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Tom Ozric 
Prog Reviewer 
Joined: September 03 2005 Location: Olympus Mons Status: Offline Points: 15916 |
 Posted: December 22 2014 at 20:54 |
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Just write 'contains mellotron' and we Prog suckers will just lap it up
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Kati
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: September 10 2010 Location: Earth Status: Offline Points: 6253 |
Posted: December 22 2014 at 21:24 |
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A proper music video with semi-naked chicks just might do the trick. aka Queen - Bicycle Race (Official Video)
A concert on top of a mountain. aka La poderosa muerte - Los Jaivas en Machu Picchu Third option above I am not a fan  hugs  |
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Davesax1965
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 23 2013 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 2826 |
Posted: December 23 2014 at 02:35 |
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Returning to the "numbers game" - ie. is publicity worth it ?
I get to look at the analytics on Bandcamp to see who's visited my site. Roughly, every second visitor plays something - so, 50% conversion rate, pretty good. Where I offer *free* music - I don't any more - 1 in 5 visitors download it (the rest presumably just use it as streaming radio). When it comes to general traffic, ***one in two hundred visitors will actually pay for a download ***. Now, that also includes free downloads, so I reckon one in 350 - 400 site visitors actually pay for music. The average wage in the UK is supposedly £26,500. My downloads are up to £5.99 each. It doesn't take a genius to work out that I'd have to sell (tappety tap tap) 369 full price downloads a month to earn the average UK wage - this doesn't include the premium I have to pay Bandcamp and Paypal, of course (nor does it include tax and NI, these are just "illustration purpose" figures. ) And. The UK average wage is enough to keep a roof over your head, food in your stomach and a few small luxuries. Seen the price of musical instruments recently ? :-) So. To earn the average UK wage from music (thank God I'm a solo artist) I would have to attract 12,904 to 14,769 visitors a month to ensure that one in 350 to 400 bought a (full price) download to ensure those 369 monthly sales. Over the course of a year. Forever. Given no other factors, such as the albums aging, trends changing, etc etc. As I mentioned, I'm in marketing. The firm I work for is a UK leader and has been established for 30 years. The entire company doesn't get a fraction of those kind of visitor numbers to it's website every month. So. At this stage, with a modicum of thought, you have to think "Is it worth doing publicity ? " - answer, nope. I could, I suppose, sink money into a vinyl pressing and sell slowly. I could get some t shirts printed up. Or cassettes. But all these are extremely niche market. The bottom line is that I don't get enough visitors. Why ? I'm prog rock, that's why. ;-) So excuse me if I just do the music, let people stumble across it...... and don't give up the day job. ;-) It makes much more sense to me (personally) to forget marketing and just do more music. (a) because I enjoy it (b) because it's the chance of more sales and (c) because I'll totally stagnate musically and from a sales perspective if I don't. How effective marketing is, including social media marketing, is another post. Let's put it like this. 1% hit rate, ie, visits site after seeing mailshot/ flyer etc is a good result in the world of marketing. So I just have to find 129,000 plus prog rockers every month. :-)
Edited by Davesax1965 - December 23 2014 at 03:05 |
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Padraic
Special Collaborator 
Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 16 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Status: Offline Points: 31165 |
Posted: December 23 2014 at 11:14 |
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Toby Driver just posted a picture on Facebook of a royalty check...for $0.01.
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Skullhead
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 06 2014 Location: Vancouver BC Status: Offline Points: 160 |
Posted: December 24 2014 at 01:22 |
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So was the old way better?
Sign your music over to a label and have them send your stuff out to FM radio and print magazines and arrange local radio stops for you on your tour to do interviews the afternoon before the show that evening? I remember my first major label record company deal was 16%. That was divided between the 4 members and our manager. That was 3.2% each after recouping 100% of the label advance which was $200,000. We sold 40,000 units which I think was based upon $5.00 wholesale from the label. We had light rotation on MTV with a vid. That was $200,000. They dropped us like a lead balloon after the first release. |
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Slartibartfast
Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / In Memoriam Joined: April 29 2006 Location: Atlantais Status: Offline Points: 29625 |
Posted: December 24 2014 at 13:48 |
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First become a doctor and discover a marvelous cure for something...
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Kati
Forum Senior Member
Joined: September 10 2010 Location: Earth Status: Offline Points: 6253 |
Posted: December 24 2014 at 20:30 |
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Or call it a novatron, that's a novelty and very acceptable too
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Svetonio
Forum Senior Member
Joined: September 20 2010 Location: Serbia Status: Offline Points: 10213 |
Posted: December 24 2014 at 21:27 |
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 Actually, the self-conceit and unimaginative artists who recycle e.g. Pink Floyd per million times, if they even discover the elixir of youth and become rich & famous doctors, and to live for 400 years, they'll still not able to capture an interesting album that will attract attention of the audience |
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King Only
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 19 2013 Location: Tokyo, Japan Status: Offline Points: 554 |
Posted: December 25 2014 at 09:17 |
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I think heavy self-promotion turns a lot of potential fans off, people don't trust self-promotion. For an album to be successful I think you need to get rave reviews by independent reviewers in 'professional' publications such as Pitchfork, Quietus, The Wire etc.
I also think labeling your music as 'prog' automatically means a lot of people won't bother listening to it since they have a preconceived idea of what 'prog' is. So labeling your music 'prog' means you will never break out of the 'prog' ghetto.
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Davesax1965
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 23 2013 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 2826 |
Posted: December 25 2014 at 10:26 |
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I'll make an offer here. Anyone - this is genuine - who wants to take over my publicity can do. I'll give them 50% of my Bandcamp sales if they can generate over 10 sales per week. ;-)
This will be exclusive to one person only. PM me if you want more details. ;-)
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Angelo
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: May 07 2006 Location: Italy Status: Offline Points: 13239 |
Posted: December 25 2014 at 10:40 |
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Hmmmm... I agree, Kati, on all three points. On Dutch radio a few weeks ago two DJs made a list of the worst singles of the 1990’s. They decided to put the complete works of Celine Dion on #1
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ISKC Rock Radio
I stopped blogging and reviewing - so won't be handling requests. Promo's for ariplay can be sent to [email protected] |
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Angelo
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: May 07 2006 Location: Italy Status: Offline Points: 13239 |
Posted: December 25 2014 at 10:41 |
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That's going to be a hard game, Dave, I agree. You won't get that PM from me for sure.
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ISKC Rock Radio
I stopped blogging and reviewing - so won't be handling requests. Promo's for ariplay can be sent to [email protected] |
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Davesax1965
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 23 2013 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 2826 |
Posted: December 26 2014 at 04:09 |
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Ah, but these are the odds facing prog musicians trying to promote an album, Angelo. ;-)
I was thinking of offering something like this to someone in India, who'd appreciate the $200 a month more than I would. Problem is that they have no appreciation of prog rock, don't know the markets, and - with someone like that - I'd be much happier paying them a basic wage so they at least had something. However, basic wage marketing leads to people.... just taking the basic wage.
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Angelo
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: May 07 2006 Location: Italy Status: Offline Points: 13239 |
Posted: December 26 2014 at 04:29 |
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I know what you mean, Dave, I've been following this discussion from the start. The problem with marketing is that the people working in it often have more passion for the money they make than for the product they sell. Would be great if you could work with someone who is passionate about the product, and willing to take the 'basic wage'.
As for India - there may be someone there who'd do it for you - they also have companies running remote secretary services, where people work hard for you even if they don't always see the larger context of what you ask them to do. At the same time, it would be lacking that passion I referred to, their main 'passion' is satisfying your requests... And now it's about time I started listening to what the actual product is that you are referring to - hadn't gotten around to that yet.
Edited by Angelo - December 26 2014 at 04:29 |
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ISKC Rock Radio
I stopped blogging and reviewing - so won't be handling requests. Promo's for ariplay can be sent to [email protected] |
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Skullhead
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 06 2014 Location: Vancouver BC Status: Offline Points: 160 |
Posted: December 26 2014 at 23:43 |
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From what I understand from a few in the prog biz I know.... is that the "Prog" labels don't do much more for an artist than they could fairly easily do for themselves. Unless of course the artist is dead broke.
They aren't paying for the band to tour. They aren't paying for studio time or giving bands big advancements. They can't because they know prog bands generally don't make money. They might cover the cost of duplication of your finished CD or master. Send them out to the few prog mags that are left, websites for review and some obscure prog radio shows or a few of the prog streaming sites. They might get a few CD's into some stores, but they will just sit on the shelves unless a person walking in is led over to it by someone working there, or they happen to be playing it in the store which won't happen often if ever. I would think most musicians or bands could do this just as easy as the labels are doing. |
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Davesax1965
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 23 2013 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 2826 |
Posted: December 27 2014 at 03:42 |
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But the net result is the same, music which very few people want, unfortunately, and a listening public who are, on the whole, unprepared to pay for it. Having said that, thanks to Julia for the downloads last night !!!
Skullhead, if you honestly want to make money from music, my offer is open to you. Pre-written content, 50% takings are yours. If it's that easy, be my guest.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: December 27 2014 at 06:36 |
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Pointless anecdote #63
Back in 1999, when the Gothic Metal band I was managing produced its first demo EP (the purpose of which was primarily to send out to record labels in chasing the dream of a recording contract) we were "invited" to play a Showcase Gig. Showcases are like those dreadful Battle of the Bands affairs except no one is declared a winner where you find yourself on a bill of disparate bands, sandwiched between the inept Ska-punk band whose songs all sound the same and the wannabe girl-band that features one kid who can sing and three of her mates who can't. The audience at these gigs are generally there to support their friends who were in one of the bands playing and have little or no interest in anyone else. The promoter's claim that representatives from several record labels and music journalists will be present proved to be a tad optimistic, invites may have been sent out to these music-biz professionals but none of them showed save for a few people who run low-circulation fanzines who are often more interested in promoting themselves than any of the bands on stage. Although had my reservations about playing to an audience who weren't into our kind of music most of the band-members were up for the gig (I believe there was one other descenting voice) but having never experienced one of these events before I decided to be open-minded, so we signed up and took along two boxes of the newly pressed EP (having spent the previous evening sat around my kitchen table sticking the Pressit labels on the duped CDRs, cutting and folding the full-colour artwork and placing them into the individual jewel cases). The band's set was well received considering they were playing original extreme metal songs that few in the audience had ever heard before. The girl from the one of the fanzines was seen head-banging in the moderate impromptu mosh-pit that formed in the front row even if her subsequent review was a little disparaging ('only established bands like Cradle of Filth should attempt ten-minute epics' ... or words to that effect). After the set I sent the band members out with bundles of CDs, telling them to stand by the exits and thrust our CD into the faces of everyone and sell, sell, sell; and if even if no one was prepared to buy at least get them to sign up for the mailing list. And that worked rather well, I don't recall the actual figures but I think we sold just over half of what we had made and accumulated email addresses that filled two sides of A4, in one evening we recouped all the manufacturing costs with a few quid to spare to buy stamps and jiffy bags. The following day we had our weekly rehearsal but the atmosphere was a little subdued, which is not unusual after even a successful gig as the band was prone to a little over-analysis of the small errors and fluffs that may have occurred. So we abandoned the rehearsal and retired to the nearby pub to discuss the next step (which was to send out copies of the EP to record labels, fanzines, music mags and reviewers). Staring into our pints of beer, I asked what was up. 'We don't want to do that again'. What, play showcases? I asked, 'No - hawk our CDs to people who aren't interested in us'. It was also evident that a couple of the band members found the experience a little demeaning. That of course raised questions over the mailing list from the previous evening and the list of record labels, mags and reviewers we'd collated, but we decided to send them all out regardless and prepared ourselves for the subsequent rejection letters and poor reviews. ['Black-clothing and frilly-shirts doth not a goth-band make...'] As the years passed we got better at this, and we became far more selective about who we targeted our marketing at. The big-name record labels were quickly dropped from our hit-list, as were the major music magazines. And we recognised that our most important target were the audience we were playing to, no amount of self-promotion and self-publicity can beat what you can get from engaging with the people who willingly come to your gigs to hear you play. Building up this grass-roots following takes time and it is hard work, but it is also very rewarding (though never lucrative in the monetary sense) and pays dividends in the long term. When you are a niche artist in a niche market you can never be rich, but you can be self-financing of you set your sights accordingly and put the effort in. Edited by Dean - December 27 2014 at 07:41 |
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Guldbamsen
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin Joined: January 22 2009 Location: Magic Theatre Status: Offline Points: 23098 |
Posted: December 27 2014 at 08:50 |
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Post of the day for me. Thanks Dean
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“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
- Douglas Adams |
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Davesax1965
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 23 2013 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 2826 |
Posted: December 27 2014 at 11:05 |
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Yep, well said, Dean.
The problem I have, honestly, with music is that music written for music's sake is good. When money or popularity comes in, the music tends to take a back seat to producing "product" or something which will please an audience. I just like writing my own stuff and letting it find its' own level. I would like it to reach more people, but that's just natural. The problem, when it *does* reach the wrong kind of people, is that you find yourself with an increasing number of headaches as Belgian student radio stations help themselves, and you get reviews by absolute idiots (no one on this site ! :-) ) who give you all kinds of handy hints about how you could be more popular...... when they can't actually clap in time and can't recognise a saxophone from a harmonica. (True story.) I also massively dislike spending my time doing publicity. I do "publicity" and marketing as a day job. Music is not supposed to be a job or a major source of disappointment dealing with village idiots all day.
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Skullhead
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 06 2014 Location: Vancouver BC Status: Offline Points: 160 |
Posted: December 27 2014 at 23:51 |
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If I thought it was easy, I wouldn't have started this thread. Just asking for advice from maybe a few who have more experience than I in this genre. My band from decades ago sold 40K albums, but it was a different kind of music. I just did my thing, but wasn't totally over the top with the band either. It wasn't "my band" and the decisions were made mostly by two of the others and the people at the label. It was a major label release, but obviously didn't pan out. Two years later everyone was back working in coffee shops, not playing music either to be specific. |
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How to Promote a Prog album in 2015
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Guldbamsen wrote: