Unless you have spent the majority of your life living under a rock then you should be familiar with the saying, If you want anything done right you need to do it yourself! This may very well be one of the most valid sets of words ever spoken. Those words apply to the music industry like a hand in a glove.

I have had the fortunate opportunity to grow up around the music industry, and experience firsthand all of the ins-and-outs of the game. I have been to all of the work shops, I have read the books, I have purchased the e-books. After all of that I am embarrassed to say that very few individuals actually have a clue on how to break into the industry.

Well my friend, if you are at all serious about breaking into the music industry you need to continue reading this article. All I ask of you is to read it with an open mind.

Here we go:

First and foremost, let me break it down in simple terms; you (the independent artist) are a small business. As a small business you have to learn how to do many jobs. Some jobs you can’t wake up in the morning and get started on. Others jobs will make you feel like you want to jump out of a window and you will hate every second of it.

The major distributors and record labels are like the bank, or a team of investors. The only thing that they care about is the bottom line. At the end of the day all they want to see is a positive return on their investment.

Are you still with me so far? Ok Good! Keep reading.

Unless you have millions of dollars lying around the house collecting dust sooner or later you are going to need to hook up with the majors. There are a few different ways that you can do this but for right now I want to keep it as simple as possible.

Nine out of ten independent artists, have this misconception that the music business is about 90% talent and 10% business. That is so far from the truth that it is ridiculous. The truth is it’s totally the opposite. The music industry is 90% business and 10% talent. Out of 100 independent artists that I have interviewed 99% of them create a demo and submit it to every record label on the planet. Then they walk around telling everyone that they are about to get a record deal soon. To put it nicely ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!

Remember a few moments ago I told you that the record label is like a bank? Well that is the truth and you have to approach them in the same manner.

Here is what most artists are doing… They go to the bank (the major labels, distributors, etc) thinking that they are going to get a small business loan (a cash advance). The first thing the bank wants to know is what type of assets you have (why should they invest in you?) The artist confidently states that they have a double platinum record on their hands and they know that it will make tons of money.

Although though the bank is laughing inside the banker will ask, does the artist have proof of this claim (Can you prove that your record will defiantly sell?) The banker will want to see your business plan; i.e. how much money have you made on your own? How large is your current fan base? How many units have you sold without them etc…?

Now the savvy artist thinks that they can out smart the banker by lying about their credentials, not realizing that they are masters at this game. The artist will boast about their live performances, how many units they have sold, etc. but when the banker asks for proof, the gig is up. If you do not have press coverage, sound scan print outs you have no loan translation. You’re not going to get a record deal.

I think it was Bill Gates who said if you build it they will come. Take a look at Microsoft that is more than enough proof. Bill Gates created an interface that made the computer simple enough that a monkey could use it and the whole world purchased it.

The same is true with your music career. If you build it they will come (the record labels). Its not that hard to build a lucrative music career, it is however extremely time consuming.

If you are reading this you should already have a finished product. That is what you are going to build your initial business plan around. The first thing you have to do is build the foundation.

Your foundation is your own domain name. Most artists make the mistake by only having a myspace.com page which is good, but extremely risky to your music career.

What if you build your entire fan base and have them use to coming to MySpace to find out what is going on with your music career and MySpace decides to sale the company, or worse yet their company folds.

I know some of you are probably saying fat chance of MySpace closing. That’s the same thing that millions of others said when MP3.com collapsed. I personally know individuals who lost thousands of dollars because they trusted in [the original] MP3.com.

One close friend of mine lost his house and his car, because he built his entire career around MP3.com.

Take a little time and think about the things I have discussed in this article and look out for more articles from me soon.

About Author: Tim Beachum

C.E.O. of MusicBizCoach.com, Producer of the independent film “Consignment”, and author of The Ultimate Guide To Self-Promotion. http://www.theirarticles.com

For more education on careers in the music industry, check out: http://www.music-career-guide.com

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Maybe many of you have already thought about this type of a technological solution to the dilemma of smaller and indie artists never showing up in ASCAP’s or BMI’s periodic samples for music performance royalties – but wouldn’t it be ironic if the growing anti-piracy trend to dynamically filter uploads to YouTube and MySpace (and the recent proliferation of audio watermarking efforts from companies like Activated Content which are quickly becoming the new and improved DRM) became instead – the new standard to accurately and fairly track public performances? Forget bar codes, ISRC codes and acoustic fingerprinting for a minute…

The global music industry could feasibly migrate from piracy to promotion to payments…

Think about it… if suing customers is not the real savior of the floundering music industry that the RIAA hoped it would be… then perhaps a technology that’s mostly associated with crackdowns on music and movie pirates could instead be used to help longtail artists actually get paid when their music is played… Sounds crazy, right…? Well, maybe not…

DISCLAIMER: I acknowledge that it would be incredibly cost prohibitive and resource intensive to re-encode the world’s library of previously recorded music with watermarks and add additional meta data to all the content closely guarded in the label’s vaults, so for simplicity’s sake, let’s assume that I could wave a magic wand through legislation [or magic] and declare that all new music released from Jan. 1, 2008, — in the U.S. to start — would have a unique and inaudible identifier embedded into the actual audio file. It would then be up to the owner of each individual file produced and subsequently released into the market to put their tracking information into the file and register with an overseeing entity if they want to get paid for actual usage. Tiered royalty rates could then be paid out for different use cases like streaming, legal and p2p downloading and even analog transmissions, etc… All this with a 1-to-1 ratio with NO SAMPLING.

Hobbyists and professional musicians that use software like Digidesign, Apple, Logic, Cakewalk etc. could all easily access this type of technology as a plug-in and then the traditional studios and mastering houses could also make this a standard part of their “service.” Within a year or two, all new music released in the U.S. would easily be identifiable when it was used on the radio, television, cellular networks and the internet – and then ALL artists (big and small) could get paid proportionately. WOW, what a concept!!!!!

Then Congress and major organizations like NARAS, AES, CEA and all the PRO’s would quickly endorse it, because it’s the law and it’s so easy and it makes sense… and… it’s completely fair… OK, that’s my pontification for the day. Anybody want to help me build such a system?

For more education on careers in the music industry, check out: http://www.music-career-guide.com

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