Get your music to ears that matter
ItÊ»s been awhile since I’ve updated but I feel that this is important news regarding innovative ways in which to market your music. As members of the HawaiÊ»i music industry, we have tried to find ways to beat the downturn of our marketplace. With distribution companies closing down, stores downsizing their floor area for music and blank CD sales soaring, we can only wonder if there’s any hope at all. We’ve been hit hard by a Tower Recordsless market. Many have been complaining about the burning illegal copying and downloading of CDs and saying that we need to somehow stop them. By this point, I think we all realize that stopping them may be impossible. Here’s where HawaiÊ»i Podcamp, which happens on October 24th at the HawaiÊ»i Convention Center, comes into play
I’m not prepared to say that this is the answer to all our problems as an industry, but I will say that if all we do is complain nothing will happen for us. It’s time to search for the solutions and Podcamp could be a huge step in the right direction. Remember that the “World Wide Web” is truly world wide, and the folks that will be at podcamp are people that will be able to get your music out to the world. It’s time to consider your options. Do you continue to fight the losing battle or do you find new avenues to present your music? They (HawaiÊ»i Podcamp) are also looking for people who would be willing to entertain their guests from around the globe and from HawaiÊ»i Nei. It can’t hurt to have people talking about you on their Blogs, Podcasts, and Vid/Vodcasts. Best of all Its all free. The internet has been both bad and good for the industry. This is one of the good things. Please don’t miss this opportunity.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
I heard some rumor maybe a week ago that Apple was threatening to quit selling music on their site because the musician royalty payment was going to be increased from something like 9 cents per track to maybe double by some agency (which I don’t remember the name of currently).
Supposedly there’s very little margin in selling downloads at Apple; their revenue stream is said to come from their hardware. It’s like the chicken and the egg story – yet there would be no point of music hardware if there wasn’t any music to play back.
But you’ve got to sell a lot of downloads to make any money at only 9 cents a track. If an artist sold direct on their own website they could charge more, but then again, does a musician really want to get into managing a website?… probably not. And if you hire someone, all the overhead is eating up your margin and we’re back to 9 cents again…
What’s out there for a musician? Can you go work as a studio musician and pull down a decent paycheck doing tracks for film and television? Are there that many jobs open for that type of work? For example, what type of person is attracted to a 9 to 5 job playing piano?
There’s a weird line between producing music as an art form and being a commercial success with your music. Do you want to be happy and true to your craft, or do you want to eat and have a roof over your head? Obviously you can have both, but it’s unrealistic that will happen except for a very small percentage of people.
I like what you said about searching for solutions. And I like when people collaborate too. Lots of solo acts that I think would sound great doing work with other musicians. Like a relationship, fair and equal compromise is the glue that keeps it strong.
Will you be attending Podcamp?