Stop Giving Your Music Away! Find Fans With ‘Disposable Income’.
by Brian Vander Ark
Young musicians: STOP GIVING YOUR MUSIC AWAY.
Listen, I get it. I know that it’s important to get the music out there, and that file sharing can help bring your music to the masses. You give your music away in hopes that people become so addicted to your songs that they absolutely HAVE to come see a live show.
Bullshit.
I love interesting new music, but I am probably not going to come see you or your band. I have young kids, and most people who have young kids have to discern how to spend their one night out a week. I can’t waste getting a babysitter then convincing my wife that you’re band is going to be great, under awesome conditions. The reality, of course, is that you are most likely going to be playing in a shitty club, where 4 other bands are going to be playing that night. I can only hope that you go on first, but YOU are hoping for a headlining spot. Sorry. You go on after 11pm, and I’m done for the night. So, giving your music away to me, is not going to entice me to come see you. Honest to God, if Paul McCartney was coming to a small club and going on after 11pm, and gave me his new album for free in return for going, I would probably pass.
But here’s the thing. If I like what I hear, I will give you money to hear more. Call it guilt money for not coming to your shows, or whatever. But take my money. You have to SELL your music to me and others like me, because WE are the ones with the disposable income.
If you want to give your music away to your poor fans, you can do it without sending digital files to them directly. Make a cheap video, or spend some money on one, and let people watch and share on youtube or vimeo, or whatever other video landing site you want. But they’ll have to stream it. Of course, they can easily ‘rip’ the audio, and have it for free, but the majority are too lazy to do it or don’t know how. And if you have fans that spend their time “ripping” files from youtube, then seriously, you need to go out and get a higher quality of fan. Ones with…DISPOSABLE INCOME.
Young musicians, learn that phrase; DISPOSABLE INCOME. We want to help you. We have money to spend on music and concerts. We call it “contributing to the arts”. I can give my money to the art museum or ballet in town, but I would rather give it to you!
And there are many more like me out there.
More and more, I see bands giving it away, or asking that people pay what they like to receive it digitally. Much of the time, it’s coming from a major indy label. It’s better than NOT getting your music out there, right? Wrong. Your friends and family (with disposable income) want to help you.
One last thing. Many of you are not even doing the packaging anymore. You may think what’s the point? Most people take the CD out, import the tracks, and toss the package. And packaging is expensive. I get it, believe me. I can get 1000 CDs for $2500, but I only need 500. What will that cost me? $2200? Makes perfect sense! (sigh).
Sell the CD with the packaging and offer to autograph any message that the purchaser wants on it. A real fan, and supporter, will want his personally signed CD. “Steven! Thanks for believing in us!” kind of thing. For that you can charge $20. The people that care about you (not your slacker friends) will pay.
So, unless we are playing on the same bill one night, I probably won’t see your band. But I WILL support you if I like what I hear. I’ll talk about you as well: Word of mouth is one powerful marketing tool. And “rich” old guys like me LOVE to brag things like: “I helped them get their start”.
Brian Vander Ark is the lead singer for the multi-platinum selling band, The Verve Pipe. He is also an obnoxious know-it-all, and can be perceived as rude and aloof in his blogs. He assures you that, on occasion, it rings true in person as well. Especially when he has low blood sugar. However, if you want the truth about what it takes to perpetuate a life as a performer, he’ll give you the cold hard truth, in hopes that you’ll check out his website.
Thanks for this post. I’m about to release my first album and going back and forth about give away/sell. I think you are right that the people you want as your fans are willing to buy. Then again, some acts have broken by giving away free music, and sometimes people *will *come to see your live shows if they get to know your songs first. Making some music videos sounds like a good compromise.
On Monday, February 18, 2013, A Singer/Songwriter In A Sports Bar World wrote: > Brian Vander Ark posted: ” Young musicians: STOP GIVING YOUR MUSIC AWAY. Listen, I get it. I know that it’s important to get the music out there, and that file sharing can help bring your music to the masses. You give your music away in hopes that people become so addic” >
Thanks for your comments, Casey – I wish you the best of luck with your release! Brian
How do you know what your music is worth to other people though? Most musicians i think miss the mark here. The most pretentious of us are charging $20 for something that no one has ever heard or the more meek (myself included) only will charge like $2 in hopes that someone will even buy the thing.
That’s a great question. The worst that you can do is undervalue yourself, in my opinion. $2 is too low – your real supporters, like friends and families will pay more to help you live your dream, and people who don’t know you will not think “Yay! I can afford one”, they will think “Oooo, must not be very good.” (and you know it is!) $10 is a great price. Most people will take a chance on $10. If you still feel that it’s too high, then include a bonus or two – maybe a live recording that you have? Or offer to “sing” the outgoing message on their voice mail? Anything to bring extra value to it. I have a CD on sale for $5 right now, because I was waaaaay overstocked. But I personally can afford that. Good luck, Matty.
That sounds pretty reasonable to me. Thanks Brian!
Brian, I love your blog. I started writing my blog 2 years ago sharing my experience as a 48 year old man trying to make it as a solo singer/guitar player in the Lansing area gig by gig with very little experience on how to get into this business. I know you are busy so I’ll make it short. I’m just over 117,000 hits since I started. To bring more attention to me and my site I started doing interviews by word doc with other Solo Performers a couple of weeks ago. I advertise on Craig’s List and mention the number of hits on my site and explain that their interview is bound to get some exposure. My site is tims52gigs dot com. Please read my short Bio to see why I started so late in life and what I’m trying to share. It would be really cool if you would do the Interview. I explained, please answer as few or as many of the questions you want. And of course I’ll post your press info. One more thing: after I finish my 52 gigs project and since the interview project has started to take off with very little effort, my plan is to start off with 10 interviews per state to get it rolling. Take care and thanks for doing your blog. It is very informative. Tim Heenan
I also have some demo songs at timheenan dot com
I think the future for musicians might be sponsorship by big brands. My humble opinion…:)
Thanks for the insight Brian! Great points.
Also, The Verve Pipe was playing non-stop in my CD player in high school! Looks like its going to be resurrected.
Part of me wants to be like, “Yeah, that’s easy for the platinum selling artist to say” while another part of me wants to believe you. I’ve tried both and I even got to the point where I was tired of paying to have CDs made only to find myself sitting on boxes of CDs for a years. I started just posting my “albums” on bandcamp at a “name your own price” and while this was somewhat helpful, i didn’t find that people really paid for the albums. When I posted them for free I figured that the downloads would go thru the roof but as I learned, these days we can barely give away music. Hell, if I had the choice to make a dollar for an album or give it up for free, I’ll take the buck. Hell, it’ll buy me a cup of coffee at the Waffle House after the gig.
Hi Kim,
Yes, I’ve been looking at alternative ways to get outside the “main stream” music business. Having had a production by a major producer in Australia for country music, I’ve had more corporate support than through the likes of travel agencies going to country music venues, doing country shows for government run organizations (where they pay VERY handsomely).
I really like what Brian is saying here also about no under valuing yourself, I find that a range of CDs at shows works EXTREMELY well, especially when that audience is there for a “Theme based” show that you’re putting on (I do mainly country shows, but also do any other style these people need at times also and it’s incredibly enjoyable for me and them).
What I’ve found is if you start with $5 CD’s and then offer more songs on a $10 CD, then begin offering your originals from $15 to $25 people end up up-selling themselves and average purchase price is $55 for the entire set (all purchased seperately about $80, so they save a fair bit).
Once I add my live video sessions, it will increase the “complete set” price for them and I would expect to see closer to $85 overall spend.
This is to a marketplace of seniors WITH disposable income and wanting to take a walk down memory lane, we muso’s provide such a POWERFUL experience for people, if we do that correctly and focus on them, they’ll pay any price to get our music, help us, and mix with us live
Just my take on things… Love the blog post Brian, thanks for posting it!