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Music is too big a world for a one-size-fits-all model of music career success. Musicians‘ career paths are as unique as their individual finger prints. Nevertheless, there are a few guidelines that I believe apply to anyone trying to make a living career out of their love of music. Here are five:

1. Hone your talent and realize there is a place for you. Not everyone is a Quincy Jones, a Beatles, or a Bruce Springsteen, but if an artist like Tom Waits is a vocalist, then there is definitely room for you too. Do the work necessary to excel in your niche, whether it’s writing a chart, engineering a session, providing backup vocals, or teaching kids the basics of music.

Your goal, to use marketing lingo, is to “position” yourself in your “market” as the go-to person for that particular skill or talent. Don’t worry too much about industry rejection. Every record label in Britain initially passed on the Beatles and The Rolling Stones. The key is believing in yourself and persevering beyond others’ opinions (even those of “the industry”).

2. Connect with as many people as you can because relationships drive music careers more that anything else, even talent. Music is a “who-you-know/who-knows-you” kind of business. The quality and quantity of your relationships will be the primary engines of your progress. Try developing creative projects with fellow-musicians. Perhaps you can combine your live show with two other acts and present the package to a local promoter. There is strength in numbers. Finding the right combinations takes experimentation.

If you’re interested in working in the business side of music, then interning at a music company is the best way to both learn how the biz works and connect with those who can help move your career along.

3. Accept the new powers in your corner and take responsibility for creating your own success.The last twenty years has given you the means to both produce and distribute your own music on a global scale. New models of business are emerging in the world of music. A “record deal” is not necessarily the goal any longer. The Internet has clearly become your “open mic” to the world, and desktop technologies provide you with ways to have the look, reach and efficiency of larger companies. Dare to be different.

Remember, new power also means new responsibilities. Global reach means a potentially far-flung audience. You need to be ready for the incoming messages and questions from this new market. Have you created the best business structures to hold and express your work? Are you setting up effective systems to communicate with your audience? It’s up to you to create your own success and not merely rely on a record company or agent to do the work of making you visible in the marketplace.

4. Understand that every business is becoming a “music business” and so musical opportunities are multiplying. It took a coffee company and a computer manufacturer to teach the music industry how to sell music in the digital age! Non-music businesses everywhere are seeking creative ways to add music-related services to their mix. This means that you needn’t be dependent on the traditional “music industrial complex” for music career success.

Think of companies you already resonate with and try brainstorming ways you can link up. Start on a local scale. It might be a gift shop, bookstore or arts organization. It may even evolve into a full-fledged sponsorship for a tour or recording project. Finds ways to add value to what these businesses are doing with what you have to offer. Forging creative alliances is key to building a multi-dimensional music career.

5. Prepare to be versatile and to wear several hats initially, until your “brand” is established. Most musicians I know have had to cobble together several revenue streams in the early stages of their careers in order to make enough money to support themselves. Many have also had to take on a non-music “lifeline careers” just to make ends meet, pay down debt, or supplement what they earn from music.

I tell musicians to not so much look for “a job,” but to seek out the work that needs to be done. It might be arranging a song, playing a wedding gig, helping organize a concert series, doing a jingle session, offering private music instruction, or writing a review of your favorite band’s new CD. Eventually, all the different experiences merge together into the roaring river that will be your music career. At that point you’ll be visible, in demand and able to name your price. And
that’s career success.

Peter Spellman is Director of Career Development at Berklee College of Music, Boston, and author of the new book, Indie Marketing Power: The Guide for Maximizing Your Music Marketing

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As a professional writer and occasional music manager, I often encounter bands and solo musicians that work very hard to attract attention from music management agencies. Unfortunately, a legion of grifters uses the raw desire for success against many smart, talented music professionals. If a representative from a music management agency contacts you, use these three guidelines to determine whether they’re on the level:

1. Real music management agencies will never, ever ask you for money up front. Managers make commission on their clients’ earnings, and experienced managers understand that an unknown artist doesn’t have much money. By taking on “developmental clients,” music management agencies cultivate both business and goodwill that they hope will pay off when an artist enjoys a modest breakthrough.

On the other hand, fly-by-night music management agencies run by rip-off artists know that there are plenty of talented people who are willing to believe that a fee of a few hundred dollars will get them attention from record labels and from radio stations. While it’s legitimate for a very small music management agency to ask for a small retainer to cover overhead expenses, this fee should be negotiated in advance and should be billed after the agency has done some work on a client’s behalf.

2. Real music management agencies can point you in the direction of successful clients, or can admit that they’re still so new that they haven’t had any breakout stars on their roster. Believe it or not, some of the most influential music managers of the last five decades had little or no experience in the music business. They just had the drive and the stamina to do great work for equally talented clients.

Meanwhile, you can tell most rip-off music management agencies by looking at their web sites or at their offices. If your potential managers seem to have collected hundreds of “grip and grin” photographs of themselves with some major stars, ask whether the manager did any actual work with that artist, or whether the just love to snap photos at industry “meet and greet” events. Many Nashville con artists stuff their offices full of artist photos to deliberately overwhelm the senses - and the judgment - of potential victims.

3. Real music management agencies handle business at the office, not at the gig. Professional music managers understand that live shows are the best possible marketing opportunities for bands to grow their audience and sell their merchandise. After all, the more money a band makes, the more money a music manager makes. Professional managers will, most often, grab some contact information from a band member or from the merchandise table, so they can make contact during business hours.

Unfortunately, many bands get taken in by the rip-off music manager that trades on the adrenaline rush after a live set. These scam artists often slide up to the stage right after a set, buying drinks (or even supplying drugs) to their targets. They play off the notion that many musicians love to party, and that signing with their (bogus) music management agency can lead to plenty more party nights. Before long, the so-called manager has snagged a hefty retainer, which they usually use to fund parties with their new marks.

Remember, professional music management agencies recruit new clients based on measurable results, not just based on a band’s performance at one club night or at one music conference. Just as sporting talent scouts keep an eye on potential pro athletes throughout their high school and college careers, real music management agencies may be watching your band grow from a distance. In the meantime, rely on your friends, your family, and your street team to provide the foundation you need to attract the right professional manager for your career.

Joe Taylor Jr. has written four books about the music business for aspiring musicians, including Music Management for the Rest of Us. You can learn more about finding professional music management agencies at: http://www.musicmanagementfortherestofus.com/agencies/

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Hardly anybody in the music business understands that the old formula of how to successfully promote a new act is obsolete. The record companies are all aware that there is a big problem but they have no idea what the solution is. What they do understand is that they are unable to recoup their investment in studio time with a good producer, the cost of a good video, the advertising budget, and the cost of the first promotional road tour from the profits on a first hit CD. An act must be capable of repeating and sustaining their initial success in the studio in order for a record company to make a profit because the necessary investment has increased dramatically. Ever since the mid 1990’s the record companies have become painfully aware that there are no acts containing songwriters who can keep on writing more hit songs. All the new acts since the mid 1990’s have one, two, maybe three good songs at the most, and any person who’s purchased a CD since that time will testify to that. The record companies also know that MP3 downloading on the internet is a factor that has negatively affected their profits. Put that together with their inability to find sustainable new acts and you have the two main reasons why so many record companies are losing money. The ones that are not losing money are the ones that have a library of popular artists from the past who continue to sell. The record companies now understand that the internet is the new communications medium, it’s here to stay, and they are all trying to figure out how to take advantage of it. Their pattern has always been to watch the numbers, analyze the trends, and then try to jump on board and ride the wave for as long as it lasts. If I told them what the answer is to the problems they face, they simply wouldn’t know what to do with the information.

The new formula for success is to have the right factors in place first, and then to use the internet’s full potential to bring the artist to the attention of the entire world.

1. Step 1: In order to create a hit record it is necessary to have a
   hit song. So what is a hit song? It’s a song that is so blasted catchy that after hearing it one time people cannot get it out of their minds and they will spend money to own the CD. The best producer cannot produce a hit record without having that kind of raw material. My old friend Gary Kelgren said it best - “You can’t polish a turd”.

2. Step 2: In order to create a hit music artist on the internet, of course it is necessary to have one or more hit songs that have been properly produced, but it is also necessary to have a “hit web site”. So what is a hit web site? Obviously it’s one with thousands of “hits” per day but that’s not the point. The point is that in the same way that a hit song works for a listener, a web site must grab a net surfer’s interest within the first 5-10 seconds and hold their interest long enough for them to find the hit songs and listen to them. But it should also contain entertaining content for people to read and enjoy because a good web site is a much more complex form of entertainment. The best web sites are the ones that have great creative writing and cannot be digested in one sitting, so people will keep coming back for more entertainment. This kind of web site cannot possibly be designed by a web site design professional because real creative and entertaining writing is not for sale at any price. That means the successful artist of the future needs to be more than just a musician in order to take full advantage of the new medium because the web site needs to reflect the artist’s personal expression, and nobody can do that except the artist.

3. Step 3: Creative internet promotion. The new formula for success may not even require an advertising budget for proper promotion of the web site in order to achieve thousands of hits per day if the promotion is creative enough. But the two previous steps are absolute prerequisites for success in the new medium. A money-losing promotional road tour will be pointless and unnecessary until a large audience is developed by building an internet fan club and selling enough CD’s to warrant a road tour that will turn a profit. The new formula also contains the potential for making the old costly distribution networks obsolete because purchasing directly over the internet could eliminate the necessity for retail mark-ups and thus maximize profits for all concerned. The Recording Industry Association of America has the correct statistics on what music is actually selling as opposed to what is being played on the radio and what the record companies are trying to market. They list The Beatles as the best selling act/artist of all time with 166.5 million albums sold in the USA alone. They list Elvis second with 117.5 million units sold, Led Zeppelin third with 106 million units sold, and the top 25 are dominated by classic rock acts including The Doors, The Stones, Pink Floyd, The Eagles and many others. I think it’s very significant that those statistics are becoming geometrically times greater than the number of albums that they sold during their performance lifetimes. What has happened and is happening is that the young people of today are discovering them in droves and buying their music. Traditionally, the record buying public has always been young people between the ages of 12-25 and those demographics have not changed. What this means is that the potential for profit in new classic rock and roll music is beyond calculation.

Peter Cross is a former professional drummer and a singer/songwriter/producer/Web Master who was among the first to put music on the Internet in a downloadable format in 1996. His web site is very entertaining and at 206 pages, it may be the largest music artist web site on the Internet. You can find this article at: http://www.starcrost.com/entertainment/musicbiz.php and his home page at: http://www.starcrost.com where his copyright is displayed right above the “Greatest Rock Sites on the Web” designation.

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