Plug Your Songs Online
May 27th, 2010 by Lior ShamirYou’re probably not having any luck getting your songs on the radio, right?
That’s because terrestrial radio doesn’t want you.
You see, record labels have a full staff of professional radio pluggers whose full-time job is to pitch their clients’ record catalog to station managers, playlist programmers, DJs and program producers.
They are insiders − they know all the politics and all the rules. Their rolodexes are packed with every name, number and email in the industry.
So how are you supposed to compete?
Almost 70 million Americans tune into online radio each month. Overall listenership exploded by more than a third last year alone. Online radio has become the single most powerful source of music discovery, which is why up-and-coming artists are falling over themselves to land even a few minutes of airplay on music services such as Jango.
May 28th, 2010 at 7:06 am
I have tried using Jango. Their concept in theory is good. They give you a lot of useful information and demographics, but the average musician cannot afford to pay for plays.
Again, the artist is being taken advantage of to get airplay by more vultures preying on artists that have already spent thousands of dollars creating a product that they should be paying us for to use. Either that or pass their overhead on to advertisers so that the average musician can get airplay. They are just as bad as the record companies and probably making a huge profit.
I had my music up there for awhile, but no one buys music online anymore, so even though I got great feedback and developed a sizable listening audience, I couldn’t afford to keep feeding them money when I wasn’t making anything in return.
Lior Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 11:47 am
Actually, more people are buying music online now than ever before.
May 28th, 2010 at 10:57 am
I agree with Abbetira.
It seems with the new world of the “Do it yourself” artist, the industry people from the old world have now needed to resort to making money from musicians new ways. This seems to be the way.
I am also on Jango and found it a good sevice but at the end of the day – As Abbetira said – If we pay alot of money to make a product, why do we have to pay again so some talentless suit can use it?! Why must musicians be made to feel like cheap whores when so called talent searches charge to enter competitions and then prtend that the winner was “The most talented” when we all know it was the one who “payed the most”
and to those who want $100 just for their personal cetique or reveiw……..Don’t take it out on the musician because you’ve lost your label desk job!
Lior Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 11:51 am
From my experience, the artist that spends the most is not necessarily the artist that succeeds the most. Speaking on behalf of We Are Listening, there is no correlation between our songwriting contest winners and the contest participants who entered the greatest number of song submissions.
May 28th, 2010 at 11:15 am
hey thanks for letting me know about the benefits of www radio.
myself i used to work for sony records and everything that you mseged about is totally true, why do you think i just do my own thing. whay you are talking about with those www radio stats would allow me to do my thing with more people maybe. I think the next step is to move on this opportunity. Thank you so much for your tips and ill be sure to let you know about progress through this process. much love Heezabutler
May 28th, 2010 at 11:51 am
Keep us in the loop, Andrew!
May 28th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
HELLO, AND WHADDUP EVERYONE?
IT IS TO MY UNDERSTANDINGS THAT IF YOU ARE AN INDIE ARTIST OUT HERE, YOU’VE GOT TO PAY TO PLAY… AT THE END OF THE DAY, YOU CAN SEE SOME GOOD MONEY IN THE MUSIC BUSINESS , BUT IT TAKES TIME AND HARD WORK… YOU CAN’T LOOK AT WHAT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING, BUT YOU CAN LEARN SOME OF THE TRICKS OF THE TRADE.. IF YOU ARE DETERMINED AND ARE A DIE HARD AT WHAT YOU DO, YOU CAN AND WILL ACCOMPLISH YOUR GOALS, BUT NEVER LOSE FAITH IN YOURSELF, OR YOUR PROJECT… WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS , HIT THE DRAWING BOARD AGAIN!!! THANKS, R.JONES
May 28th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Okay, here is where I totally disagree with Lior……..with all respect, there is information all over the place that the younger generation does not think they should pay for music when they can download everything online for free.
Here is a good example. I am a member on numberonemusic.com. One of the better (in my opinion) sites to get world-wide exposure. I have been the number one female artist in my genre for several months now with about 35,000 plays in just a few short months. They have a voting system so fans can vote on the songs they love the most and they send you the stats so you can see what songs are being most well received. The membership is very reasonable VS. Jango and I have had over 400 fans sign up on my mailing list in just a few short months. With all of that I am still selling very few CDs or downloads.
So I have taken things into my own hands and I am working on a project that will be coming out in the spring of next year. Something that no other artist is doing. That’s what it takes. Believe me…….I have been at this a long time. I have done road work, I have had a number one song in a regional market in the midwest and won awards for my music. It’s NOT as easy to make money at this as you claim. While the Internet has provided more opportunity, it has also created far more competition, because now everyone can make music and there is just more to wade through.
You have to raise a little hell so to speak!
Lior Reply:
May 30th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
“Revenue from digital music sales worldwide are on track to equal that of physical sales as early as 2016, and by 2010 in the United States… The growth of the US digital market jumped 12 percentage points during 2008. Extrapolating this growth shows that digital music will account for the majority of major label revenue in the US market in mid-to-late 2010.”
Source:
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/08/global-digital-music-sales-to-overtake-physical-by-2016.ars
May 30th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Okay, but according to your information this is for the majority of MAJOR LABEL revenue. As indepenedent artists who get no where near the exposure that the Majors do, what has that got to do with us? How many inde artists do you know getting rich off their downloads? (Very few that I know)
We don’t have the money behind us that they do to pay for plays, and believe me I’m up every mourning working online to find new ways to promote myself before I’m off to work teaching piano to keep a roof over my head. Combined with the fact that I have had more success than the average independent artist, I still have not figured out how to get people buy my music even with all the plays I am getting on the stations I can afford to get my music on.
You just get lost in a sea of thousands of other artists trying to accomplish the same thing.
Lior Reply:
May 30th, 2010 at 10:51 pm
“Assume conservatively that your True Fans will each spend one day’s wages per year in support of what you do. That “one-day-wage” is an average, because of course your truest fans will spend a lot more than that. Let’s peg that per diem each True Fan spends at $100 per year. If you have 1,000 fans that sums up to $100,000 per year, which minus some modest expenses, is a living for most folks… One thousand is a feasible number. You could count to 1,000. If you added one fan a day, it would take only three years. True Fanship is doable. Pleasing a True Fan is pleasurable, and invigorating. It rewards the artist to remain true, to focus on the unique aspects of their work, the qualities that True Fans appreciate.”
Source:
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php
May 30th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
P.S. so who are they talking about in this artical? Lady GAGA and Taylor Swift?
May 31st, 2010 at 12:40 am
Hi Lior,
You are proabably getting sick of me by now……..LOL. I really do appreciate the links you are sending me. You are very supportive. I do understand the model they are talking about in the article, but as I mentioned I have developed close to 500 in fans in less than three months on numberonemusic.com. These are people that Voluntarily sign up for my mailing list on their own. I send news letters every two weeks to keep them up do date on what I am doing. I have over 35,000 plays in that amount of time as well. So why isn’t anyone buying? I have links on the site to Itunes, Amazon.com and CDbaby.com, so it’s not like they can’t find my songs. Still no one is buying and the fan mail I get is amazing.
I am also on a similar site like Fundable…….not sure if you are familiar with sell a band, but they are built on the same principle. I have posted widgets and blogs to send people there and they just don’t go.
So tell me what I am doing wrong? I’m game for anything!
Smiles
Merry
Lior Reply:
June 1st, 2010 at 12:41 pm
How do you define a fan?
Is an individual who opted in to receive email from you fanatical about you and your music? Maybe… but not necessarily.
I have about 400 friends on Facebook. However, the number of true friends in my life — those that I can count on and visa versa — is closer to 10. Yet, they’re all “friends” by definition.
You have 500 “connections” on that site. Some are active. Some are passive. Some may be good friends of yours or fans of your music. Others you will never see or hear from.
So how many REAL fans do you really have?
June 1st, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Merry,
As a music producer & songwriter working with some incredibly talented indie artists, I can relate to your situation. I want to congratulate you on your positive attitude and evident drive regarding this obviously frustrating situation.
My suggestion would be to find right people and create a team. There is just too much to do for one person….
All the best,
George
June 7th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
My thoughts (nothing new, more like a vote)
Set yourself limits on the amount you invest to get heard – self integrity matters more to your well-being than many think, especially if you are producing good-quality songs from the heart. Better to be surviving,although poor, with peace of mind than a prostitute with more income.
Unfortunately we live in a world with a paradigm of consumption and negativity – this reflects in the music tastes of millions who lead superficial lives. I hope this will change with the economic decline serving to force people to consider what is real artistic value.
The internet possibilities are simply another tool. They will rescue nobody – everyone is using it.
Maybe consider that it is more relaxing to do other music-related work where you still get the fair deal that YOU set (e.g. teaching – can be very rewarding)
Tha main thing is to focus on doing things that make you truly happy
Lior Reply:
June 7th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I agree that budgeting is important, Matt.