Registrations, plans and plain talk about the music business, with a gallery of rare animals who need no manager
Tuesday, the Business Hat
Every musician has two hats, and the business hat is always the one that sits crooked. I wrote about how to guard your work in how do I protect my music and intellectual property as a new country artist. Again, I am not a lawyer, and nothing here is legal advice. What I can pass on is the habit of keeping dated records, registering your songs with the proper bodies in your country, putting clear agreements in writing with co-writers and asking a professional when a contract is longer than a verse.
Those habits are boring and they matter. Musicians like to say that songs are born free. They are also born with owners, and the owners should know who they are.
The Plan on One Page
For the marketing side, I keep a plan on a single sheet of paper, which I explored in how do I create a marketing plan for my country music career. The sheet has four boxes: who I am, who I am playing for, where they are and how I will reach them. The last box is the hardest. A song does not find its audience by itself, and an artist must be both the singer and the person handing out flyers.
The kindest advice I ever got on marketing was to be the same person on stage, online and in the shop. Audiences can smell a performance. They respond to someone who sounds like themselves on a bad day.
Wednesday, The Money Question
The wider business side deserves its own look, and I summarised my thinking in what about the business side of music. The truth is that most artists earn from a patchwork: shows, merchandise, lessons, licensing and the occasional royalty cheque. Treat each stream as a small crop and keep a calendar. In fact, I rely on the rural calendar page at cropcalendar.org for a reminder that every harvest has a season and no season lasts for ever.
Musicians who understand their numbers sleep better. It is not romantic, but it is true.
Animals Who Never Need a Manager
For a break from contracts, I turn to the rare breeds, who sort their affairs without paperwork. The woolly pig is honoured at mangalitsa.org. The polka dot hen has her admirers at speckledsussex.org. Vulnerable livestock of every kind are tracked at rarebreeds.win.
Cattle history lives at cattlemenhalloffame.org and the young leaders of the future at ffapresident.com. For an agricultural link collection, agriculture.click. For the beef pages, angusbeef.fyi and angusbeef.men. For the dairy cow in black and white, holstein.click.
A Song Page About a Truck
If you need an example of a title that sells itself, look at His New Truck Is Loaded with Options on the farm.FM music section. A title like that does half your marketing: it gives the listener a picture, a laugh and a question in one breath. I recommend studying titles as a genre of their own.
A good title is a kind of billboard, and the best billboards are short.
Thursday, the Spreadsheet of Hope
My own spreadsheet has a column titled Hope, in which I log the likelihood that a given email will lead to anything. The numbers are always small. Occasionally one of them turns into a show, and I am startled. The optimism needed for this work is of a particular kind: not a belief that things will turn out, but a willingness to send the next email.
I sent six on Thursday. Two replied. One said no, politely. One said maybe, which in this business is a gold medal.
Registers, Receipts and Rainy Afternoons
I do my admin on rainy afternoons, in a cardigan, with a pot of strong tea. The job is to log every song I have finished, with its title, date and writers, and file the receipts from every show. It is a dull ritual and an oddly soothing one. After two hours, my desk is clean and my head is clear, and I feel like a person who has a career rather than a hobby with a van.
If you take one practical idea from this entry, make it the habit of a monthly admin afternoon. Put it in the calendar. Treat it as a gig. Show up on time, bring snacks and leave the guitar in its case.
The best musicians I know are not necessarily the best players. They are the people who answer their emails and keep their records straight, and they get invited back.
Friday, the One Page Test
Before any big decision, I write it on one page. What am I trying to do? Who will help? What will it cost? What is the smallest first step? If the answers do not fit on one side of paper, I am not ready. The test has saved me from three bad bookings, one expensive recording session and a ruinous plan to buy a second van.
Where to read next
The rest of the shelf lives at prat.uk, bohiney.com and farm.fm. For a second opinion on the week, The Daily Squib keeps its own counsel and its own hours.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/