next generation music biz "prepare to profit" 2

8/14/2019 Next Generation Music Biz "Prepare to Profit" 2

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Prepare to ProfitIn the Next Generation Music Biz

by Kevin J Ryan

http://kevinjryan.co.uk

Next Generation Music Biz Prepare to Profit,

http://kevinjryan.co.uk/




Kevin J Ryan

He is best described as someone hugely passionate

and knowledgeable about music and the music

business. Some would call him a music biz

veteran, even entrepreneur, but that all sounds very glorious and boring.

Bottom line is this:

1) Been around long enough in music to have tried

and done most things. Some successfully and some

not so successfully.

2) He has the advantage of ‘hands on’ experience and expertise because

since the 70’s he’s got his hands dirty in the following areas of themusic world:

Songwriter, Session Musician, Record Plugger, Head of Artiste &

Repertoire, Producer, Production Company, Music Label, Music

Licensing, Music Publishing, Artist Management, Product Marketing,

Music Investment Funding and Financial Management. What’s in this

guy’s head may be very useful to those of you trying to cut a path in the

next generation music biz.

A Little Music Biz Background

First entered the record industry back in the

mid 70's, the usual 'mail room' start which

lead to moving into artist promotions and

then A&R with The Famous Charisma Label,

Artists like Genesis, Lindisfarne, AlanParsons Project, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel,

Audience, Clifford T Ward and various other

70's rock / pop acts. Since those colourful days of the 70’s working on

projects as diverse as GENESIS to LIBERTY X provides a wealth of

experience that definitely spans Progressive Rock to Manufactured

Pop!

Having spent a lot of time making music and working in the music biz

he often gets asked by up and coming musicians, songwriters and




performers about music, the music biz, music and money issues or

even 'How to' type questions. The website http://kevinjryan.co.uk is

dedicated to helping you solve the problems of Music, Money and 'How

to' in the Next Generation Music Business. The articles, resources and

info on Music DIY will show you how to focus and build a profitable andlasting music career.

About this e-book:

The book is yours to keep, read, print off and use as a guide, a reference

or reminder about what works and the benefits that come when you

“Prepare to Profit” in the changing world of the next generation music

biz.

Please feel free to make it available to your musician friends, email it to

them or distribute it via your website or by any other means as long as

it’s in a non-commercial setting.

Just One thing:

Please do remember to credit my authorship if at anytime you do

distribute this e-book in any way and provide a link to the Kevin J Ryan

website (http://kevinjryan.co.uk ).

If you want to use the e-book or part of it’s contents commercially in

some way please contact me directly and we can sort out some

arrangement that can be mutually beneficial and keep everybody

happy!






Part 3

Once upon a time most aspiring musicians had the same dream: to sign

a deal with a major record label. That was the OLD WAY. Now there is a

hunger for doing things the NEW WAY.

I read an interview recently with David Byrne the former member of

the band Talking Heads. It was for Wired Magazine and appropriately

entitled “Survival Strategies for emerging artists”. In commenting on

the future of music and doing business with record companies he said

“There is no one single way of doing business these days. There are, in

fact, six viable models by my count. That variety is good for artists; itgives them more ways to get paid and make a living.”




The Old Way:

When talking about the ‘OLD WAY’ or how it used to be with record

companies David rightly explains that what record companies used to

do was market the product or more accurately the container of the

music - vinyl, tape, or disc — the medium that carried the music.

Now More Ways:

Recording costs have declined to

almost zero. Digital distribution is

pretty much free. Touring is not

just about promotion of some recent

album release. Performing is a

thing in itself, and for those who can

do it, it's a way to make a living.

There used to be one way, the ‘OLD

WAY’ now there are at least six

possible music distribution models. These cover just about everything

from the artist’s total ‘hands off’ approach to the artist does just about

everything approach, or the Music DIY model which is obviously not foreveryone.

Somewhere in Between:

David went on to explain that the great thing about this is that “now

you have choice” or as I’ve called it here SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN!

At one end of the scale you have the 360 equity deals, done by people

like Robbie Williams or the Pussycat Dolls who sell a slice of everything

they touch, for lots of money upfront.

These artists are the ‘brand’ and their careers are controlled by

promoters, producers, marketing people and managers. This is a world

of money in, control out.




At the other end of the scale you have the self-distribution model,

where the music is self-produced, self-written, self-played, and self-

marketed. CDs are sold at gigs and through a Web site. Promotion

starts with a MySpace page. The band handle’s its own download sales

and the artists have complete creative control. This is the Music DIY

model which continues to grow in popularity and is often used by new

emerging artists.

SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN you have the distribution Deal, where

the record company bankrolls the recording and handles the

manufacturing, distribution, press, and promotion. The artist gets a

royalty after all those other costs you never keep up with like

manufacturing, distribution, the endless marketing and promotion

costs, all have to be repaid and guess what - the label owns the




copyright to the recording. Forever! What’s the saying “he who pays

the piper calls the tune”

The license deal is also

found SOMEWHERE INB E T W E E N a n d i s a n

approach I’ve used myself on

a number of occasions with

projects. When releasing

dance music under some of

my pseudonym’s like Route

33, Riot Act or SW14 theser e c o r d i n g s h a v e b e e n

released under a license deal

agreement. It’s similar to

the standard distribution

deal, except in this case the artist retains the copyright and ownership

of the master recording and rightly so. It’s normally me who has funded

making the recording in the first place. The right to exploit that

property is granted to a label for a limited period of time — usually

seven years and less if you can get it.

The 50/50 Deal:

Then there’s Profit share or Joint Venture type deals which basically

involve both sides contributing 50/50 in some way to the requirements

of the project. All associated costs are then taken off the top of

generated income. This normally means you would retain the

ownership of masters which are likely to play a role in considering your

contribution to the deal. Net Profits are then shared equally.

Plus there’s the Manufacturing and Distribution Deal. In this type of

deal the artists does everything except manufacture and distribute the

product. Often such companies offer services like marketing but the

incentive (margin) often makes such deals unattractive.




One thing is for sure Artists are at the point where they realize going

back to the old model simply doesn’t make any sense. The major labels

— Sony Music, Warner Music, EMI and Universal Music no longer have

such a firm grip on creating and selling professional music and minting

hits with prime placement on the radio.

The rise of the Internet as a means of promoting and distributing music

is unstoppable. SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN like we’ve talked about

there is maybe the kind of approach or route that might work for YOU.

It might be already within your grasp.

Perhaps you’ll join the growing throng of Music DIY specialists and will

start to seriously look at ways you can develop this approach. All these

are decisions you need to be considering and that’s why you need to

know what you want!




Part 4:

Ok this is the part everybody hates – self examination, decision making

time! The fact is you need to seriously think about what you want to get

out of the next generation music business in terms of your own music

career? What are you in for? Where do you want to be in 3 to 5 years

time?

Do you just want to keep your music as a hobby or are you up for world

domination, fame and fortune or SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN? Be

honest with yourself – you might as well be, nobody is listening. This is

just between you and me. Well, at the moment anyway.




All those usual career type questions are the questions you need to ask

yourself and yes you need to write down the answers. Don’t walk away

and just forget about things, re-examine your thoughts a week later –

are you still thinking the same? If so you need to start preparing to

profit! You must know what you want, to be able to prepare the way forward.

Big Problem:

How many times have you heard people say

when talking about business or getting a

project off the ground that you needs to make a

plan? I’m going to tell you something now and

it’s based on personal experience.

I’ve raised a few million dollars over the last

few years funding investment projects mainly in music. Now let me ask you

this: Do you know one of the biggest problems people have after going

through all the pain and tribulation of raising that capital and getting the

project up and running? No it’s not spending the money! That’s the easy

part. It’s implementing the plan! This often becomes the problem, the follow

through or putting the plan into action.

Focus:

Often people start out OK then a little way

down the road they forget about the plan,

they stop looking at the plan or sticking to

it! They lose their focus or take their eye

off the ball. Things come along and peopleget sidetracked or distracted. I’m not

talking hear about sticking to something

when it becomes clearly apparent that changes are needed – sometimes

that can happen with a business or music project, plans can need

changing to keep a project focused on a successful outcome. No I’m

talking about implementation of a plan or its modifications – post

modification you still need to IMPLEMENT! If you know exactly where

you want to go and you have a plan of action to get there you just don’t

sweat the small stuff.




Let me illustrate this further:

How many of you, the day or night

before you go away on vacation or

go on an important business trip,

make out a list of things you’ve gotto get done before leaving? What if

you’re flying off to the other side of

the world? Isn’t it true you want to

have everything done, sorted and

your bags packed and ready before

that taxi arrives to take you to the

airport!

It’s so simple isn’t it, when you get up the next morning, you know

exactly what you’re going to do? You feel so much more in control,

you’ve got that list you made, so you know exactly what you’ve got to

get done.

The Game Plan:

Because of having a ‘game plan’

which you’ve designed, you have

confidence in it, you get those

things done, get packed on time

and off you go. Notice how you

seem to get so much more done

under these circumstances? Have

you noticed how much more work you seem to get done the day

before your vacation?

You want things to be ‘all OK’ while you’re away, you want everything to

run smoothly and most importantly, you want to still have friends when

you get back!! Imagine the uproar and grief when you get back if you

left something undone at your place of work or all in a mess and others

have to sort it out for you – trouble & strife is coming your way!




Think about this:

If just one day can make so much difference and you can get so much

more done, imaging the difference you can experience if you take that

same approach with planning or ‘Preparing to Profit’ in YOUR MUSIC

CAREER.

The truth is it’s essential in the next

generation music business. Imagine

the effect if you planned your life in this

way? Don’t you think you would have a

better, richer, more balanced or more

fulfilled life? Obviously the answer is yes and it can be the same with your

music career.

It’s the same with whatever you have decided about you and your music

and what you want to achieve in the next generation music business.

The world is full of artists and performers that seem to never quite

make it and spend the rest of their lives telling stories about when they

were in a band, back in the day!

The Starting Point:

This is why YOU must start from the

position of KNOWING WHAT YOU

WANT. If you don’t work this out

first, then how can you make a game

plan? Where do you want to be with

your music in 12 months time or in

3 years time? How about 5 years

time?

You MUST think about this and

make some serious decisions on all fronts: Music, financially, family, life

in general! This will enable you to make the right decisions about YOURmusic career and your future.




So you’ve worked out

what you want, what you

hope to achieve over let’s

say the next 12 months.Let me tell you this

straight away - don’t

think you can do it all

yourself, or need to – you

said 12 months not 12

years!

I can guarantee you

there are not enough hours in a day, trust me, so you will . . . . . .


To get your FREE copy of the complete

guide go to:

http://kevinjryan.co.uk




next generation music biz "prepare to profit" 2

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