So you’re ready to start getting down to the business of music, but you’re slowly starting to realize something awful: you don’t know the first thing about making it in the music business. After all, you’re a musician, not a record exec. But what kind of impact will it have on your career as a musician if you just let your music go without serious promotion backed by a record label? Are you satisfied working that 9-5 for the rest of your life, or do you aspire to something more?
DOES THIS SOUND LIKE YOU?
* You’re good at music, maybe even created a full album worth of material, but you don’t know what to do with it now.
* You’ve sent your music to record labels and faced that cold rejection. Most of the time you never hear back at all.
* You’ve submitted their music online to a few places… but you’re not getting any listeners. You’re getting lost in the crowd, and you’re definitely not making much money.
* You want to start bringing in the big bucks, but you’re stuck playing the same five or six clubs month after month. You feel like your career’s going nowhere fast.
If this all seems familiar, you may want to consider starting your own record label. If music is your thing, but you’re lost when it comes to the “business” side of things, then you need to start thinking hard about how exactly you’re going to pursue music full-time. You need to learn how to promote your CD, how to get people to buy it, how to get it distributed, how to start touring, and how to get on the radio.
THE OLD WAY
The vast majority of people who submit demos to record labels face constant rejection. That shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Most people don’t get ahead in the music biz by relying on overworked, underpaid interns to listen to your demo and hopefully share your vision for the future. If you keep sending your demos to record labels, they’ll likely keep ending up in the same place: the garbage can. Continue reading →








