Canada

I'm going to explain a couple concepts to you .... from a manager's point of view.... these are just my opinions .... if you don't agree with them .... thats your right....

But i'll explain them to you anyhow .... and hope from it you can find something to help you.

I'll explain in a few posts here .... so please bare with me....

First .... for a musician to join a FREE site .... where he/she can upload music for FREE ... which is usually for the exposure .... is an extremely bad idea..... here's why......

Because of these FREE sites .... such as MySpace, Bebo, YouTube... etc. .... fans are getting realllllllllllly used to the fact that music is FREE. Literally thousands of artists are going out of their way to provide alllllll of this music to millions of internet users for FREE.... which these artists are calling ... exposure.

but what the artists are doing .... and not realizing it ... is fueling the fire of FREE accessable online music. So when an artist comes along with a CD to sell.... the fans are saying .... WHAT?????? .... pay money??????? But we have all these thousands of artists giving us their music for FREE ..... why pay "you" for yours?

At the end of the day .... the one who benefits ..... is the site owners.... such as the owner of Bebo who had maybe 50 more people join because of the music on their site..... So lets see if we can work out the very basics of the idea..... we'll use Bebo.com as an example.

Artists smile to strangle themselves to have bebo to upload their music on for FREE exposure .... which now they can't sell... because you can't give people your music for FREE this week ... then ask them to pay for it next week.... in the long run.... bad marketing plan.

Then ... bebo becomes more popular to fans because it has alllllllllll of this great music ...... and the member count begins to rack up..... but ... it goes much further.....

Companies wanting to get their sites advertised say .... hmmmm ... bebo has over a million members ... lets put a banner there. And of course .... bebo says ... that'll be 50 bucks please for the banner ad.

So to make a long story short .... artists just put money in the site owners pocket ..... so... where's the artist's share of the money?

Ahhhhh ... but thats not how it works now is it?

We have already crossed this idea in a couple other examples... there was talk about FREE GIGing.... and how bar/owners are used to getting bands for free or close to nothing ... so when they have to pay a fair cost .... they say WHAT???? NO WAY. Why pay all that for you when I can get them for free?

There's a post about websites charging membership fees .... why pay the cost of a hamburgar for membership to a site .... when allllllllll kinds of other sites are offering services for FREE.

It works the same way for music. Artists are making a very very big mistake by using these FREE sites. But there isn't much that can be done about that now .... its too much out of control.

Also .... you need to think about small sites .... not big ones. An artist will get noticed much much faster on a site with very little members. Thats another mistake artists are making.

They join a site that has millions of fans on it.... wellllllll because they believe they will have more exposure...... wrong.

the problem is ..... thousands of other artists had the same idea .... so now ..... your just one blade of grass in God's little green acres of endless lawns...... and your chances of being noticed by the fans .... is out the window.

On a website where there are less than 1000 people .... you rule. There's no competition there for you..... and ..... presto ..... a CD sale opportunity may come from 1 or 2 people just bumming around the seemingly dead site .... whom you had the chance to talk to personally on a few chat boards being that there wasn't much else to do there and nobody to take their attention from you.

In the sense of trying to sell a CD ..... the last thing you should do is market the CD..... marketing the CD will more times than not .... lose you a sale. Make the CD available .... but shutup about it.

What you market is "yourself". How many times have you said something like...... hey .... AC/DC has a new CD out.... i'm going to check that out. Perfect example of how the Artists sold the CD .... rather than the CD selling itself. The artists was marketed.... not the CD.

For the most part ... when your a new artist ... nobody cares about you... or your little CD. You can almost shove that CD down their throats .... and they'll refuse it most often...... but ..... if you take the time to just linger around a tiny little site ..... talk to a few people ... make some friends .... keep you CD near but be quiet about it .... presto..... can you smell a few opportunities?

Being that I am a Career Manager .... my job is manipulation. Not nice .... but ... thats the responsibilities of a manager. One of the things I use is ...... websites ....

Now ... these websites are not for members persay.... but.... more for the artists. They give me a link for opening a conversation ... and ... swaying negative attention away from the artist themselves.

For example .... say 10 things about the website .... 2 about the artist. That way ... its the website your pushing away ... and not the artists i'm throwing at you. I marketed both .... but ... allowed for the website to be the initial eyesore .... and protected the opinions of the artists in the process.

Thats how you market your CDs ... you don't try to piss people off when you try to sell something .... but.... you always use something as a safety net .... if your trying to sell an artist ... push a website stronger than the artist ... that way ... if you get met with immediate negative attention ... it will be more likely against the website .... and not the artist.

Other tools ... such as Irminsul.... come in handy .... someone who is arguementative .... and will pretty much do your job for you .... lol. Its difficult to mention the idea of websites over and over and over alllllllllllll by yourself .... but ... when you have someone like irminsul who will take the time to market the website for you .... thats perfect .... then all you have to do is sneak the odd link of the artists in the middle of the spit spats .... the links are seen .... but.... the negative attention is still on the websites by irminsul and I .... and passerbys just make click on the artists link in the process of the disagreement. The artists is protected from negative attention of being pushed at people. Job done.

Managers are cruel people. They are manipulative, controling, and very sneaky. They work for the artist .... and their job is to sell them... if that means ... becoming your friend ... or your enemy to create advertising .... it most likely will be done. They don't need friends for themselves .... but rather .... for the artist.

If a manager is argueing with you .... lmao .... be careful .... he may just be using you to sell something..... hey.... it works for me.

Sorry irminsul.... but thanks for marketing my sites for me.

I've noticed alot of people here in bandmix who are very talented musicians .... but when it comes to managing their music ..... holy wow ... they really suck.

But thats ok for them to suck at management .... they are not managers. They only need to be awsome musicians. My advice to them would be ... seek advice. If they are seriousl musicians trying to get themselves out there ..... talk to people. Ask questions .... you wouldn't believe just who you'll run into if you take a minute to just shutup about your music and talk a bit about the lousy paint job on your house..... once again.... market the artists ... not the CD.

A large quantity of people drop by this site and leave their "I need" messages ..... then take off again....

Now .... just who is in charge of their marketing plan? What just happened was .... the music was marketed.... and .... who gives a crap for his/her music? Now if they would have stuck around awhile and made a few friends .... maybe somebody would know somebody who can talk to somebody to give you what your looking for.

(hint newbies) stick around awhile people. How are you going to know what we have for you if you don't stick around long enough for us to tell you. And remember .... I do much for friends .... very little for strangers.

You've made some very good points here. I'd like to address a few of them.

Talented Artists Usually Suck at Managing Their Careers
There is no argument at all with this. It's a sad fact.

We Need Managers to Help Musicians Do What They Cannot
Another unarguable fact. There is an awful lack of managers and promoters in the music scene. I have always found this so bizarre, because with the millions of musicians out there, it's just business for the taking for an ambitious and creative manager/agent. I don't know a single musician who wouldn't gladly part with 15% of their gig money for a good manager who brings them work. They'd be stupid not to.

Free Music Online is Killing Artists
Mmmm, not sure about that one. If you are intent on selling your MP3s online and you aren't in the top ten acts internationally, well yeah - you're pretty much pissing in the wind because the industry HAS conditioned the public to expect (and get) free music. But what I and many other artists have done is to accept this unfortunate fact for what it is and retool our strategy; only put MP3s online as promotion for your pay music. Let them be free, for listening or downloading. What I have found is that a small percentage of all the folks who listen contact me about where they can buy my CDs. Its not the best way to go about it, but given the realities of this screwy market, at least we get some return as opposed to none.

Ad Run Sites, Free to Musicians, Are The Way To Go
This may shock you, but I totally agree. The dilemma is this, though - in order to sell enough ads to make the site self sustaining to profitable, you have to show advertisers that you have the numbers of consumers coming through the site to make their ad dollars spent on you, worth it. AND, we all know that simply making everything free is just not going to get millions to swarm to your site to make it suddenly attractive to advertisers. That is why I don't blame the smaller or newer musician's sites for charging a subscription. Now on what business model they do that is clearly a matter of contention. But I see it in a sort of opposite way to most...that is, I want to see a subscription based site go TOTALLY FREE to the musician once the site is garnering sufficient ad revenue.

And yes, that includes BandMix.

Wow, music mage THAT was some mouthful.

lol... wasn't it though lol.

Well... lots for everyone to comment on lol.

isn't there some unwritten web posting law against too many 'lol''s?

There was ...... till I deleted it..... lol.