Album release checklist for the DIY musician - success plan!

This kind of post comes up all the time and this latest one from CD Baby listing what you need to do when that huge box of CD's has just been delivered is a good checklist to have to hand.

When your album is finished, your work is only half done; and oftentimes, that first half is the easy part.

Radio promotion, PR, booking, web maintenance, and all the other “business” elements of a music career generally don’t come naturally to artists. But if you can learn to embrace the fact that these tasks NEED to get done in order for anyone to hear your music (and chances are that no one else is going to handle all those things FOR you), then you’ll eventually find a sense of fun and accomplishment in the non-musical chores too!

Not only does it then list 12 steps that you need to go through but it also links to loads of further articles that expand on those steps. This is one worth bookmarking!

Whilst we're on the subject, there's a great pre-release checklist on MusicianWages here and you'll then need to check out Cameron's mind bogglingly good series of posts on everything you need to know about self-releasing an album here. It's awesome!

BUT, and this is CRUCIAL, this is all bollocks unless your album is worth releasing in the first place (read our post here) and you MUST have built a fanbase first - READ this post from Topspin dude Ian Rogers (he really is actually a dude) which is the best one post description of how to build that fanbase that I have ever seen.

I'll be sending endless people who contact me and ask about how they should release their album to read this post - I'd hope you'd bookmark it and refer to it as this is pretty much the plan on how you acheive DIY success!

Offer vinyl as a part of a your release?

Image by Karola Reigler Photography

Check out this long post about the continued resurgence of vinyl and what it means, both culturally and for you as a mucsician.

It's a great piece that links out to various other articles to look at the whole picture of what is currently happening with vinyl sales - the truth being that they are on the increase but are a tiny fraction of music sales overall.

Cutting a vinyl record today is about making a physical artefact of a release. It carries with it prestige. Its scarcity is part of its value, with exclusive 12″ releases again returning to the days when DJs were judged by the obscure gems in their collection, not the disposable digital hits.

But, for the DIY musician, this format is something special. When you have a fanbase that can support the cost (somewhere between 2500 and 5000 people on your email list - actively interested in your music) there will be a core number amongst them who adore the idea of a physical 7" or 12". I see it all the time with my clients where we get a steady stream of email asking for various records on vinyl. OK, sure, it's genre dependent to a degree (all those trip-hoppers and electronic fans love vinyl more than some other niche fans) but, for all artists, the market is there.

Learn about vinyl - it's tactility, warmth, superior sound, heritage etc - and when the time is right, make a big deal about offering it to your fans.

Read the whole piece here.

What is an Album now anyway?

Image by kevindooley

When someone who's worked at a major label with superstar acts wants to tell you something about how to succeed as a musician, you can bet that you should be listening.

That's the case here in this great piece on Hypebot about how the Album is dying and what it will become.

I don't agree necessarily with the overall view of the piece, as the format showcases music and great music is at the heart of what we all do, but there are two sections that are required reading for artists.

One in the middle of the post where Ethan 'defines the Album':

• Branding: an album serves as a tent pole around which to rebrand a band. Logos, type faces, color, visual identites. This also applies to non-visual things such as: message, statement, platform, etc.
• Visuals: both with and without music, related closely to branding
• The Hook: something that serves as the tweet worthy summation of what this Album is aiming at
• The Angle: a unique method or action which serves as an easy method for someone to write about the record
• The Timeline: the sequence of events and windowing of releases culminating to…
• The Release: Not the end game, but rather a stop along the way
• The Music: Can’t forget about this? Or can you?

And at the end, where he sets out rules for a release:

• Announce the release when it is ready to ship. Lead times should be at most 4 weeks from announcement to “in hands”
• Self-direct all publicity and promotion. Own the visual language/identity, own the messaging.
• Fans matter more than radio stations, website exclusives, etc. Giving a video to the NY Times ahead of your own YouTube won’t get you a good review: don’t do it.
• Hear it and buy it: don’t put anything up to hear, watch or experience if it can’t be purchased. Reward loyalty for your fans through exclusives.
• Make your fans product evangelists. Everyone wants an iPad because everyone they know wants one or has one. Make your release so amazing that you want to tell the world about it.
• Own your press: disintermediate, be selective with interviews and use the channels at your disposal (video, twitter, etc)
• Make it an event. Time it properly, make all messaging unified and coordinated.
• Let the Release define itself: if you can’t summarize it in one sentence, keep winnowing it down until you can. It might be an app, a collection of songs, a video album, etc

These are both critical things to understand and why 'just having good music' is never enough!

You can read the whole post here.

 

 

 

Direct to fan releases avoid piracy

I know I said I wouldn't join in and talk about Radiohead - sorry!

But this piece in Billboard is more about the changing release structure that allows bands, who don't have a record deal and who have a community of fans that trust their creative chops, to go straight to them with a new record.

They can put it on sale without anyone knowing what it'll be like - because they trust the band.

And Radiohead fans are the most like this, as far as I can see.

Direct to fan doesn't replace the old model, but can run alongside it and even pre-empt it.

The new music business model axiom says access over ownership...except in this case. If you want Radiohead's "The King of Limbs" you'll have to legally or illegally download it. None of the subscription services, from Spotify to MOG, will have the album until its commercial release on March 29.

This is a hint of things to come. Over time more artists will decide to self-release music in this fashion, thus creating long, staggered release windows that place serious fans first and more casual fans further back in line. Traditional retail must wait in line, too. That means service companies that provide the tools and expertise for the online self-release of albums will benefit from this self-release strategy while the second wave of consumers are left to retailers.

Read the Billboard piece here.

And, you might have seen this already!

 

Playbutton - a badge that thinks it's an album

I can't remember where I found this but it's a great idea as an alternative format for your album.

It's a badge (button, if you're American) which has an album's worth of mp3 material on it. You can't change it, so it's a fixed format, like an album.

In the direct to fan model having alternative formats and versions of your releases and selling packages of the CD plus vinyl and something like this is very much the norm.

Prices start at around US$9 per unit when you order 300 and drop if you order more - so it's affordable.

Have a look at their site here.