Are you hoping for a favorite CD in your stocking or under the tree this year? Are you giving the gift of music to anyone on your list?I've been pondering these questions as several of my musical friends and co-conspirators are presently recording albums or have just released albums. I'm watching with great interest as they market their albums, and wonder how they are doing at breaking through the competitive market noise. It's challenging enough to get your tracks down. Then the marketing begins.
The last time I recorded and marketed an album, cassette tapes were the preferred medium, falling bang in between the vinyl album and the CD eras (writing that down makes me feel REALLY old). There was no online presence for one's musical art back then. Me and my fellow band members sold albums strictly at performances and on the strength of recommendation. We had no distribution deal and no retailers - but also no middlemen. A reasonable per-unit price point was around a 1,000 units, so you had to ante up for significant inventory if you circulated in a small market. Still, we sold about a combined 3,000 units of two albums in max size market of about 600,000 people - and we all had full time occupations outside of music, which meant we performed only about 6-12 times a year. We were incredibly lucky to have a strong network of families and friends who sold for us commission free, and that meant we had virtually no marketing costs. We kept all of the profit margin (split five ways, mind you), and our audience was hungry for music in a way that to me, is greatly diminished today.
Fast forward: With online marketing tools like CD Baby and iTunes, do family and friends still buy blocks of albums and sell them for you? Do they want to be bothered when it's so convenient to send them online? Today, an indie artist with limited DIY skills can rack up marketing costs that never existed before: web site hosting, web site design, commissions on various distribution methods, time spent thinking up creative ads and incentives, maintaining an online presence with social media, and more.
On the other hand, the world is your market. But access to a global-sized market creates the new challenge of breaking through the clutter. And even if your market focus is regional, there is a ton of talented people doing the same thing you are, which means there is more great music to choose from than ever before. Those fantastic jam sessions shared by a few friends 25 years ago that rarely made it out of the basement are now all over cyberspace. Digital technology has done a terrific job of enabling and empowering the indie artist. There's an incredible richness of talent and variety, making the music fan's job of sourcing and sorting their favorite musical genres and preferences a huge project.
But one thing that has not changed much is word of mouth. Perhaps more than ever, music fans rely on and trust recommendations from friends. Which brings me back to your Christmas list. What indie artist whom you absolutely love will you recommend by way of a gift of music this Christmas?
On that note,I want to say a big thank you to all the readers of this little blog project. Since I began this blog in September, there have been nearly 800 page views in this little corner of my musical life, and that's a fair bit more than I ever expected. Thank you, and I wish you all a profoundly peaceful Christmas where ever you are.
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BTW: A friend of mine shared this story about the recent passing of Captain Beefheart, an artist with an uncompromising standard for his art, regardless of what the market said. R.I.P. Don Van Vliet.
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