You Don't Need A Record Contract

The Internet has made it easy for musicians to make money if they can hustle in the real world. With the right tools (plus a little talent), you can literally write a song in the morning, record it in the afternoon, and be making money off it that night as you sleep. The best part is that you don't even have to be a big star to do this. You just have to get out there and hustle.

At this point, you may be asking:

If it's so easy, why isn't everyone making a living by selling downloads on the Internet?

Steady on. I never said it was easy. There are a lot of pieces that need to fall into place, chief among them, talent. Only a tiny minority has the talent to write and perform songs that move people, and most of them lack the business sense to make money. If you have talent or have a friend or client with talent, read on, because I'm going to give you the step-by-step. You don't need a lot of business sense, just determination. This is a simple formula. It has worked on a limited (limited by my lack of time for performing) basis for me personally, and it has worked very well for others who have more time to devote to their passion.

For the sake of simplicity, let's say you have a catalog of songs to work with, all recorded and produced, dressed up and ready for the ball. If you don't have such a catalog, you need to start building it. After you have at least nine well produced songs, come back and read the rest of this article. Otherwise, you're just wasting your time.

The first thing you need to do is stop spending so much time on MySpace. It's an echo chamber in there, and even if you have a lot of friends, most people aren't going to buy anything. Even if they do buy it, your cut is minimal. Forget MySpace. Forget A&R. Forget record companies and iTunes. In this day and age, all you need is a guitar and a computer... and talent (did I mention that?). You can certainly use MySpace, but only on a very limited basis and only as a promotional tool to drive people where you really want them: to a site where they can exchange their money for your stuff, a site that is all yours and that doesn't involve any middlemen.

You've probably guessed that the next step is to build your store. Doing it right requires investing a little money - probably around $500-$1,000. You'll get it back in the first month, maybe even in the first day of going "live" if you already have a following. What you're building is more than a store, though. It's kind of like MySpace without the crappy-looking templates, middlemen, and sleazy underbelly (unless a sleazy underbelly is part of your brand, in which case you can do it much better in your own space than on MySpace). Here you will have a blog, photo galleries, videos, a forum, a gig calendar, an audio feed to broadcast stuff for free (people love free, and music is its own best advertisement).

The whole point of the thing is the store, though, really... and the gig calendar since that will make it easy for your fans to find you performing in the real world. In the store, you will sell downloads. You can sell CD's if you want, but I find them to be more trouble than they're worth. They cost a lot to get pressed and it's a hassle to ship them. If you have merchandise, you can sell it in your store, but be careful not to bite off more than you can chew; you will actually have to fill the orders.

Speaking of which: Set yourself up as a business. Register a business. Set up a business bank account. Talk to your lawyer about what kind of legal structure is best for your needs. If you don't have a lawyer or are just getting started, a sole proprietorship should do for a while. Eventually, you'll want to incorporate, though.

After your music is recorded, and your site is set up and working well, you are about 25 percent of the way there. The next step is the toughest and most critical: promotion. As mentioned, use any existing web presence to drive traffic to your new site, but I can pretty much guarantee that this will not be enough. Get out and perform at every opportunity. Make some stickers with your stage name and website address. Hand out free stickers at your gigs. Stick the stickers everywhere... without resorting to vandalism. Give them to your friends and have them stick them everywhere. But the most important thing is to perform.

Even if you have to play little coffee shops, open mics, or subway stations. Kick it live. Rock it as hard as you can. If you're any good, you'll see the traffic to your site grow. I guarantee it. As I mentioned before, I don't intend to perform my own music in the foreseeable future, but one occasion someone recognised me at the largest market in the state and asked for an autograph. I obliged. This happened only about 20 times that day. Each person got my autograph....on the back of my business card. 20 fans turned into 500 visitors within 24 hours, I don't know, but that's how it works. Hustle, hustle, hustle. When you're ready to collapse, hustle some more. You will reap rewards.

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