Start your own Label .....

PaulBrewer

The basics of starting your own label are covered in BBC 6 Music's

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/events/indie/label.shtml

On of the first things they recommend is the very obvious 'Make a Plan' ...

I regularly see bands put big effort into making a 'single' with perhaps a video but have no other plan after that.

"Ideally, you should have enough money in the bank to press up 2 or 3 tunes before you kick off."


Has anyone here done it ? ... And made it work longer than a single or two ?

dav nagle

Anyone fool can start their own label. The fact is without the right contacts and loads of cash no matter how good you are you will never hit the big time. Anyone can say 'I have an album on iTunes' for example but few can say 'I have the cash to push my album'. I remember before Duffy was big she was being heavily advertised on My Space and I was thinking ''who is this'' ? Then I heard Mercy and I realised 'it was the girl from My Space'. Without the funds who can affford to buy marketing space? Another word for 'label' should be 'cash'. Sometimes talent gets through but only sometimes. For every Duffy there's 20 other wannabe Duffy's. This is where the music biz is failing in my opinion. The 'biz' cant keep up with itself as it ponders on the current stars and their leftovers instead of creating new one's. Bye xxxxx (Simon)

SeanHurley

We set up a label (Neon Blue Records) as a vehicle to put out our music. Personally I think that is the way the music industry is now, you start as a cottage industry and build and build until you can now longer handle the administration of it all and then look to a major to take it from there.

As Dav says it is about money, anyone can start up a label and put a single or album out. We have tried (as best we can) to run the label side as a business as much as we can. We have budgets which we can't over spend on and we have sales targets. We also have mapped out what we want to achieve from each release and where roughly we want the label/band to be in 1,2,3 years from now.

Like any new business we were a bit niave with the first few releases. If we have learned anything it is that you have to have a PR/Marketing machine behind what ever you are doing. A PR company such as Friction PR, Entertainment Architects or Stevo Berube opens many doors such as getting radio play (as long as the material is good enough), getting reviews in magazines and generally increasing the profile of artist/label within the industry. All these things earn the label/band money thru either sales or royalties.

Another important thing in setting up a label is to register with all the organisations you need to register with i.e. the revenue commisioners, IMRO, MCPS etc.

The people at FMC (First Music Contact) are really helpful on this sort of stuff. It is a free advice service for musicians etc and they are always willing to pass on their experience and knowledge. http://www.firstmusiccontact.com/

Neurojazz

I'm taking it really slowly

I've been learning as i go along and starting to increase my revenue i put in... pretty much as Dav said it's a money pit, so i'm finding connections as i go along and hopefully next year actually get things larger and a bit more settled.

I've been trying out various radio PR companies in different areas, and now making a database with ones that work (radio stations) and will eventually have some automation for sending out releases (without spamming them!)

Very slow burner