product and just simply does not have the immediate available budget. Since 'talent' doesn't mean a damned thing in this Industry and MONEY does! The damned lies of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC notwithstanding! If you get a turn-down simply call the next General Licenser until you get an acceptance. If they all turn you down, except for Industry Ignorance or Paranoia on your part, wait ninety days and call them all again. They're in business TO MAKE MONEY and they need records to do that, but they don't need your Industry Ignorance or Paranoia in the process. So be ready to spend some money in your records over and above the costs of recording. The damned lies of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC notwithstanding! You may very well be required to PROVE the commercial acceptability of your product BEFORE any General Licenser will show any interest at all. It has NOTHING to do with your 'talent' or lack of it, it's a matter of BUSINESS! You wouldn't buy a rusted out old junk car to enter into the Indianapolis 500 - where some of those cars run $250,000.00-up EACH, not counting support and logistics - and INVESTORS, which includes General Licensers and Record Labels, want to see something on the table that WILL RUN with a CHANCE TO WIN too! Your best option to PROVE any record, even if you have an established following, is PROMOLIBRARY! That will get a song to about 8,000 subscribers around the world (your local stations may NOT be among of them), about seventy five to eighty percent (75-80%) of whom are RADIO BROADCASTERS, almost instantly, and at a cost far below the manufacture and mailing promocopies. IF the product can log VIABLE air on its groove alone, you have the General Licenser's attention! If not, you still have the money to go back to the drawing board and produce something that does! Simple fact of simple business. Once you have a release via an ExP contract, your records will be out in the world with everybody else, and you'll find out damned fast that the competition is also damned keen! Especially when it comes to the real source of selling records: MARKETING and PROMOTION! Let the record company hire the record promoters, when and if they need them. And face the fact that regardless of 'how good' you think your record is, and how hard the record company works on your behalf, the damned thing might not sell! Just remember that all Super Stars have far more flops than they do hits! And only ONE song out of 5,000 ever makes any real money at all. The damned lies of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC notwithstanding! So - for a re-cap and wrap-up - get an ExP agreement before you record and follow the Market Advice of your General Licenser Representative. Be ready to invest in yourself or don't waste anybody else's time! Don't sign any contracts, management or otherwise, until you are in a Market Demand league to require it. And don't think you can 'sell' one song to some 'star' and finance your career. The damned lies of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC notwithstanding! |
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Since new count began, 22 April 2008.
