Publishers: You could be missing out on $$$

I was chatting with a friend this past week and in that conversation, realized – WHOA. There’s only 5 months left of this year! It sure doesn’t feel like it, but the holidays are just around the corner. Has it hit you yet?!?

Anyway, I also had the pleasure of reconnecting with a past client this past week by giving a couple of consult sessions. We dived into the world of distribution, royalty and registrations. It’s not the most fun of things, but it’s oh-so important to songwriters, publishers and performers – especially if you’re all three!

We first looked at PROs and how to register your releases with, in their case, ASCAP.  We pointed out something really important that I knew I wanted to share with you right away once we saw it.

Most artists know you should register for a PRO if you’re a songwriter. But, you also should register as a publisher too!

Why?
When a PRO sends royalties for a performance of your music, half goes to the writer (or writers) and half goes to their respective publishers. Simply, if you want your publishing company to get a share, you should also set up a publishing company with your PRO.

This goes for BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, etc.

What do you need to register your publishing company with a PRO?
What you need is a mailing address, email address, tax ID number (EIN or if you want to register as an individual/sole proprietor, your SSN), and of course the name of your publishing company.

I would hate if you were missing out on $$ as a songwriter, so I hope you find this little tip helpful. 

What questions do you have about song registration? Hit ‘reply’ and let me know and I just might answer it in the next newsletter :).

Cheers,

P.S. Thank you so much for being here and reading my newsletter.

I realize some of you reading are virtual assistants yourself, looking to make musicians your niche, too. My team and I are creating something really special for you, stay tuned! 

It’s easier than you think to create an experience with your music! 🎶

I hope you’re enjoying your summer so far! Things are rockin’ and rollin’ in my world – clients are busy as ever now with live shows coming back and 2022 on the horizon. It’s never a dull moment in my office and there’s always a new challenge on my plate.

This past month I was helping a client create an experience with one of her releases. She wanted to make it more impactful with her fans beyond putting out the single on Spotify. She wanted to share behind the scenes how the track was made.

I have done this before for albums, taking months of work and content creation – but this was the first time I worked on a condensed version for a single. I thought it was a genius idea and enjoyed putting it together. On the first day of release, we saw a great reaction and generated income for my client – without any hands-on work (after it was published).

Here are some tips that helped made our experience successful!

1 – We decided to delay the release of the music to the streaming and online platforms to create exclusive access. Since the single is not available anywhere else, fans will more likely go for purchasing the experience.

2 – We allowed them to pay what they want. We had a set price for all the content they were getting but allowed them to give more if they felt generous that day! I highly recommend offering this in your store on your items. You’ll be surprised what people will do!

3 – We kept everything digital. Yes, we could have created on demand physical merch or send cards, etc. But, in the end we really wanted this to be something that lived online and could be hands off for both of us. Plus, my client is very environmentally conscious so the fact that no mailings had to be done to give her fans an experience was a plus.

4 – Everything was hosted on her site – no funnel programs, no special tools. We simply created a product and linked it to a password-protected page. We didn’t need any expensive programs or gadgets to pull off the experience!

Care to take a peek at what we created? Visit my client’s insider access product here! Get some inspiration for your next release and how you can give your fans a little something more – staying connected in any form is so important right now with live events still slowly coming back!

Cheers to your next release,

What’s in a Band Agreement (And Why You Need One!)

This year is FLYING for me. Maybe it’s because things are opening up again nationwide and internationally but things are moving and grooving, and it’s just making these months fly!

With new shows and tours coming together, my world has become about agreements recently for my clients and their band members (I prefer to use the term agreements over contracts). These documents have become so important for these groups. What’s helpful about them is that they spell out the details of the event, dates, times, what’s expected, and most importantly, terms of payment! You won’t get asked over and over again, “When do I get my check?”, “Do I get reimbursed for this Uber?”, or “Who’s paying for this meal?”

Maybe you already have your agreements created, maybe you don’t. That’s okay, you’re here now and I want to share with you some of the top things to include in your agreements that maybe you didn’t think about beyond date, time, and amount of pay. All of these tips came from REAL situations that I’ve seen happen. Doesn’t make anyone a bad person, just means life can get in the way of commitments and you have to protect yourself, your name, and your business at the end of the day.

Here are 6 things you may be forgetting in your band agreements:

1. How they will be paid: Be sure to specify the way that you will be paying so it’s clear to folks when they will receive their money. With checks, sometimes it can take a few days to process and if you have bills depending on the paycheck, that can cause your bandmates late fees. Which brings me to…

2. Late Fees & Lost Checks. Make sure you state you’re not responsible for any late fees, charges, or lost check fees if you are paying by check. To reissue a check it can cost you, so your bandmates should be aware of that and understand they should be timely with depositing your checks.

3. Lost or stolen instruments or equipment. Sadly, this has happened a few times on tour to a couple of my clients (Be sure to park your tour vans in safe, well-lit areas!). Be sure to make it clear that you’re not responsible for paying for your bandmates stolen or lost instruments even though it was during your tour.

4. Tour and Performance etiquette. This can be touchy, but I’ve seen it included in some high-profile performances. This is if you don’t want someone chugging a beer on stage, cursing on stage, or jumping in the crowds, etc. It can also be having no phones 5 minutes before showtime or making sure phones are silent during the show. 

5. Recording ownership, publishing rights, copyright, writing credits. Sometimes you have times where you are recording new music or during rehearsal, you write a new melody to your songs. Make sure you clarify who gets the rights and percentages to the band if it’s picked up by publishing.

6. Terms if the band member has to leave the tour early. This happens more often than you might think. Life can hit hard and band and personnel sometimes have to leave the road. Make sure the protocol is clear in how they should leave. They can’t just be gone one morning. Request communication and replacement options if applicable.

I hope this proves helpful in navigating agreements with your bandmates. I’ve never heard anyone regretting putting agreements in place with their band members, so be sure to start doing it today.

Keep making your great music

Enhance Your Single Release With On Demand Merch

To make up for the lack of live shows, 2020 was a big year for online streaming. The growth as the number of paid subscriptions increased by 24% in early 2020, and lots of music was released during the pandemic. Many of my clients started pouring out singles and releasing them throughout the year – so we got to working on how we could make these releases a fun experience for the fans – beyond just listening to it on Spotify or Apple.

One strategy was using the on-demand printing service, Printful, to create merch specifically around a single release for a limited time. The major artists do this all the time – they get you hyped up about a new release and create unique merch around it. However, you don’t always want to invest in 100s of items, so using the on-demand services is ideal. There are some things I learned along the way. Here are the pros and cons of using on-demand printing that I feel are most important to understand, whether for a release or in general.

CONS
1. Limited items – You are limited to the merchandise that the on-demand printer can offer. That can sometimes be frustrating if you’d like to offer something unique. 

2. Profit Margins – You may have to increase the cost of your items to your customers in order to make a decent profit margin, but you have total control on how much you want to make.

3. Return management – It can sometimes be trickier since you’re depending on a third party to process a refund to you in order to refund a customer if there’s an issue. That’s why it’s important to have a clear return policy on your store site that benefits you. Most of the time though, the on-demand printer will want to work with you because they only make money when you do!

PROS
1. No Bulk Orders – The obvious one here is you don’t need to place orders of 100s of items to be able to offer merch in your store. So, you don’t have to worry about having boxes of merch that doesn’t sell sitting in your closet.

2. Inventory Management – You don’t have to worry if you will sell out of an item because it’s all on-demand. Plus you save the headache of having to count and keep track of what was sold / not sold.

3. Design Experimentation – You’re able to explore as many designs as you want, and in turn offer that to your followers. However, I do recommend having a limit of items. You don’t want to overwhelm your shoppers!

4. Fulfillment is a breeze – Never go to a post office again or deal with packing up envelopes of shirts. You can even customize your products and packaging with your branding with Printful, so there’s no sign that it’s coming from a third party.

It’s been really fun to be able to play with new merch items for my clients’ stores without having to invest in boxes of merch. We’ve learned that some things sell really well, and some things do not. So, go ahead and head over to Printful (or another on-demand printing service) and see what merch items you can create today!

Getting Google Verified

One of my favorite things is to figure something out with a client and then be able to share that tip with the rest of my clients, and you! And that thing this past month was claiming their Knowledge Panel.

What’s a Knowledge Panel?
Knowledge panels are information boxes that appear on Google when you search for entities (people, places, organizations, things) that are in the Knowledge Graph. They are meant to help you get a quick snapshot of information on the topic you are googling. It looks a little something like this 👇

Now, my client came to me saying, “How can we remove XY and Z! It’s not correct, it’s not relevant!”. Which is when I noticed the button at the bottom of the panel saying “Claim this knowledge panel”. I thought this had to be the way to edit this panel since there’s no dedicated person or any person on the side of support that could just change it for us. 

We worked on being able to claim the panel. Once we were successful, boom, we were able to request edits to be made to the panel! Now, of course, the changes could take months, but it does assure us that we have *more* control than before with what is shared with the world when they search for my client.

So, what are you waiting for! Claim your knowledge panel today. It’s quick and painless, full instructions here.

Musicians Adapting To COVID

Wow – I think we all have recently been reflecting on the fact that it’s been an entire year already since the COVID virus essentially hit the nation. I remember shopping for masks back then, seeing they wouldn’t arrive until June, and me not ordering because I thought it’d be over by then. Boy, we were all wrong! So much has happened in the past year. I hope for you it hasn’t been too rocky. 

I’m very grateful that I was able to continue helping my clients despite COVID impacting the live show and touring industry. For some of my clients, touring and performances was easily over half of their incomes, so needless to say, they had to adapt to what was happening and fast.

I thought I would share a little into what my clients pivoted to this past year without being able to tour – maybe there’s some things in there that you haven’t tapped into that could help you keep your business and fanbase healthy.

Online Streaming. I’ve always advocated for live stream concerts (check out my blog post on how my client made $400 in one hour via live stream!) because I saw the value of fans watching and feeling like it was an intimate experience. But with COVID, this industry EXPLODED. I have an old-school client who had done 1, maybe 2 live steam concerts in his career. This past year, he has converted his living room into a world class recording “studio”. He’s set up to go live anytime, and has converted many of his to-be in person concerts into streaming concerts, keeping his performance schedule busy. He also started a weekly concert series, bringing on guests from around the world. His fans are really enjoying it, and I know my client is too.

Focus on Releasing Music. Clients were always releasing music – but with COVID and everyone at home, it felt like the singles and albums were just pouring out. Without the ability to tour, releasing singles in a drip form allows them to keep in communication with their fanbase continuously! Look at Taylor Swift. No tours and she released 2 full albums.

E-Commerce. With new music pouring out, it was only natural to also be pushing out new merch, not just new designs but also new products like facemasks! It also gave clients a chance to look at what was working, and what was not, to clean up their online offerings.

Tapping into other skills. Some of my clients hold workshops – for music or meditation – as well as sell their own sheet music. This time off from touring and performing allowed them to push out their courses and sheet music when they couldn’t before, opening that door of revenue to them.

Getting Organized. All of our clients took this time to get organized, make those website updates we’ve always wanted to make, update profiles online, etc. etc. It was a good year to catch up on administrative things that were always pushed back when touring / performances were the priority.

What is your best incentive?

Mailchimp rolled out a new feature and I just had to make sure you knew about it – especially if you use Mailchimp or if you are thinking of using it.

Now every account has access to use their free automation tool! Before, you had to pay at least $10/month just to use the automation, even if you had less than 2000 contacts. Now, everyone can use their automation tools!

What is the automation tool? It’s a way to automatically send emails to your mailing list when they sign up, when they click on a link, based on their location, on and on. This saves energy, time, brain power and ultimately money.

So, are you using an automated response with your email sign ups? If no, what’s holding you back? There are so many options that you can do to help build your relationship with your fans, make you look professional and make you money!

Here are some ideas for an automated email to new sign ups for your list.

1) Free music – tried and true, people love to get your music for free. Make it enticing by giving away studio versions, acoustic versions or songs they won’t get anywhere else.

2) Coupon – give a coupon away for new signs ups to your online store! Capitalize on their interest right when they sign up for your list but offering a great deal on your latest album.

3) Personal stories – if you’re a storyteller, share a sequence of stories and how you started out as a musician, or about your last album and how it came to be. Set the tone to your list that they are going to get the background on your music and you.

4) Throw it all in a bundle – put together a bundle of your music, a coupon and maybe a few more ‘digital’ goodies. Recreate the experience of joining your fan club in the digital world!

There are endless ideas to include your welcome email because you, your music and your brand are individualistic! Are you a guitarist? Offer up a chord sheet of your favorite song. Big fan of unicorns? Offer a coupon for some fun merch in your store. Get creative in how you can connect with your fans!

I hope this gets you thinking about how you can give an experience to your mailing list sign ups.

Encore Blog Feature

 

Today, I’m keeping it short and sweet. Mostly, I want to address the #ShamelessPlug subject and share with you my first interview on Encore Music’s blog! I’m honored to have been interviewed and would like to officially thank them for including me in their blog!

If you don’t know Encore, definitely check them out if you are active on the gig market, think private events, corporate events and the like. They have a great, easy to use site, have worked with BIG names like Carnival, Guinness, Google and many more. Their customer service is also fantastic, which is a big plus for me personally.

 

10 Thoughtful Gifts for Musicians

This time of year means gift giving, and I always hear from the people I work with that they need to find a thoughtful gift for their friends or colleagues. So, this year, I wanted to put together a list of what I know are considerate to people in the music industry.

Shall we?

pillow10) Pillow – comfy and stylish. I love this pillow, which is great for any music lover. Simple, clean and a great place to rest your head after a long day in the studio ($26)
Buy it now

9) Wifi HotSpot – For a musician, or any friend on the go, a personal wifi hotspot is a huge upgrade. I use KarmaGo personally and cannot recommend it more for a personal hotspot. The best part? You only pay for the data you need. Even better? When people connect to your hotspot, you get free data. ($129)
Get $10 off your purchase: Buy it now

8) Battery Extender – Another techie gift that’s useful for anyone, especially a musician on the go, is a portable battery charger. Great for when you just can’t find an outlet while on the go. This charger has been said to charge your phone to 100% in 90 minutes. ($30)
Buy it now

earbuds7) Ear Skinz – these are colorful covers that slip over most in-ear headphones, offering the next level of comfort, fit and sound. These are definitely on my wishlist – wearing those earbuds all day can give me a headache! Right now, they are offering a deal of buy 3, get one free. ($11)
Buy it now

6) Membership to AAA – this is a hugely helpful gift for any musician going on tour. The van will break down, no question about it. ($66 for classic membership for 2 years – 1st year is free!)
Buy it now

5) Pick Punch – this nifty tool should be with every guitar player in my book. This punch can make picks out of old credit cards, hotel key cards, gym member cards, the list goes on. ($25)
Buy it now

4) SpaFinder Gift Certificate – being a musician takes long hours of practicing, and the physical demands increase even more if they are in the studio working on their next album. Give the gift of wellness with a SpaFinder Gift Certificate – you pick the dollar amount and they can use it at several types of health spas (even chiropractors!) in their area, whenever they want. (Starts at $25)
Buy it now

3) Vocal-eze – This throat spray has been recommended by musicians like Tim McGraw, Joss Stone and always seems to be on the vocal coaches recommendations. If the singer in your life doesn’t have this already, treat them to some soothing support. ($13)
Buy it now

tea2) Tea Variety Pack – Tea has endless health benefits, perfect for the hard working musician and singer. One of my favorite tea companies is David’s Tea, mostly because of their many tea samplers. For just $26, you can give 12 different types of teas. They are bound to find a taste they love! ($26)
Buy it now

1) Support – the best gift to any musician is to give their career support. Buy their albums as gifts for your friends, fund their projects on Kickstarter, Pledgemusic or Indiegogo. Share their music with your friends because the most thoughtful way to give to a musician is to support them.

 

I hope this helps you in your gift giving search and don’t forget to most of all – enjoy the season!

The biggest hiring mistake I see.

This week, one of my clients showed me a spreadsheet of radio stations he wanted to send his album to – more specifically, U.S. stations that have Jazz Programs. He told me that he got the spreadsheet built by someone on Elance. My job was to comb through and pick out the top 50 (there were something like 200 found) so that we could start mailing out his new release.
 
I was excited to tackle the research he received, but after a few searches, I realized that this spreadsheet was not going to help us at all. Unfortunately, we realized that most of these stations didn’t have Jazz programs, were not even radio stations in the United States or worst case, weren’t even radio stations! On top of It was disappointing to know that my client paid for a service that ultimately will not help us. I’m still combing through as there have been a couple that will be beneficial to reach out, but for the most part, we’re going to have to start from scratch.
 
I’m not sure what happened or why the results were this horrific, but it got me thinking of ways how this could have been avoided. I understand that it’s not simple to find freelancers or a virtual assistant who understands what you are trying to do as a musician – most of the VA’s are trained as if they were working strictly for small businesses or offices, so understanding that you need a Jazz program with a local radio station is not going to translate when you ask for Top U.S. Jazz Stations. It was clear the freelancer just wanted to send a lot of results to be impressive. A classic quantity versus quality.
 
So how could my client’s dollar have gone farther to get the results he needed the first time? Here are some ways to give clear direction when asking a freelancer or virtual assistant to complete a research task.
 
1) Walk them through the steps – yes, this takes time, but it will save you the headache later. Brief them on what your goal is with this task and what you need to make decisions to reach that goal. Either jump on the phone (best) or show a video via Jing, or type up a paragraph explaining it all. For example, “I want to get my album into people’s hands who have a Jazz program on the radio, online and offline. Let’s get the name of the program, website, who runs it and their contact info – phone, address, email.”
 
2) Ask them if they have any questions – Give them the opportunity to ask questions about the research task. Almost every time I receive a research task, I ask questions or recap to ensure that once I start, I know what I’m looking for.
 
3) Offer examples if you can – If you have past examples of what you need, it’s always good to share. It’ll be easier and faster for them to deliver the results you want.
 
4) Ask them to do some of the task for your to review before moving forward – Especially for research on contacts, you can ask them to search for a few and then you review to make sure you have the information you need and that they understand the task. Once you approve, they can take it away and complete the task with confidence.
 
5) Hold them accountable – If you receive the research and something is incorrect or you wanted it delivered a different way, the first time this happens is the best time to let them know. This way, they can learn what your preferences are and you’re happier with the results.
 
Thankfully I got a hold of the spreadsheet from my client before he started sending his Jazz album to talk shows or shows in Puerto Rico! We’re taking direction by finding local stations first, and then building a list from there to help get his album into the DJ’s hands.
 
Have you ever had a horror story with a freelancer? Did you ever have trouble voicing or giving direction on a task you needed done? Did this help? I’d love to hear from you.
 
Thank you for reading and have a great weekend.
 
Cheers!