Your good friends and family might come out a time or two to support…but most peoples support fuse is pretty short.
Everyone will come out if they are entertained by you, and you being supported and feeling supported is simply a byproduct. But it starts with the entertainment, not the support.
We support the Red Cross, Blood Water Mission, the local food bank or homeless shelter.
We do not go to support Katy Perry, Skrillex or The Killers. We go to be entertained and they are entertaining.
If you’re asking people to come support, thats ok…it’s just short sighted and puts the responsibility on them, not you.
If you ask people to come be entertained, you take on the responsibility and if it goes well, could become very very successful.
You don’t sustain a career on support. This is called the entertainment business. You sustain it on entertainment.
You can only get the real story if you’re there. If you’re in the room when it happens. Anything else is second place.
For every story I’ve ever told, it would have been better if you were there. There’s details and meaning and purpose and depth that just can’t be communicated even by a great story teller.
Don’t get me wrong…Stories are vital. Stories are important and life changing. An integral part of our lives.
But more than that, going to get your own stories is important and life changing.
We can hear a great story, see the picture on Facebook, watch the video, but you only get the whole thing if you’re there.
I am a football fan, so I tend to watch some college and pro games on the weekend.
And with watching football comes watching more commercials.
There’s a common theme that’s been happening in the ads. Some type of declaration of…
“These are real people, not actors”
The hope is that because we are told these are real people enjoying the car, the shave, the retirement fund, that we will somehow believe this is an honest sales pitch and not high level mass marketing.
However…
Real people I don’t know recommending me a product…I don’t care. Their recommendation means nothing to me.
Actors I don’t know recommending me a product…I don’t care. But at least the commercial has a chance of being good.
If thousands of people I don’t know are using a product and I hear about it…I might care. I might be curious about the gang mentality and take a wiff.
Real people I do know recommending me a product…I care. I trust them. They know me and think that the person I am will benefit from their recommendation. I place a high value there.
Big ad companies think that by using “real people” in TV commercials that more real people will connect with their product.
False.
Real people buy products because of trust. Trust in the product, and trust of the other people using the product.
An article got passed around the other day with the main quote being…
“For a song like All About That Bass, that I wrote, which had 178 million streams. I mean $5,679? That’s my share…That’s as big a song as a songwriter can have in their career and number one in 78 countries. But you’re making $5,600…How do you feed your family?”
I agree, this isn’t enough money for the streaming success of the song.
But I want to show you that the main problem isn’t with the streaming services.
Follow me…
Take a fictitious independent band, lets call them The Fun Boys. The Fun Boys distributed music through a digital distributor called TuneCore…they get it on Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Google Play, etc.
TuneCore takes 30% off the top, deposits the rest into your artist account, and then you or your business manager disburses the funds as pertaining to who owns what percentage of each song.
Based on actual TuneCore data that I have seen with my own eyes, over the course of the last 4 or 5 years, a band like The Fun Boys will NET .4 cents (or $0.004) per stream.
So if The Fun Boys had a song that garnered 178,000,000 streams (multiply that by $0.004)…that would net them $712,000 after TuneCore takes their cut.
Keep in mind, The Fun Boys are independent, so they don’t have a label (who would likely be taking the common 50%) and they don’t have a publisher (who would likely be taking 25%).
So in order to get to more common ground with All About That Bass, lets say they did.
With the label taking 50% and the publisher taking 25%, that leaves 25% left for the writers of the song…which equals out to be $178,000.
If there are two writers in The Fun Boys (like there are for AATB), they would split that chunk, each getting $89,000.
So in our example, if the two writers in The Fun Boys had written All About That Bass independent of label and publisher, they would have received $356,000 each…or if both a label and publisher were involved, they would each receive $89,000
So why is Kevin Kadish only receiving $5600??? I have no idea.
It’s not because the song isn’t generating way more than that. Maybe he signed some bad deals along the way. Maybe he signed some good deals but there are just too many hands in the pot. Maybe he’s looking at back-end mechanical royalties (which are far far far less on streaming) instead of the actual streaming royalty rate.
My point is this: Streaming is paying.
Maybe $89,000 still isn’t enough per the above example. But streaming is paying. And it’s paying much more than the numbers touted in the Kevin Kadish article.
I hope Mr. Kadish makes a lot of money from writing that song. He should.
But writers getting paid vs. the amount streaming services are paying out appear time and time again to be two completely separate problems.
p.s. You need to know exactly where every micro penny of your revenue is going so that when one of your songs gets 178 million streams there aren’t any surprises.
Last week I managed a venue for the Americana Fest here in Nashville.
Quite a few really talented bands. Tons of great players. Even a few exceptional front men/women.
But managing the venue, here’s what I’d like to pass along.
Be on time.
You know that annoying person in your band trying to get the trailer loaded up, trying to get everyone out the door, suggesting you take dinner to-go instead of sitting down so that you’re on time.
Yeah, he’s right.
His delivery might be annoying and naggy, but he’s right.
You might think he’s against you, or against the fun you’re having dilly dallying around, but he’s actually advocating for you and your career.
There’s a Walgreens right by my house. I like that place. I go there pretty often so I notice when things change.
A while ago I’m pretty sure the Walgreens corporate people had a meeting in a super expensive building to figure out what the cashiers should say at the end of the transaction. A script for the interaction. Something every cashier can say so they don’t screw it up.
After hours, days and probably weeks of deliberation and thousands of marketing and research dollars spent…
…they came up with “be well”.
Be well?
That’s the last thing the cashier says every time now when I’m done paying.
It’s super creepy. Did I just accidentally join a cult? Nobody says that…except for people who are instructed to in order to keep their job, or are trying too hard.
Maybe if it were hippies from the 70’s I’d buy it, but no way. The only time these people say “be well” is when they’re at work and it’s part of the handbook.
Doing/saying something consistent by command…forgettable and annoying.
Doing/saying something consistent by choice…revolutionary.
