Dorrothy Mae was an incredibly vibrant and dear partner on my dog walks. Every morning or afternoon, when I walked the dogs I would pass her house and she would be out walking as well. She wore a white sun hat (big) and white chandelier earrings (long) and had an 80 lb frame only 5 ft tall. She talked and talked about the day, not so much about her life. It was the sun, it was the wind, it was the cold it was the dark, but her life was not nearly as important to her beyond that moment.
One day I was walking my dog and I saw 5 cars in front of her house, I knew something was wrong... and I had felt it coming for a few weeks. A week went by before I finally cornered a relative in his car, napping, and I asked him "is everything OK with Dorothy?" and he said "No, we don't expect her to make it." I knew that none of her family knew me, but I knew her... But I also knew, this was a private time - one delegated to family members, not casual aquaintences, but OH, I wanted to be there - I wanted to hug her and thank her and embelish on those small moments, walking the dogs, that were ours. I wanted to share with her how her white hat and white earrings always brought out beauty in her. She knew they did, and that's why she wore them. I wanted to remind her of that - I wanted to give her a hug, goodbye. I wasn't invited, there for I didn't, but I wont make the same mistake with Wanda.
She lives across the street from Dorothy Mae. She heard what happened but is suffering from dementia and forgets things. But she now walks with me and the dogs. And she knows she's the next one to go on the street. She said to me, as I walked her back up her driveway, "I''m going to see my husband again - it won't be like this, but it will be better. We'll all be happy again." And I know she's right, and I want to give her that hug before she goes, and I want to ask her to look up my grandparents, my father, my friends and my aquaintences, and let them know, I too am coming. Maybe not this year, maybe not this decade, but I'm coming...
Radio Mavens Logo
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Capitalizing On Radio Airplay And Promotion
It's important to understand a very basic principle; radio is a PARTNER in your career as an artist! Although most partners will voice opinions about how to operate your business, radio rarely does. On top of that, you only get one chance to make a great first impression. Radio wants to know you are actively trying to increase their listener-ship by actively building your own fan base, and that is the symbiotic relationship that they rely on when deciding who gets their spins.
Given that information, and assuming you are ready to embark on radio promotion, there are several steps that need to be taken in order to have the best shot at getting royalties and downloads.
#1: Embed your metadata in the mastering process. CDs will carry a layer of metadata about the recordings such as dates, artist, genre, copyright owner, etc. The metadata, not normally displayed by CD players, can be accessed and displayed by specialized music playback and/or editing applications. It is all too common for radio to receive a CD, they put it in their computer, the track name comes up as Track 01, with the artist and album columns blank (unknown). What that means is when they get ready to report their playlist to the PROs or Sound Exchange, it will show segments of airplay with the report "Artist Unknown." If you expect the MD or PD to type in your info by hand, take off your rose colored glasses and put yourself in their shoes. They don't care if you don't care, plain and simple.
#2: Register with Sound Exchange and the PROs as an Artist, Label and Publisher. If you are not registered how will they know where to send the royalty check? It's your job to sign the forms, assign a SS# to your accounts and instruct them on how you wish to be paid. Trust me, they aren't going to seek you out - they make interest on the money that is not distributed so why would they? Don't wait, go register!
#3: Fan Base, Fan Base, Fan Base! As a solo artist, "1000 True Fans" equals on the average, $100,000 a year in income. If each of those True Fans spends $100 a year on your concerts, CDs, T-shirts, Hats, DVDs etc... you will achieve a decent living from those sales. There are close to 7 billion people on the planet earth and all you need are 1000 of them to Tweet about you, Facebook you, come to your gigs and buy whatever you put out that is new, and you are making a living. The key challenge is that you have to maintain direct contact with your 1,000 True Fans. Maybe they come to your house concerts, or they are buying your DVDs from your website. This small circle of diehard fans, which can provide you with a living, is surrounded by concentric circles of Lesser Fans. These folks will not purchase everything you do, and may not seek out direct contact, but they will buy much of what you produce. The processes you develop to feed your True Fans will also nurture Lesser Fans. As you acquire new True Fans, you can also add many more Lesser Fans. If you keep going, you may indeed end up with millions of fans and reach a hit. I don't know of any artist who is not interested in having a million fans.
#4: Put those fans to work. Tell them what you need them to do. Tell them to tell their friends to "like" your Facebook page, "fan" your ReverbNation site, call their local radio station and request your song, email their favorite internet station and rave about you, play your music on LastFM and "scrobble" it, repost your gigs on their pages, etc... etc...
#5: Create a promotion for radio that ties into their favorite charity or local non-profit. Give radio a reason to spin you, other than the obvious - that "they LOVE your song!" Royalty from radio is directly related to how many spins you are getting from terrestrial radio and how many streams are picked up on internet radio. Your fans can make all the difference in how much airplay you get, but by partnering with radio on a "Good Will" project, this gives them even more incentive to support your music.
#6: Submit your music to as many online music libraries as you can find - Start up your own personal radio playlists on as many sites as possible - Slacker, LastFM, Cloud, etc... Be actively played as often as possible.
Although there are many ways to build a music career, let's face it, even if all you get the first year is enough money to replace the bad transmission in your overworked touring van, you're ahead of the game...
Given that information, and assuming you are ready to embark on radio promotion, there are several steps that need to be taken in order to have the best shot at getting royalties and downloads.
#1: Embed your metadata in the mastering process. CDs will carry a layer of metadata about the recordings such as dates, artist, genre, copyright owner, etc. The metadata, not normally displayed by CD players, can be accessed and displayed by specialized music playback and/or editing applications. It is all too common for radio to receive a CD, they put it in their computer, the track name comes up as Track 01, with the artist and album columns blank (unknown). What that means is when they get ready to report their playlist to the PROs or Sound Exchange, it will show segments of airplay with the report "Artist Unknown." If you expect the MD or PD to type in your info by hand, take off your rose colored glasses and put yourself in their shoes. They don't care if you don't care, plain and simple.
#2: Register with Sound Exchange and the PROs as an Artist, Label and Publisher. If you are not registered how will they know where to send the royalty check? It's your job to sign the forms, assign a SS# to your accounts and instruct them on how you wish to be paid. Trust me, they aren't going to seek you out - they make interest on the money that is not distributed so why would they? Don't wait, go register!
#3: Fan Base, Fan Base, Fan Base! As a solo artist, "1000 True Fans" equals on the average, $100,000 a year in income. If each of those True Fans spends $100 a year on your concerts, CDs, T-shirts, Hats, DVDs etc... you will achieve a decent living from those sales. There are close to 7 billion people on the planet earth and all you need are 1000 of them to Tweet about you, Facebook you, come to your gigs and buy whatever you put out that is new, and you are making a living. The key challenge is that you have to maintain direct contact with your 1,000 True Fans. Maybe they come to your house concerts, or they are buying your DVDs from your website. This small circle of diehard fans, which can provide you with a living, is surrounded by concentric circles of Lesser Fans. These folks will not purchase everything you do, and may not seek out direct contact, but they will buy much of what you produce. The processes you develop to feed your True Fans will also nurture Lesser Fans. As you acquire new True Fans, you can also add many more Lesser Fans. If you keep going, you may indeed end up with millions of fans and reach a hit. I don't know of any artist who is not interested in having a million fans.
#4: Put those fans to work. Tell them what you need them to do. Tell them to tell their friends to "like" your Facebook page, "fan" your ReverbNation site, call their local radio station and request your song, email their favorite internet station and rave about you, play your music on LastFM and "scrobble" it, repost your gigs on their pages, etc... etc...
#5: Create a promotion for radio that ties into their favorite charity or local non-profit. Give radio a reason to spin you, other than the obvious - that "they LOVE your song!" Royalty from radio is directly related to how many spins you are getting from terrestrial radio and how many streams are picked up on internet radio. Your fans can make all the difference in how much airplay you get, but by partnering with radio on a "Good Will" project, this gives them even more incentive to support your music.
#6: Submit your music to as many online music libraries as you can find - Start up your own personal radio playlists on as many sites as possible - Slacker, LastFM, Cloud, etc... Be actively played as often as possible.
Although there are many ways to build a music career, let's face it, even if all you get the first year is enough money to replace the bad transmission in your overworked touring van, you're ahead of the game...
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