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MUSIC BIZ INSIGHT #3 Power Reading for Busy Music Professionals Hope you're hungry! MUSIC BIZ INSIGHT is published for musicians, songwriters, managers, label reps, booking agents, entertainment attorneys, studio owners, music publishers, and all others involved in the music business. Its purpose is to help boost your business, find new markets, make the right connections, develop professionally, work smarter and improve your bottom line. "As a general rule, the most successful people in life are those who have the best information." Benjamin Disraeli Published bi-monthly by Peter Spellman, Director MUSIC BUSINESS SOLUTIONS: Turning Music Business Data into Useful Knowledge. Career and Business-building books, articles, consulting and more. P.O. Box 230266, Astor Station, Boston, MA 02123-0266, USA Phone: 978-887-8041 Email: success@mbsolutions.com Website: www.mbsolutions.com © 1997 - 2003, Peter Spellman, Music Business Solutions
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Making Media Waves : Creating a Scheduled Publicity Plan Let me ask you a question. Can you remember what the lead feature was on the evening news three nights ago? All businesses take heed! John and Mary Public have an attention span of miniscule duration and a memory which is even shorter. This is why your publicity objectives can only be realized through successive "waves" of media exposure. Each wave "coats" your market, raising the consciousness of your audience. These waves must come at regular, considered intervals so that your offerings are perceived as inevitabilities. How many waves should you launch and how often? Each wave needs a promotional spearhead. For musicians this spearhead can take many forms: a high-profile performance, record release, important contract signing, endorsement, contest award, etc. The more of these you have the more waves you can organize. A well-targeted press release every two months or six a year will be more than sufficient. The most important part of your press release is the hook, the angle with which you stimulate the interest of your reader. To find the hook that will make you and your business newsworthy, be alert to the issues, events, fads, problems, and concerns being addressed by the media to which your clients and customers tune in, be they trade journals, newspapers, newsletters, radio, or television. Do you have a new product or service that addresses one of your client's major concerns? Do you offer an improvement to products or services currently being discussed? Have you discovered a new way to do something your competitors have touted already? Are you doing something that hasn't been done before? Have you responded to a community crisis or need? Could you hold an event or sponsor an activity that would call positive attention to your work? Jump at any opportunity to send a news release about each such development. Of course all of this assumes a good amount of planning . Get yourself one of those year-at-a-glance wall calendars. Set some goals for yourself for the coming year and mark their realization dates on your calendar: I want to set up a small tour for my act; I will record a full-length CD; I will organize a show to benefit the environment. Whatever it is you'll want to incorporate it into your publicity wave. Five or six well-organized waves per year will reap publicity aplenty. Remember, 75% of all the news you read is "planted", that is, it came from the outside, from people and companies like you. The media depends on you to make waves. ))))))))WAVE MAKERS(((((((( There are plenty of great resources available to help with your publicity efforts. Here are some of the best: Software PublicityBuilder (JIAN Tools for Sale, Inc.) Worksheets, press release templates and a great workbook ($129) The Online Media Directory: a collection of newspapers, magazines, TV stations and other media that accept electronic submissions. Audio Tapes "How to Create Your PR Buzz: A Musician's Guide to the Zen of Hype", by Raleigh Pinskey. Application of Pinskey's famous Zen of Hype to the specific needs of musicians and music businesses. Inspiring and instructive. 4 cassettes and a 28 page booklet ($49.95; call 310/998-0034; credit card orders accepted).
There's a publication you should definitely know about. It's called Rock & Rap Confidential. Veteran music journalist Dave Marsh publishes it and does most of the writing. He covers the edges and corners of the music biz like no one else can. Good eyes. Here are a couple of news samples from R&RC;'s hot pages: "According to Ed Christman in the October 22 ['94] Billboard, 90,347 albums were tracked by the point-of-purchase SoundScan system between 1991 and the end of 1993. Of that total, only 554 albums sold more than 500,000 units and they accounted for a whopping 43% of all album purchases. On the other hand, 52,078 albums sold less than 1,000 copies each. Instead of asking for more promotion of slow-selling albums by record labels, retail chains are urging them to simply put out less music. 'I don't want to spend 45% of my time on product that will only account for 5% of my business,' one major chain exec told Christman. Yet another reason we'll be dancing in the streets the day the new technology drives the chains out of business..." "Joseph Hart's 'Muzak Nation' in the October 19 City Pages not only gives us fascinating facts about that easy-listening monster ([Muzak] was founded in the 1920s by an Army general; SubPop founders Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Ponemean were shitworkers at the Seattle-based company when they started their label but gives an insightful overview of how background music has been used to increase productivity, influence consumer 1 choices, and 'encourage people to act in a predictable way.' Hart also describes how the background music industry is changing from easy-listening sounds to a focus on current pop. In the wake of Victoria's Secret releasing its own in-store music tape on CD last year, Hart speculates that we will soon see commercially viable artists who start by appearing in the videos in stores like the Gap..." Reprinted with permission from Rock & Rap Confidential (subscriptions: $15 domestic/Canadian; $26 foreign to Rock & Rap Confidential, Box 34105, Los Angeles, CA 90034. Phone 310/398-4477; fax 310/398-8190.
How Much Can an Indie Label Sell For?
BOOKS Off the Charts: Ruthless Days and Reckless Nights Inside the Music Industry by Bruce Haring (Birch Lane Press, 1996, $19.95 hb). In the tradition of Frederick Dannen1s Hit Men, Haring, a music journalist, seeks to once again blow the lid off of music industry corruption. In this account it1s Charles Koppelman, head of EMI Records North America, who becomes the pariah embodying all that1s wrong (and sometimes right) with the contemporary music industry. While Off the Charts lacks the investigative depth and cogent writing style of Hit Men, it nevertheless succeeds in tearing the veil of appearances away from industry protocol and penetrating to why things pan out the way they do. The theme is familiar: major record labels are mere 3divisions2 of multinational corporations whose interests range well beyond music to things like refrigerators and defense hardware. While mouthing platitudes of artistic integrity company executives are nevertheless under constant pressure to deliver quarter-by-quarter sales, maintain market share or risk loosing their expense accounts and/or their jobs. How this plays out in the careers of musicians like Vanilla Ice, Wilson Phillips and Arrested Development is detailed in the second half of the book. Haring opens up the thinking (or lack thereof) behind the "merger mania" currently gripping the industry. He explores overall goals and strategies that animate companies like EMI, Capitol and Warner Bros., providing telling insights into how decisions are really made at major record companies. How these decisions and guiding values affect artists is the author1s patent concern. A sobering read; get out your handkerchiefs.
SPOTLIGHT: DOING BUSINESS ON THE INTERNET BOOKS There have been a spate of books recently on this subject. I'd say avoid about 90% of them. The two best I've seen are: The Internet Business Guide by Rosalind Resnick & Dave Taylor (1995, SAMS Publishing, $25.). Very well-organized. Provides real-world examples and expert advice on everything from obtaining Net access to protecting your system from vandals and hackers. Online Marketing Handbook by Daniel Janal (1995, Van Nostrand Reinhold, $24.95). The Internet is a culture with its own "netiquette". Janal helps us understand this culture so we can communicate more effectively within it. Numerous tips on establishing and enhancing a strong business presence on the Net. Excellent! Other Good Books Music, Money & Success: The Insider's Guide to the Music Industry by Jeffrey and Todd Brabec (1994, Schirmer Books, $31.95). The "inside" story of the music biz is publishing and that's what this book covers. Publishing is perhaps the most complex part of the biz and few books have been able to decipher and explain the many dynamics that animate it like this book does. The authors, two entertainment attorneys, disclose lots of useful information in fourteen well-organized chapters. Highly recommended. The Studio Business Book: A Guide to Professional Recording Studio Business and Management, 2nd ed. by Jim Mandell (1995, MixBooks, $34.95). Excellent real-world view of the recording studio as seen by the owner. Covers writing a business plan, getting funding, finding partners, bidding projects, developing new income sources, studio politics and psychology, and much more. VERY resourceful for anyone considering starting a commercial recording studio in any sense of the word. PERIODICALS The NEC Job Bulletin. One of the country's most comprehensive monthly job listings for musicians. It includes teaching, performing, and administrative opportunities, as well as competition, festival, and grant information. Plus, career-building tips. $28/yr. to: New England Conservatory, Career Services Center, 290 Huntington Ave., Boston MA 02115. Phone: 617/262-1120, x230. Upside: The Business Magazine for the Technology Elite. Despite its uppity subtitle, this mag delivers instructive coverage about how businesses are putting technology to work in a myriad of ways. Good for trend watching too. $48/yr. to: Upside Publications, P.O. Box 469023, Escondido, CA 92046-9944.
About the Publisher PETER SPELLMAN is Director of MUSIC BUSINESS SOLUTIONS, a business and marketing consultancy to the music industry, and Director of Career Development at Berklee College of Music, Boston. He is the author of several books for music entrepreneurs and teaches music industry courses at Northeastern University (Boston) and the University of Massachusetts (Lowell). A musician since he was ten, Peter continues to spin riddims in the improvisational collective, Friend Planet and sing Cat Stevens' songs to his kids every night before bed. BLOOM WHERE YOU'RE PLANTED! Quote of the Month-- "Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure." E-mail: success@mbsolutions.com Copyright © 1997 - 2003 Peter Spellman P.O. Box 230266, Boston MA 02123-0266 978-887-8041 Rise up!
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