ALL HAIL THY GOLDEN PUBLICISTS, AGENTS, AND MANAGERS
Okay! As mentioned earlier, publicists are very expensive. Don’t worry. You have got your CD with a barcode. You have MP3’s in addition to your CD registered through SoundScan. You have a website that can sell your CD’s and MP3’s. Plus, you have MusicSubmit.com as a remedy.
You have a calendar of your live show dates on your website. You might even have the ability to sell tickets for your shows on your site, which is highly recommended. You’re listing your live shows. You are being placed on Spotify and Apple Music, just to name two. Spotify, as you now know, pays the most royalties, which we will discuss later.
You will also have all the other huge volume of digital download content providers, as CDbaby.net happens to illustrate on their site. You have products, and you even have some gigs.
Let us start here with a rather important word of caution, and then let’s catapult all your impressive hard work into the air for all to witness, hear, and purchase.
In a business that is surrounded with scammers and con-artists who will promise you the moon and the stars in all music areas, I want you to highly train yourself with my advice, thus learning to recognize when, and when not, to spend money on your music career. Some services, like PR and decent press, require a fee. It’s worth it, these days. You can saturate the Internet with article mentionings and links to your site from different music blogs and online magazines. You don’t need to do it every month, as is often suggested, until you have something new. This is how you build a story of your Act. If you don’t have a newsworthy cause, charity, or event, I would wait on this and contact local press directly, professionally, and patiently.
There are services ranging from radio promotion to deal shopping. Avoid them. It is not that all of them are not legitimate, because some might be. My point is that you need to keep in mind that, although many of these services are legitmate, you will spend a fortune but not earn a sales return on your investment. Deal shopping? Run.
MusicSubmit, PR Web, plus a professional press release writer to write your releases with true newsworthy quality, are genuinely worth the money. The only costly catch is that you have to pay a professional press release writer to make your press release, and if you can’t offer them a recent achievement that is newsworthy, they won’t be able to help you, because you’ll have given them nothing. The only exception would be an unusually compelling biography or story to tell.
Additionally, and this is where I especially remind you to check out: fiverr.com, the prices can be anywhere from seventy five dollars and two hundred dollars, depending on the scope of the story.
The good news is that you will safely, and preferably, order the shortest release available. It might be five hundred words, give or take. The headline of your news release will immediately show you whether your press release writer has real talent.
I am giving you the examples above to provide you with additional options. Please keep in mind what I said earlier; due to price, it is still very expensive between hiring a press release writer and the distribution service fee online.
The major press release distributors distribute your news to hundreds or thousands of publications, and also to Reuters and the Associated Press (AP). This is big-time. However, the national news will not pay attention to you. Instead, your press releases will have to have selected “regions” near you to target and you or your press release writer must be skilled with the uploading process. This doesn’t include the typical fees averaging two hundred dollars, give or take, for each distribution. Even if you could afford to do this once a month, it will drain you financially right now and is still light years away from having a real, but unaffordable publicist. Don’t despair!
Charitynavigator.com is a website that carefully scours charities and exposes the most common ones you’ve heard of, since many exploit workers. Some don’t even have the money go to actual charity. They use it to pay workers.
If you are a singer/songwriter, artist, or musician, you should find a cause that is near and dear to you. Charitynavigator will help you find a legitimate charity where the money goes exactly to the people who need it most. This is part of your job as an artist. You want to make a complete difference, and not one just based on your music. Finally, if you get involved to raise funds for the correct charity, you will always have a news angle while you are making a difference, anyway.
Let us finish up this section by offering you a complete solution to your PR woes. At the beginning, start with MusicSubmit.com, or something similar. You will have monthly “blasts” of your music, PR material, and presence go to music-related, online mediums that will flood the Internet and give you exposure. Each month, you’ll get more exposure.
The monthly fees are realistic and make the investment possible. If you have won a huge music competition or any other competition using your music, you must add it to your biography in MusicSubmit.
This would also be a perfect time to have a professional press release writer do a news release and submit it on the international press distribution sites like the one I mentioned. You can pursue this method with the press release writer and press distribution networks every time you have a career triumph. This, along with your charity that you must support, will always give you a story. You are not “advertising” your music. Instead, you are releasing a story that must be a genuine news story. As far as MusicSubmit, they will always promote just your music and brand. They might very well be your best bet in the beginning, or for an extended time as you start out. The press you get from MusicSubmit might be worth the extended, monthly subscription because your exposure should increase every month. Keep that EPK current!
Finally, and only as a much-needed example of knowledge you must have when you apply all these strategies, I want to mention that, when I achieved a career triumph during sudden, international film festival circuit acceptances, finalist positions, and wins for a short and entirely pop/rock musical film I wrote, directed entirely, did all the graphic artwork and photography for and, most importantly, performed in, I had a press release writer create the release and submit it through online distribution. With one single submission, I got featured, online press with so many large-scale, online publications. Shock set in when I discovered two of the biggest television networks in the world had done the same thing with my story in designated markets. There are more examples of exposure I could mention here, but I’d rather report these two particular shockwaves.
If I can do it, so can you. Just make sure you have a great musical product and a talented press release writer behind you.
The most important reason I include this chapter is because I want you to know how very important publicists are for you down the road, with or without a record company behind you. You might already be earning a great income as an independent act.
If you want a publicist and think you are ready, I will not hold you back. Try: pr.com and google other directories to get a complete list. It will cost you, roughly, a minimum of $24,000 a year, give or take. You would have to research and use word-of-mouth, the latter likely unavailable, regarding who is best to work with.
As a potential solution, you probably should have a publicity company located very near you so you can work with them, perhaps even inspire them, and ultimately get more out of them for your money. Yet, you might make the common mistake of working with someone out-of-state.
Plus, most people don’t have that kind of money just laying around, as you know. If you insist on getting a publicist now and not down the road, use caution, think locally, and meet/work with your publicist in-person.
You don’t want to pay a company, very far away, a huge monthly fee. Some might sluff you off because you’re not making the most noise with them. More alarmingly, they might sluff you off even if you are the squeaky wheel. This would be due to the distance.
I want you to be aware that there are music consultants out there who are fee-based and quite expensive. They seem like a small population in the business, but this is not a doctrine.
A music consultant will suggest your marketing niche and help you solidify your genre, even if you’ve invented a new genre, possibly write your biography, and hopefully design a marketing plan for you. That’s it. Yet, they might want you to keep returning because they themselves have not answered all your questions. You will run to them. You will pay them.
If you mention your desire to hire a publicist, the DIY consultant might feign the notion that you are being lazy. This is likely because the music consultant wants you to pay him/her and not the publicist. It is deceptive. I was running to one myself years ago. Avoid.
You can develop your own relationships with music media and other media through personal letters, emails, including story slants aimed toward various subjects in media that will write a review of your music because of its global or cultural relevance to their readers. This is not only rather common, but routine if you follow all the way through with patience. This can occur for you even if it’s not necessarily because of your music. It could also be a message you’ve gotten out there through prior press. It could also be your image, resulting from a smart photo choice that went along with your message.
Your current newspaper or online prospect doesn’t even have to like your music to feature you or interview you. If they think you have something that’s spreading and creating a buzz, especially sales along with shows or appearances, they will want to cover you, too. Still, be patient. They might not have heard yet.
Everything just mentioned should be a supplemental effort. After all, you do need someone to represent you, even if it’s a team doing tasks to lighten your load. It could even be a very cool independent label that completely understands the hard-working, independent talent with the solid work ethic they’ve just signed.
Having representation, even with a music agent, is growth. Yet, you have everything here to satisfy your beginning presence, including sales outlets and press. You have the computer to book your shows at websites like Sonicbids.com and others.
You have enough to start a full music career if you do the work. I just don’t want you biting off more than you can chew. Get used to your progress before expanding. Keep your sanity and wits about you so that you last.
Unsolicited material, as unfortunate as this sounds, often means unimportant. It is just like an EPK. We don’t send any material unless we are asked. We can tell them that we have something we believe they absolutely need to hear.
I’m sure you’ve had rejection or returned musical materials in the past; so have I. A manager is one thing, but a good publicist or lawyer (lawyers are expensive, but often cheaper than publicists) can be equally valuable, if not more so. Generally speaking, the publicist has the media connections and can get things done faster. That’s why they’re so expensive.
It is unprofessional much of the time to walk around with the delusion that industry people will regard you as important just because you think that you are. Yet, if a record label takes notice of you, you must have a lawyer to negotiate for you, because the labels are concerned about being accused of copyright infringement if they listen to you, meet you, decide to turn you down, and then you hear a song by that label that sounds like yours and you end up suing them. They don’t want that. That’s why unsolicited material is often returned to you by mail, or an EPK and letter gets no response or a quick “where are playing and when?” followed by a no-show on their part. That’s because A&R people are so busy. More on the important topic of lawyers and music contracts will be discussed in the activity/dossier section later in this book.
The worst part about being unsolicited or rejected is that you know you are just as important! You are. Therefore, the most crucial thing to remember about being a do-it-yourselfer is that, when reality kicks in, you cannot do everything yourself, especially if you are a solo singer/songwriter. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel. You should have as many people helping you as possible. It just doesn’t need to cost so much.
Before I continue, let me make an important distinction between three entities you will be working with if you persevere.
A manager is somebody you will never pay out of your own pocket if you are taken on by a manager who is legitimate. Some people pose as managers and charge hundreds of dollars for representing you or discovering you. You’ve just been robbed and scammed by a thief who is not a manager. A person can just as easily pose as an independent publicist or agent as well. The same fate just mentioned can also happen if you are not careful.
A manager, like an agent, will sign you if she/he truly believes you have something special, and that contract you sign will never have a fee. They are taking a chance on you and your talent. Despite the fact you have the luxury of booking gigs online, a good manager can get you into venues that you might not have access to. They can have many connections. The manager and the agent will take a percentage of any money you earn in your music career while you are being represented by them. If you have a manager or agent who is getting that percentage because you are selling, then you are doing well.
You should actually hope the manager or agent does make money from your work. If she/he has not, then you are not being successful. You aren’t going to let that happen, though. That’s why this book is here. Try to think of it as protection, because that’s why it’s been written for you. If you get a publicist, agent, or manager, it is time to work even harder and not a time to be lazy.
The third entity, which this chapter is based on, is the publicist/PR Firm. You pay them up-front at the beginning of each month. I’ve told you the costs.
QUICK REVIEW:
__Agent – An agent who specializes in music or other talents will, like a manager, take a chance on your talent because she/he thinks you have something unique that can sell. You will not pay anything out of pocket if you choose to sign with one. Your agent will be paid a percentage of your earnings after you have earned through your music while being represented by her/him. If you approach Agents correctly and politely, showing them that you are a finished package, if one of the Agents thinks she/he can sell you, you’ll get signed.
__Music Manager – An experienced manager in the entertainment or business world who decides they want to represent you. If you choose to sign with one, there is no cost out of your pocket. The manager will be paid a percentage of your earnings after you have earned through your music while being represented by him/her. If you have a close friend or relative with an incredible gift for marketing, that person can serve as your manager as well.
__Publicist/PR Firm – Handles all of your publicity through their contacts with media, gets paid up-front at the beginning of each month.
The idea that you can do all your own PR and promotions without having to pay for anything is unrealistic. Yes, you can do it. But you will likely not get the largest results possible. You likely won’t reach nearly enough people.
You are a singer/songwriter and artist/musician. You should be writing music and songs, and you should be performing, if that is your thing, as well as taking good care of yourself. Time is too valuable and short. Let a specialist handle working with the all-important press. They will often get you on a TV show or in a magazine that is otherwise out of your reach, unless you want to spend time doing a year of follow-up for a “maybe,” followed by a rejection.
Again, the motive often involved with many “consultants” for independent artists is that they would rather have you give thousands of dollars to them instead of a publicist. Plus, the consultant might be charging you almost as much money as a publicist would. Yet, a good publicist has carefully cultivated, working relationships with magazines, newspapers, television shows, even music companies and promoters. Many of these relationships are well established over a period of many years and, again, these various media companies begin to rely on a good publicist for something juicy since they trust that the publicist will deliver the goods.
It is very good indeed to be as self-sufficient in your music career as possible. However, there is no way on this earth that you can do it all yourself. If you are the only real brains and ambition behind your solo singer/songwriter act (with or without a band), then you only have the man/woman power of a solo artist, a.k.a., one human being.
If a music business consultant tells you not to pay a publicist and to do your own publicity, just think of the volume of emails that the publicist hasn’t even had time to answer. Plus, even in this digital age, if you walked into the mailroom of an average newspaper and examined the bags and bags filled with potential news stories that never reach the light of day, you’ll realize that not being personally pitched by a publicist means they are busy pitching somebody else. That somebody else gets the big feature.
Yes, it’s a dual-edged sword, and a tough pill to swallow. It’s okay. You don’t need it now. You just need to know the benefit for the future. When you’ve done your work and your time has come, many people from legitimate media and entertainment companies will be seeking you out. In the meantime, MusicSubmit as well as some others will give you affordable publicity and you’ll have to adjust to the new attention before taking the next step.
The one silver lining to all this is that, today, you can have a professional write your press release with a genuine news slant, and the press release can be delivered online to thousands of targeted newspapers, magazines, and online media with the click of a mouse. Think fiverr.com first for the professional press release writer, then remember this; Prweb.com, eworldwire.com, or any other legitimate news release service that can reach Reuters and the Associated Press. PRweb.com and Eworldwire.com are just two examples. These two companies can deliver to Reuters and the Associated Press, usually as a standard practice for all press release packages. But again, you need to do the work in this book first. The education I just provided is meant to be used “down the road” for the majority of artists. You have all that you need and you must get used to the temperature of the water once you’ve completed tough tasks, before you jump in too deep with publicity.
Again, the most important thing for you to know is that you should be very careful when choosing a publicist, since the world of scammers attempts to populate the world of publicists, managers, agents, and everywhere else. And it often succeeds. If your gut says it’s not right, go far in the other direction.
Regarding publicity, it is not necessarily so much that the publicist isn’t legit; it’s the fact that they charge you all that money, yet put you as #10 or 50 on their list of priority clients. Do you really want to compete with GE right now, especially when they’re on an infinitely more expensive plan with the PR agency?
I’m mentioning MusicSubmit again to tell you that they now also specialize in radio and blog promotion for singer/songwriters. Do you remember what I suggested earlier about contacting music blogs to get yourself featured? Throw a small amount of money at the problem via MusicSubmit.com and they’ll do all the work. If you’d like a different alternative, google: “music marketing” or “music publicity.” This above all; even if you go with MusicSubmit, you have no excuse not to target some music blogs or magazines on your own as well. Avoid complacency. I mentioned this very early in the book.
Examine a prospective company’s clients and connections very carefully, and check to see if there is a file on the company at the Better Business Bureau (bbb.org). Also, check to see how long they have been in business. Regarding a publicity firm’s media contacts and clients, if they are legitimate, they will boast these things right on their websites.
Depending on the size of the companies they boast about, and whether you’ve known about them since childhood, you’ll also learn right away whether the PR Firm is in your budget. Also, make sure you develop a good rapport with them. Some publicists are very good, but if you do not “vibe” with them, get out as fast as you can, and do not give them a dime. If your gut tells you not to trust them, listen to your gut, despite what they might promise you, and get out as fast as you can.
Publicists are just people, so go with a person you like but who also has the media contacts you need. Ideally, choose someone nearby (unless you live in the middle of nowhere) and stay on them. Try to choose a firm that largely specializes in music and entertainment. If you get signed, you will need a PR firm to work with, as I mentioned earlier.
Here is an idea if you are scrapped for any money whatsoever. Some will tell you to approach a car dealership or a clothing company and tell them you’ll do shows at their place of business or advertise their logo and/or services, etc., on your marketing materials for your act in exchange for sponsorship money.
Do you really think they will be that excited? These can be decent things to do, but remember my prior instructions: Whatever your music happens to be about, you had better align yourself with a cause or charity, if not tangibly, then also within the messages of your lyrics, catering to various groups of people in need.
Any business has the potential to give you sponsorship money if you are savvy, but most artists do not know exactly what to do with the money if they get it. Your goal of attaining sponsorship money for your act from a business is to use the money for a publicist with serious connections who can earn you prestigious shows and exposure to the movers and shakers of the business. They often have access to television, radio shows, all written media, magazines, and more. This can lead to increased sales for your music, your visibility, and even a record contract. Plus, the auto dealership is happy and exposed. Everybody wins.
An automobile dealership or bank would love to hear of the attention you will get them during your all-important TV, radio, or magazine/newspaper interview. They will know it’s guaranteed that you will spread the word about your music, your cause, and how the cause written about in your music would not be reaching the public if it weren’t for the generous support of a particular company or charity. They will know that they will be mentioned because you will tell them your intention of mentioning them repeatedly when you are asking them for sponsorship money. Think about care for needy children, breast cancer research, homelessness, the hungry, or any other cause that reaches your heart. Talk about it in an interview. Make music about it.
Interviews secured through a publicist with a thank you during the interview from you to your sponsor equals advertising along with a positive, socially conscious presentation for the company and for you. By giving you money, they will be getting advertising. Again, be sure to suggest this to them as tactfully as you can.
Bring your press kit and your message with you. Do not ask about emailing an EPK. At a car dealership, they won’t know what you’re talking about. Hence, you must go in-person with the physical product. Don’t just think about car dealerships. Think about every business entity you can imagine. Use a website like: gofundme.com and create a page asking to raise money for a publicist. Tell your friends about your fundraiser. Tell everybody. You can even have a fundraiser at a live show if you mention it on stage. Tell all your friends on your social networking pages.
Make your music second in importance to your philanthropic mission. Looking out for particular groups is part of what an artist is supposed to be doing. The goal is to get sponsorship money for a publicist with the connections you need. Make sure your website is up and running and that you have CD’s and MP3’s for sale, plus samples of your music on your website or on YouTube so when people visit your site, they can buy CD’s and MP3’s, stream your samples (you must set up paid streaming, as I’ve said earlier), and learn about your next show and/or public event, which should also be listed on your website.
Paul Spencer Alexander