RFI: Trying To Get Signed vs. Starting Your own Label

Bear in mind, I don't actually buy much new music any more, so don't say "look at the labels of the stuff you buy" (which is the most common advice I get).

Yeah, I would totally consider going the online route, that's exactly what I was hoping for advice and/or stories about how to/how not to go about that.

I dunno about that, actually! Many of mine have lasted for years now. Also, have you seen what the folks at Burning Shed do?

http://www.burningshed.com

It's much more elaborate than what you're planning and they had the help of a well-established fanbase via the No-Man and Porcupine Tree collections, but they've demonstrated that a CDR label as such can work. They've expanded more into straight up CDs, but it's by no means the majority.

http://www.inthenursery.com

I just kinda worry about the back end of such an operation... it's one thing to have people mail you cash or cheque, but I need to research the mechanics of running an online shop. it's been 5 years since I did that sort of thing professionally.

(It would also probably necessitate getting an internet connection in my house, oh dear.)

I'd try to think of bands that are in some way similar to your music and just send a copy of the cd to those labels -- preferably the small ones since even the larger indies today don't usually take unsolicited material.

If you choose to go the route of starting your own label, I'd read up a little on the matter first -- lots of books out there.
Include a bio, info on where you've played (if that applies), and any positive quotes you have -- they can be from zines, webzines, even bookers at clubs or musicians in better known bands. A photo isn't necessary but it couldn't hurt.

Getting to know other small labels is an absolute must - you need a large list of people for mutual favours, getting gigs for each others and the like. Also most of the people who are interested in and follow small labels probably are involved in one themselves.

Actually that brings me to another point - it's useful to have a loose circle of people who are unofficially involved, however small their role is. As you'll be doing in on your spare time there will be times when you'll need others to step in and do some of the pithy little jobs.

If you're looking to get bands in then make sure that at first they're bands that are already gigging a lot. What you'll be doing for them is giving them a little trinket to sell at gigs (forget getting decent distribution for a long, long time). Keep your runs short though - you don't want 500 useless CD's around the house that you paid to press.

Actually now I think about it I know far more people who are better qualified on this who I can send you the email addresses off (I'll prior warn them and I'm certain they'll be glad to offer a bit of advice). My lot have gone from the vanity-project EP type thing to talking about making a video for me in about three years, so they should be pretty useful for you.

Email me at ly*skey@v*alentinerecords.co.uk and I'll send you some contacts over.

As far as finding a label to release your stuff goes, just sending cd-r's can work. My band did it a couple of years ago, and we've ended up working with 3 really good labels. It helps if you can get a good package together - we made hand-designed covers and spent a bit of time writing a decent bio, and we didn't bother sending anything much to bigger labels as unsolicited material will go straight in the bin on the whole. We just thought of labels we liked (or bands we liked and found out who releases their records), found their address on their websites and sent the cd's out into the void!

If you're not too sure about the current scene, you could try looking through the catalogues of online independent distributors and following up on things that sound useful? Which kind of sounds obvious, but it's always worth trying ANYTHING - after all, what do you actually have to lose? We had something like a 25% reply rate (most of which were form rejections admittedly), but for something like £100 (cd-r's, postage etc) it worked out in the end.

Current Numbers:
73,301 artists sell their CD at CD Baby.
1,230,512 CDs sold online to customers.

http://www.allrecordlabels.com/db/genres/

Crikey, DJ Martian, that's a good list and a valuable resource... I don't even know what half of those genres mean. Which is, I guess, half the problem. Genre labels are always invented by those that write about music, not those that that actually make it. I get overwhelmed when faced with that sort of thing, and decide not to take my music out of my bedroom again. Which is when I think that I want to do it myself anyway, it's less complicated.

Anyway, a lot to think about. Thanks for the advice, people. I really have to think about this quite carefully and talk to some of my friends that I trust in the biz.

I have had this up for a couple of years, and one of the CDs is available on Cafepress. I have not exactly been 'marketing'/'advertising' them, as they are old stuff and / or not terribly good. And over the course of around five years, I have not sold any.

So, an online resource is a good start, I would at least look at Cafepress from a 'margins' point of view, but they are only CDR's at the end of the day, with nice packaging elements.

I had my own label a few years ago and though it was great fun, there was absolutely no way I could have *not* lost a shitload of cash. Though I was putting singles out on vinyl, which is always going to be more costly than CDs. Don't forget if you are running it as a profitable business yourself, you will need to worry about things like having a separate bank account, putting in a tax return and the like. Time was, you had to have a distributor to get your records in the shops (Shellshock was the one I used, and they were very good) - but I guess with the advent of the net that's not so vital any more.

I also had some stuff set up on the Vitaminic site, and there were quite a few downloads of the 'free' variety. Not one of the 'pay 50 cents' variety.

(cue lame 'sending money to a mate of Eminems' variety)

I mean, just comparing the stuff that's left (i.e. what didn't sell) our self produced, self financed vanity EP, we have less than two cartons left. The CD we put out on someone else's lable... I don't even know how many sold because the record company went all funny and stopped returning calls/emails around the time the band broke up. The vinyl... fair enough, the record company went bellyup within a few months of releasing it because of distribution problems...

We were just constantly stymied by distribution. The only records we came close to selling out of were the ones that we sold ourselves at gigs and over the internet. Hence why I'm becoming much more enamoured of the idea of doing it myself, rather than letting someone else fuX0r it up again.

I just wondered what the sort of overheads and problems of internet commerce were.

I suppose the best thing to do is set up a limited run of a small number of CDRs and see what response is like.