Valuing Yourself
After a rousing discussion among some Twitter peers, I've decided to tackle an angle of the value of music. Now, as I often do, I'm going to remind you that I do not believe in subsidizing everyone who believes they are an artist. No one forces any one person to pay any one artist. I'm not asking you to buy my CD just because I worked hard. I'm not telling you to give me five or ten bucks because I think I'm talented. You don't have to be a superstar to have your music valued and make a living from it, but you have to work for it and have something people want. Does that mean every single artist out there deserves to make a living from art? No. Not in the least. Not every start-up business has a right to succeed. If your music isn't something that anyone wants, you're SOL. That's the way it is with any product. So how do you convince people that not only is your music something they want, but something of value?
First of all, don't give things away without a reason for doing so. One of the first mistakes I made in my side-career as an artist was to post EVERYTHING I was working on. For free. Not only was I putting my first vocal takes and mediocre works-in-process out there for the world to hear, but I was putting it alongside all of my polished, final masters on SoundCloud and Reverbnation for the world to listen to for free before releasing anything for sale.
Let me lay out carefully some possible consequences. There will be some, perhaps many, that will feel an entitlement to your music, fans that ask to hear more and to please send them links whenever you have something new to share, but then they won't buy anything. They will want to follow your career and keep in touch. They will listen to a song multiple times and gush about your work and never drop a dime. How do you convince them that lunch ain't free? Well, stop giving them free lunch!
I do want to state now that a fan that doesn't buy your work isn't always a bad thing. If they help share your music with others that do buy or talk you up, this is highly appreciated. And some of you are going to point out that the risk of a few non-paying fans might outweigh the ones that will pay. This is true if you're posting some of your music, but there is no need to post all as you create it. What fun is the release of an album if everyone has heard every song on it before? Album releases lose their magic without some new content. So you can still post content on SC, just not all of it! Your SC offering should be smaller, not bigger than your released offering. This is something I'm still struggling with because I do like to share my piano-improvisations on SC. I'm slowly moving away from that and offering more EPs.
I also no longer put up music that is "in process." I know that there are many people that like this method and if you're incredibly popular, this is fun for fans. But when you are not incredibly popular, this actually may discredit you as an artist. You open the door for not just other artists but for everyone to try to "help" you polish that piece. I've tackled this before in another blog post about people offering advice when they aren't qualified. Well, posting WIP invites this. I have a few people I trust with my ideas and WIP now, and I'm not offering it up to the rest of the world to have their say.
I also used to play out (gig) for free. Yes, the exposure was good. It really was, but the danger here was in that it wasn't well-known that the artists were playing for free. Therefore the tip-jar was not well-visited. Advice here is that if you do decide to take a non-paying gig, make sure you 1. Prime the tip jar with a few of your own ones and a five to make it a little more obvious that you're playing for tips. 2. Enlist a couple of friends to talk you up in the audience. 3. Have CDs with you to sell! Personally, I'm not going to be taking non-paying gigs moving forward as a rule. I won't say never because it always depends on the situation, but don't be so hungry to play that you don't have a plan to make that gig lucrative.
What I've decided is to value my own music first. Yes, starting out, you have no idea if what you're doing will catch on, so you often just put it out there for free. But when you put all of it up for grabs, you are essentially saying that you don't see any reason people wanting your work should pay you for what you did. I'm not wildly popular and I doubt my music will be. It is not your run-of-the-mill singer-songwriter, pop, or electronic. Some love it, some like it, some can't get into it, and some just don't get it. Do I expect to quit my day job? Not anytime soon but I would love to. But in order to do that, I need to stop giving away my music for free.
Additional tips:
First of all, don't give things away without a reason for doing so. One of the first mistakes I made in my side-career as an artist was to post EVERYTHING I was working on. For free. Not only was I putting my first vocal takes and mediocre works-in-process out there for the world to hear, but I was putting it alongside all of my polished, final masters on SoundCloud and Reverbnation for the world to listen to for free before releasing anything for sale.
Let me lay out carefully some possible consequences. There will be some, perhaps many, that will feel an entitlement to your music, fans that ask to hear more and to please send them links whenever you have something new to share, but then they won't buy anything. They will want to follow your career and keep in touch. They will listen to a song multiple times and gush about your work and never drop a dime. How do you convince them that lunch ain't free? Well, stop giving them free lunch!
I do want to state now that a fan that doesn't buy your work isn't always a bad thing. If they help share your music with others that do buy or talk you up, this is highly appreciated. And some of you are going to point out that the risk of a few non-paying fans might outweigh the ones that will pay. This is true if you're posting some of your music, but there is no need to post all as you create it. What fun is the release of an album if everyone has heard every song on it before? Album releases lose their magic without some new content. So you can still post content on SC, just not all of it! Your SC offering should be smaller, not bigger than your released offering. This is something I'm still struggling with because I do like to share my piano-improvisations on SC. I'm slowly moving away from that and offering more EPs.
I also no longer put up music that is "in process." I know that there are many people that like this method and if you're incredibly popular, this is fun for fans. But when you are not incredibly popular, this actually may discredit you as an artist. You open the door for not just other artists but for everyone to try to "help" you polish that piece. I've tackled this before in another blog post about people offering advice when they aren't qualified. Well, posting WIP invites this. I have a few people I trust with my ideas and WIP now, and I'm not offering it up to the rest of the world to have their say.
I also used to play out (gig) for free. Yes, the exposure was good. It really was, but the danger here was in that it wasn't well-known that the artists were playing for free. Therefore the tip-jar was not well-visited. Advice here is that if you do decide to take a non-paying gig, make sure you 1. Prime the tip jar with a few of your own ones and a five to make it a little more obvious that you're playing for tips. 2. Enlist a couple of friends to talk you up in the audience. 3. Have CDs with you to sell! Personally, I'm not going to be taking non-paying gigs moving forward as a rule. I won't say never because it always depends on the situation, but don't be so hungry to play that you don't have a plan to make that gig lucrative.
What I've decided is to value my own music first. Yes, starting out, you have no idea if what you're doing will catch on, so you often just put it out there for free. But when you put all of it up for grabs, you are essentially saying that you don't see any reason people wanting your work should pay you for what you did. I'm not wildly popular and I doubt my music will be. It is not your run-of-the-mill singer-songwriter, pop, or electronic. Some love it, some like it, some can't get into it, and some just don't get it. Do I expect to quit my day job? Not anytime soon but I would love to. But in order to do that, I need to stop giving away my music for free.
Additional tips:
- Point people to where they can BUY your music or streaming sites where you actually get paid.
- Invite people to follow you on streaming sites. (Yes we can argue the value of Spotify listens etc, but I have managed to convert some SC listeners into paid-streaming listeners.)
- If you do post a whole album on SC, post the majority of it after it has been released long enough for many of your fans to have bought it.
- Don't want to take your stuff off of SC permanently? Mark some pieces as "Private" instead of "Public" and regularly switch up what songs you offer for free streaming.
- Get physical CDs if you can afford it. My CDs outsold DLs a good 20 to 1 for "Headphone Paralysis." That was in 2014. You don't have to buy thousands of them, but people like physical products especially if you can sign it.
There is a lot more to presenting your product as something people want, and I suggest arming yourself with that information too. You'll find advice on many blogs and how-to's about having good artwork, your website presentation, make use of email / newsletters, etc. That's all good info and I invite you to visit other sites for that information.
Good luck and stay tuned!
- Sarah Schonert, The Lyrical Physicist
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