The music industry convulsed during the first decade of this century.
If you listened to some of the stories, you might have thought that we were close to the end of the world. But the music industry survived, and despite what some people suggest, the major players are still making healthy profits—they have learned how to make money in different ways (often doing deals where they earn revenue from many different sources), and they promote in different ways (hence the proliferation of TV talent shows).
One of the changes to the mainstream music industry is a focus on mass-market, high-income-generating hits (hence the focus on talent shows). For the regular musician and the musician looking to build a career, this is good—the economics of small come into play. There are now many areas where small acts can earn a viable living but the big acts can’t go because their overhead would make the option unprofitable.
One big change, for acts both big and small, has been the diversification of income streams.
Diversi-who?
There was once a time when the main source of income for a musician was album sales. (This was in the good old days, when we had albums, and they were released on vinyl.) Touring was something bands enjoyed and needed to do to promote their album, but it didn’t make money.
Today the world has changed. Income from music sales is far less significant in terms of an act’s total income, and touring can make a profit (especially with sponsorship). But more significantly, income can now come from a range of sources, including music sales, video, touring, sponsorship, merchandise, licensing fees, and so on.
No one source will make you a multi-billionaire. Indeed, each individual source may seem to generate a small amount of income. However, in aggregate and taken over the long term, lots of modest sources of income will create a viable stream of income that can sustain a career. As a musician, you need to have the mindset to ensure that you are always working so that those various sources keep generating income.
This multi-income-stream approach also adds resilience. If you have only one source of income and that dries up, then you have a problem. By contrast, if no single source counts for more than, say, 10 percent of your income, and one source of income ends, then you’ll still be receiving at least 90 percent of your income from all of your other sources.
There is a secondary issue here. With so many sources of income, you need to be able to identify:
Which activities you undertake actually generate income.
Which activities generate profits. (Remember, income and profit are different.) Once you understand which of your activities generate profits, then you can figure out which ones generate the best profits (the area on which you should focus).
Which activities don’t generate income and, leading on from that, which activities result in a loss.
Which activities result in a loss/don’t generate income but are necessary because they support or lead to activities that make money.
In other words, you shouldn’t try to do everything, but if you’re going to be successful, you should focus on the things that make money, and in order to do that, you need to understand the economics of each individual activity.
Let’s have a look at the available sources of income. I will look at some of the commercial aspects here, but I’ll get into the economics in much greater detail in the next part.
To make money, you need to create stuff. Now, of course, stuff is a fairly nebulous notion, and I am intentionally using such a vague term. To generate income, that stuff needs to be turned into products—a product is something that can be consumed (in other words, purchase or viewed).
So, if you write a song, that song is stuff. However, if you record that song and make it available to purchase as a download in iTunes, then it is a product. But that song can be taken to market—in other words, it can generate income as a product—in many different ways. For instance, a recorded song:
That’s before we look at any songwriter royalties...
The point being that there is not a one-to-one correlation between things and products. Each piece of stuff can ultimately lead to a range of products. If you want to dictate how your fan base must consume your product (for instance, if you only want them to buy your music on CD), that’s fine, but you’re likely to hurt sales. The more options you can give, the more likely you are to make your product available in a form that people want to consume (in other words, pay money for) and at a price that people want to pay.
I’ll look at the issues around creating products (including the economics of various product options) in next chapter, but for the moment, let’s look at the main possible sources of income.
The most obvious source of income for a musician is by creating music. This could be music the musician has written or music that the musician has performed; it doesn’t matter which. What matters is that it is put into a form that the fan can consume. The first step is to record the music and get it into a digital file, and once that is done, there are many ways in which that digital file can be sold.
One of the most significant changes for the music industry has been the rise of digital downloads: first illegal downloads, but in the last five years or so, legal downloads.
The behemoths in the download area are Apple’s iTunes (see Figure 4.1) and Amazon (see Figure 4.2).
Figure 4.1. The iTunes store, which is integrated into the iTunes software. The iTunes store is the leading internet download retailer.
There are many advantages to releasing your music for digital downloads:
There is less work involved than in creating a CD. CDs need to be manufactured—that has a cost associated, and then there is quality control (of the physical product), distribution, and so on. By contrast, for a download you only need to get a file to the retailer, and they will do the rest (and if you go through someone such as CD Baby [cdbaby.com] or TuneCore [tunecore.com], then you only need to upload one file, and they will do the distribution to all the retailers).
You can go global. Once your songs are available for download, anyone anywhere in the world can get hold of them.
Because there is no physical product and highly limited distribution costs, a greater proportion of the sale price comes through as profits. (Typically, you can earn up to 70 percent of the selling price.)
Once you are in the stores, you will have as much “shelf” space as any artist. More than that, the store will start displaying your product next to other artists (using the “people who bought this also bought...” type of arrangements).
If your music is easily available at a reasonable price, it is less likely to be pirated (although you are unlikely to prevent piracy).
Although the notion of selling electronic downloads may seem like a panacea, there are still many downsides. If nothing else, although your music may be carried by the major music download stores, it will not stand out. There will never be a display to highlight your latest album.
It is easy to ignore or forget CDs.
They’re expensive to make, logistically hard to distribute, and virtually every week another retailer goes out of business. Added to which, the size of the download market is growing rapidly.
However, CDs account for approximately 75 percent of the market, so it may not be wise to ignore this format.
That being said, the CD market poses some challenges:
The first challenge is the cost of the actual product. You will have to pay for the production run before you have sold any CDs (which can be a significant commercial risk).
You’re dealing with physical products, which have to be physically shipped (to distributors, retailers, and customers).
While prices have fallen, from a consumer’s perspective they still cost more than downloads (usually), and they don’t give the consumer the ability to choose the tracks he wants to buy—it’s an all-or-nothing deal.
For a smaller act, getting CDs into the retail outlets in shopping malls and so on is tough. It also requires a significant investment to get enough product that it can be widely distributed. As a result, it is often preferable to sell CDs through the online retailers.
There are a number of services to help get CDs to people who want to consume your music in this format.
Conventionally, if you want to sell a CD, you (or your record company) will make a recording and then go to a CD pressing plant and ask them to press several thousand CDs, which you can then sell. The downside to this arrangement is that you need to make an investment to get your CDs pressed, and if you don’t sell them, you could face a loss (and you will have an awful lot of CDs sitting around your home, reminding you that you didn’t sell enough CDs).
With an on-demand service, instead of pressing several thousand CDs, you wait for someone to buy your CD. The service provider then takes the money from the purchaser, presses a CD (and, of course, prints the artwork and so on), and then delivers the CD to the customer. The on-demand service provider takes its fee (which is usually fixed) and pays you the balance.
There are many other on-demand services, such as print-on-demand services. Like CD on-demand services, these will provide printed materials when the customer places an order. These services allow you to sell your own T-shirts, mugs, buttons (badges), posters, programs, and so on without incurring the upfront costs of printing/production and holding stock.
You may also find these services particularly useful for several reasons:
You can get up and running very quickly and easily.
When you are up and running, it is (comparatively) easy to change things. For instance, you won’t have several thousand CDs sitting around if you decide you don’t like your album anymore. Equally, you will usually find that if the service provider isn’t up to scratch, it is comparatively painless to change the provider.
With an on-demand service, you can compete with the major players (in other words, the established acts that are already trying to sell CDs, DVDs, and merchandise). Although you may not be able to compete in terms of revenue raised from CDs, DVDs, and merchandise (because these services are inherently inefficient, as is explained below), you will be able to have a comparable product range that should give you a certain amount of credibility.
Through their delivery services, they provide a way to get your CD/merchandise to a fan base over a wide geographical location.
Three examples of providers of these services are Amazon (through their CreateSpace service—createspace.com; see Figure 4.3), which provides on-demand print and CD/DVD services; Lulu (lulu.com), which provides on-demand print and CD/DVD services; and CafePress (cafepress.com), which provides on-demand merchandise (T-shirts and the like).
The downside to the on-demand services is that they are not cheap. To give an example, a CD from an on-demand service may cost in the neighborhood of $5 to $9 (plus postage). If you’re a new act looking to sell your CD at a highly competitive (in other words, low) price, with these costs you may sell a lot of CDs but not generate much profit. However, it is virtually a no-brainer to want to get your CD into Amazon, so CreateSpace is a very attractive notion.
If you do choose to use an on-demand service, you still have the option to sell your products directly. However, you then need to source your products. So, for instance, if you want to sell your own CDs at gigs, you would have to either get a batch of CDs pressed at a pressing plant or order a number from your on-demand service. In either case, you will need to make an investment, and you will then have to carry stock. If you are ordering from your on-demand service, then you will have very thin margins.
As an alternative to using on-demand services, you may want to use a fulfillment service. These are organizations that will deliver your product to your customers. This may not be an obvious service to use—to many, it feels like paying money to have someone put your CD in the mail—however, there can be a great value to these services.
In deciding whether these services have value to you, let me ask you a question: What do you want to do—make music or spend all day processing orders, sending out CDs, and so on? If you want to make music, these services are worth considering for the benefit of the extra time that they will bring you. Seriously, think about the process a mail-order firm goes through—credit card transactions, printing invoices, packing CDs, labeling envelopes, and mailing the packages—and then decide how much it is worth for someone to do that for you.
There are also more specialized services, such as those offered by CD Baby (see Figure 4.4), who will also get your music distributed through the electronic download services (such as iTunes and Amazon).
Figure 4.4. CD Baby offers musicians a way to get their music promoted and distributed to a wider audience.
Another example of a fulfillment service is Fulfillment by Amazon (amazonservices.com/fulfillment). The potential advantages are clear: You can sell your product(s) through Amazon and have Amazon deal with the whole process, from taking the order to shipping the product and then paying you.
The disadvantage of these services is that you still need to get your own CDs/merchandise produced, which will require an investment. You will then need to hold the stock and ship it to your delivery service. The advantage of these services is that you can make more income compared to what you can make using the on-demand services.
If you do choose to use a fulfillment service, you still have the option to sell your products directly. So, for instance, you could still sell CDs at gigs.
When I was a kid, we had three TV channels: BBC1, BBC2, and ITV (which is the independent, commercial network in the UK). That was it—there were no other options in the UK. In 1982, that choice was expanded to four channels with the addition of Channel 4. Now, with the introduction of satellite and cable services, as well as digital Freeview, there are several hundred channels available in the UK.
Anyone reading this book in the U.S. may sneer at the time when there were only three TV channels in the UK. (Just be grateful that I’m not old enough to remember when there was only one channel.) However, like the UK and the rest of the world, the U.S. has also seen a huge increase in the number of available TV channels, and I’m sure if you go back far enough, there was a time when there were only three channels in the U.S.
One effect of the increase in the number of channels is the reduction in audience numbers for any particular TV program. Top-rated shows in the UK used to be able to reach viewing figures of around 25 million. Now if a show passes 10 million viewers, it is doing exceptionally well. (Even the Queen’s Christmas message to the Commonwealth only gets around 6 million UK viewers.) So that’s the bad news: Fewer viewers mean reduced budgets, and as you might expect, one budget that is easy to cut is the music budget.
However, the good news is that there are a lot more TV shows out there that need music. That means there are a lot more opportunities:
To get your music heard
To generate income from your music
These opportunities are not just available for TV. They also extend to film (especially independent films), corporate videos, and a number of other possible outlets. Like the music industry, the film industry has been undergoing many changes. Also like the music industry, it is now easier to get into the film industry. And again like the music industry, it is getting harder to reach the heights in the film industry.
However, that is not such a concern for us—what really matters here is that there are more opportunities to make money from your music on TV and in films. The commercial opportunities tend to come in a range of forms. The main options are:
Specifically commissioned music, for which you are paid to provide an original piece of music to accompany a film, TV show, game, corporate video, and so on.
Tracks licensed for a specific project, where (for instance) a song is licensed for synchronization with a specific piece of video (such as a TV advertisement).
Production music or library music, as it is sometimes called. This is music that is pre-cleared for use and where the income is generated from a standardized license. This form of music is increasingly popular because it tends to be cheap, and the license terms are pre-agreed. Film/TV/video producers like using production music because they have certainty of cost and know that a synchronization license has already been granted.
Another great place for music is video games, which can provide both a source of income and a channel through which to promote your music. And if you want to be at the cutting edge of games, then the place to be at the moment is the rock band–type games, where your songs are “played” by game players.
There is much common ground between the popular music industry and the video-game market. Both are primarily marketed at a similar age group (children, teens, and young adults). The nature of video games is such that a track that is included with a game can be played hundreds of times and so can introduce a band and a track to a whole new audience. The possibilities for creating a buzz about a track (with this key audience) through a video game make video games a compelling outlet.
Another interesting facet of the video-game market is how the industry has embraced the internet—for instance, with massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), where each player can be in a separate country playing on a computer linked to the internet.
Contrast this adoption of new technology with the music industry, which has spent years trying to stop its product from being distributed on the internet.
One last point I want to make about the video-game industry is about product life. Very often video games (which can sell for up to $50 or $60) will have a lifespan of one year. After a year, the next edition of the game is released, which again sells for $50 or $60. Then every couple of years, a whole new gaming console is introduced, necessitating another round of purchasing of new games.
Whenever your song is played in public (for instance, on the radio, at a gig, or on YouTube), there are royalties.
There is little you can do to increase your income from this source, other than being more popular so that more people listen to your music. As you get a large following, this income can be significant.
I talk about these royalties in Chapter 6, “Economics 101,” so I won’t elaborate further here.
I’m an old-fashioned kind of person: I like phones that ring.
Many people disagree with me and want a song to be played when someone calls them, and they are happy to pay for this privilege. From your perspective, if you’ve recorded the track, you might as well let people buy it as a ringtone as well as an audio track.
At the time of writing, there are few opportunities to sell video downloads; however, that is likely to change over the next few years.
There are opportunities to sell DVDs and Blu-ray discs, but much like for CDs, there are logistical and cost issues.
But beyond income, there are two reasons why you’re more likely to be making videos:
To promote your act
To connect and communicate with your fan base
Video is an excellent medium for both of those aims, but as I’ve mentioned several times, there are also opportunities to generate income from videos. One of the most straightforward ways is through YouTube (youtube.com).
Over the years YouTube has had several different arrangements, and the terms have continued to change, so the detail of anything written here (particularly suggested earnings levels) is likely to be out of date by the time you read it.
With YouTube, you join the partner program (youtube.com/partners) to start generating income.
YouTube earnings, like everything Google, work on a bid system, so rates will vary. There is no formal guidance about expected earnings; however, anecdotal evidence suggests that earnings will be low: typically around 70 cents per 1,000 views, although some suggest the earnings drop into the single-figure cents and can reach maybe $3 per thousand views.
Let’s put this in context. At 70 cents/1,000 views, you would earn $175 if your video is played 250,000 times and $700 if it is played one million times. If you can have a video played one million times each week, then you would earn more than $36,000 in a year.
Now clearly, that $36,000 figure is not huge, and it presupposes an awful lot of plays, but remember that there will be other income and benefits: There’s the publicity, you’ll probably be selling tracks, and you will also be generating songwriter royalties.
If you want to make money through YouTube videos, the answer is to make short videos and to publish frequently: short videos to reduce production time, and frequent publication because shorter videos will get more views, and the advertising revenue doesn’t seem to increase with longer videos.
If you’re going to adopt this strategy, then you will need to learn how to create high-quality videos quickly. You’ll also have to figure out how to provide enough interesting content. The content doesn’t need to be perfect. For instance, as well as creating professional-level videos for your main releases, you could:
Make an informal video about a new song you’re working on
Record your rehearsals
Record an acoustic version of one of your songs
Have some informal chats about what you’re up to—for instance, gig plans, songs you’re working on, and so on
Lots of short videos, produced for a low cost and without taking much time to make, will translate into easy income and will help to build a bond with your fan base.
Before we move on, a few words of caution.
As you will have guessed, I can see many opportunities for using YouTube. Indeed, in some ways YouTube is nearly perfect:
It’s free.
It’s fast: You can record a video, upload it immediately, and have it watched within minutes.
YouTube can notify people about new postings automatically.
You can link/embed videos within Twitter and Facebook.
You can communicate directly with your fans, and they can respond directly, allowing a high degree of interaction/community building.
Because the videos are embeddable, they can be highly viral.
You can generate money from it (while marketing and retaining fans).
Your output is highly discoverable.
However, relying too heavily on YouTube is risky:
The service might change/go away.
The business terms could change, becoming materially worse, and the rights you are expected to give up might alter.
There might be somewhere newer/better where everyone congregates.
You don’t want all your eggs in one basket.
You can earn more money in other ways.
My point here is simple: YouTube is great at the moment, and I encourage you to exploit the service to build up your business. However, it is not the only option, and it may one day be a bad option. So use the service, but don’t make it the cornerstone of your business strategy, and keep the service under constant review in case it is not in your best interest to use it.
I don’t need to explain what a live performance is, do I? You understand the basics of earning money from gigs, right?
I’ll talk a bit more about some of the economic considerations with touring and live performances in Chapter 6.
I’ve already mentioned advertising income, particularly in the context of video.
As your reputation grows, there will be opportunities for advertising and sponsorship. To the extent that you are seen as connecting with a certain demographic or group of people, you will have value for advertisers.
As musicians have increasingly become brands, the sales of merchandise have increased.
As with any tangible object, there is an issue around the cost of buying stock. Luckily, like CDs and DVDs, there are many on-demand services to ease the production challenges.
In a bid to create publicity and increase sales, many online retailers offer an associates’ program. An example of one retailer offering this sort of arrangement is Amazon.
The way these arrangements often work is that you create a link on your website to a certain product on the retailer’s website. If someone then follows that link and purchases the product, you receive a commission, typically of a few percent of the sale price.
So how does this help you?
First, if you have a product that is widely available (such as a download, CD, or DVD) but that you are not selling directly, you can create links on your website to purchase the product(s) from the online retailer. This means that you will get paid twice: First, you get the royalty, and second, you get the commission from the retailer.
Second, this gives you another source of income. Say, for instance, you are a band performing Celtic music. This sort of music typically has a much narrower audience than a mainstream pop group could expect. However, many members of the Celtic music audience also have an interest in all things Celtic. This is where you have an opportunity to increase your income and to help your fan base connect with and learn more about the background to your music.
To give you some examples, a Celtic band could consider including links to these sorts of products:
CDs/downloads from other bands who perform music in a similar style. Perhaps you could include links to some of your heroes or your major influences.
Books about:
The origins and history of Celtic music
Celtic instruments
Celtic myths that may have influenced the subject matter of some of your songs
So now you’ve got an idea of the range of products that could be produced. Before we jump in and start creating like crazy, I think it is important for you to have an idea about who you are and what you do. If these seem like difficult questions for you, then it will be even harder to create a cohesive product that you can sell to your fan base.
Let’s look at this issue from a different perspective: What does your act offer to your potential fan base, and why would the fan base pay attention to/spend money for those offerings? Take some time to think about it. It’s very important.
If you’re offering junk that is of no worth to a fan base, then you’re going to lose your fan base and your income. No income equates to no career.
Have you seen or read interviews with artists who say something to the effect of, “Our album defies categorization,” or “We’re creative people—we don’t like to be pigeonholed?”
Now, I don’t want to constrain your creativity, but one thing you need to do is establish your genre. You can define the genre as broadly (or as narrowly) as you like, using whatever terms you feel appropriate (however contradictory). Equally, you can change your genre how and when you want.
But you do need a genre.
You need a genre for two reasons. First, you need a genre so you have an idea of your identity—an idea about what you actually do. Once you have defined a genre for yourself, then you will have a clearer understanding about when you are changing and developing your genre.
You also need a genre so that new people know what you do. In broad terms, people know what they like: They know that they like death metal but not freeform jazz (or vice versa). Without an identifiable genre, you may be passed by.
I love the notion of an artist who feels comfortable working in many different musical styles. However, let’s look at the commercial realities for a moment. If you’re a death metal band, and you suddenly start playing freeform jazz, then you’re probably going to lose a large chunk of your fan base.
Very few acts can change and keep their fan base. However, many acts can develop as their fan base develops. Evolution, not revolution, is the key here. Also, very few acts can claim to be truly diverse in the way that, say, a band like Led Zeppelin was.
Zeppelin played rock (at times, heavy, thunderous rock), blues, and folk, as well as throwing in some country-tinged material while showing some reggae influences. Zeppelin disbanded in 1980, and I’m not sure that any band since then has achieved their level of success with so many diverse styles. My hunch (and it is a hunch) is that Zeppelin’s fan base accepted the wide range of styles because the band always had a cohesive, identifiable sound of their own that was very much due to the individuals in the band.
Once you know who you are and what you do, your next quest is to figure out who your market is.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you will appeal to everybody. Try to really narrow down who your market is. For instance:
If you’re producing really lightweight but highly melodic pop music, then you may well appeal to the pre-teen market.
If you’re producing pop/R&B and you’re a male singer, then you may appeal to the female teenage market.
If you’re producing very aggressive metal/rock, then you may appeal to males aged 15 to 24.
If you’re a middle-aged crooner singing sentimental love songs, then you may appeal to the 45+ female market.
As you have no doubt realized, these are really crude generalizations and will never be totally accurate (but just for fun, guess the audience for the people shown in Figure 4.5). Also, there will always be people who are interested in a style of music you don’t expect (the grandmother at the death metal gig, and so on).
Figure 4.5. Who would be this band’s audience? By the way, if you’re wondering, the picture is of the German band Rage.
However, these broad generalizations can be useful as a starting point for thinking about your strategy for finding an audience. If you don’t know who your potential fan base is, then how will you go looking for these people?
I’m going to ask you to be really dispassionate for a moment. Try, if you can, to emotionally disconnect yourself from your music. Imagine you are hearing your music for the first time. Now answer one question: Is there an audience for this kind of music?
If there is an audience, who are these people and how big is the market?
Let me give you two examples, one musical and one not: classical guitarists and poets. No one would suggest that either of these art forms is anything other than completely worthy. However, the number of people who can actually make a living by playing classical guitar (as opposed to teaching) and writing poetry (as opposed to teaching creative writing) is tiny.
That being said, there are people who will buy classical guitar music and poetry. If you are a classical guitarist and you are reading this book and you can bring me a sublime recording (of yours) of the music of Antonio Lauro, I will buy it. As a side note, if you haven’t heard any of Lauro’s music, you should. Check out “Natalia” and “Andreina” from his Valses Venezolanos.
Before you stride purposefully into the world, ask yourself how big your potential market is. Is it a Justin Bieber–sized market, or is it a classical guitarist–sized market?
If the market is on the smaller side, that shouldn’t necessarily be a problem. One of the benefits to the strategies outlined in this book is that you can be very efficient from a financial perspective. This means you may be able to generate income (to sustain a career) at a much lower level than would be necessary if you signed with a record label.
Also, if you are doing something that is more obscure, then you may be able to charge higher prices. To take me as an example again—and I am not alone; this is a well-known economic phenomenon—I am happy to spend more money on acquiring the music of Antonio Lauro than I am on acquiring a regular CD, due to my liking of his music and the scarcity of good recordings. (It’s basic supply and demand economics, along with my love of perfectly crafted tunes.)
Another benefit of operating in a niche is that you are likely to be working in a less crowded market, so you should be able to capture a larger share of the market.
When assessing whether there is an audience out there, be careful to ensure that there will be a suitably large audience for you. For instance, you may be in a band made up of a bunch of fat, balding guys in their 50s (no offense intended to you fat guys in your 50s—it’s just a nice stereotype for illustration) who play Rolling Stones–type music (not covers, just music in a similar style). You may surmise that given the size of the audience for the Stones, there is an audience for you—and you’re decades younger than Mick and Keith, so you’ll be even more popular. And you would be wrong.
The Stones have their audience and will always have their audience. They have created and maintained that audience by virtue of their hard work over at least the last 50 years. People want to see the Stones; they don’t want to see a bunch of fat losers (their opinion, not mine) performing second-rate “dad” music.
So I will ask you again, because this is really important: Is there an audience out there for you?
Before you answer that question, let me just add another thought. Do the people you are aiming for have the time, the money, and the inclination to buy your product and to come out and support you? For instance, if you are aiming your music at what could be lazily categorized as the “housewife” market, will that demographic support you?
Almost without exception, all of the housewives that I know are run ragged by their kids. They spend the whole day chasing and cleaning up after their kids. The priority in their lives is their kids, not music.
Although I am sure you could create music that an average housewife would like and would be happy to listen to (on the radio) while she completes her daily chores, the notion that a housewife would have time to find out about your act and support it is, I believe, misguided. Kids, teenagers, and younger adults will have more time (and, ironically, will often have more disposable income) to invest in music, and so the music market is aimed at this younger age group.
So you’ve decided what you do, you’ve identified your audience (and you’re sure they’ll support you), so what are you going to sell them?
This may sound like a daft question, so let me elaborate. You need to identify what the audience wants and ensure that what your act does (and produces) dovetails with what the audience wants in an act. In other words, your products need to be designed in light of your audience’s needs. When you look to understand your audience’s needs, this is the time when you need to understand the composition of the audience. (Don’t just rely on your expectations of the makeup of the audience.)
Ask yourself a few questions: Does the fan base really want a poster? Probably not if the fans are not kids/teens. Does the fan base want a CD, or would they prefer to buy downloads? Alternatively, are they the sort of people who would value (that is, pay for) a special-edition CD that costs more than a regular CD?
You will never get the answers to these questions perfectly correct (not least since every member of your audience will have a different opinion); however, the more you know about your audience, the more informed your decision-making (and therefore your product design) will be. This is another reason why you should spend time getting to know and communicating directly with your fan base.
Over time, you will get to know your audience. If you don’t, your career will be short. As you get to know these people (individually and collectively), you are likely to be able to fine-tune your output to match their needs (see Figure 4.6).
Figure 4.6. What do you do, and what does your audience want? Is there a direct link from one to the other? If not, then you may have difficulties building your career.
This is a good thing. It means that you can be more efficient in your product offerings and you will generate more income. It may also mean that you increase your fan base because you have hit a winning formula.
However, do be wary of change. With each change you could alienate your existing fans, leaving them feeling as if you have sold out. If you are making a change that you are happy with (and that may also be part of the maturing process), then I don’t think you need to apologize for your changes. If this means you lose fans, then unfortunately there is little you can do to stop that. In this situation, it is important that you ensure the parting is as amicable as possible.
On the other hand, if the changes are ruthlessly commercial ones, you may find it hard to defend your position, and you may find that former fans tend to say unpleasant things in the anonymity of cyberspace.
And just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that you change everything about your act in an attempt to chase dollars. Instead, I’m suggesting that you focus on the aspects of what you do that are more popular with your audience.
You may know your market very well. Indeed, you may know many of your fans personally. However, your audience may change over time. To oversimplify, you are likely to be in one of two situations.
If your act is focused on a particular demographic—for instance, the pre-teen market—then the individuals who make up your audience may grow out of your act. This is nothing to be too concerned about, provided you can keep renewing your audience.
In many ways, if you are renewing your audience, you can keep the same act—you don’t need to do anything new, because your material will be new to the audience (but you must obviously ensure that you remain current). Although this is a bit cynical, it does illustrate an important point: With an audience that does not age (because the audience keeps renewing), you cannot change or mature as an act. It is often a big mistake to think that you can mature and carry an audience with you. Unfortunately, as the audience matures, they will just see you as either cheesy or kids’ stuff (or both).
For an illustration of this, look at the boy bands that have tried to take time out and return as new, mature versions of themselves. It rarely works. Equally, look at the former boy-band members who have tried to have a lasting solo career with a more adult sound. One or two have done it, but most fail.
By contrast, you may have an audience that will let you grow with them. This is likely to be the situation if you are creating more adult-oriented music.
This audience will remain interested while you continue to provide a soundtrack that reflects their life. However, they may get diverted away from music. For instance, upon having children, many parents focus on their kids and not on music.
However, assuming you can keep the fan base over the long term, you need to ensure that you don’t develop ahead of your audience or in ways that your audience doesn’t appreciate. For instance, if you started life as a hell-for-leather death metal band, then your audience may be happy for you to mature into a more classic rock band over time.
As your audience changes, you will have to make sure you don’t change too fast if you want to ensure that you don’t lose your audience.
However, you must make sure that you don’t change so slowly that you become overly familiar. If you get to the point where your fan base can’t be bothered to go see you because they think they will see the same show they saw last year, then you’re in trouble and will probably lose your fan base.