Over the next few days, I am going to give you the steps every artist should go through to start their career. I believe each step is necessary for an artist to be knowledgeable and proficient at, in order to succeed. This first article will serve as an overview of some of the steps to have a successful career. Following this article I will walk you through an in-depth look at the whole process. Starting with recording and finishing with meeting with a label, and what comes after you have signed.
First let me get one thing clear, the steps I am about to provide in this article are not the end all be all to becoming an artist. There are so many different ways and avenues to becoming artist in the music industry, especially in todays music industry. These are simply a few guidelines to know and follow (if you so choose) that can help new, independent, and up and coming artists break into the music industry. In some cases these tips are to help people who are thinking of becoming an artist and don’t know where to start. With so many aspects of the music industry, (becoming an artist, even before becoming a sustainable or successful artist) it is overwhelming for most and hard to figure out a starting place. These steps are in no particular order and again are just serving as a guideline to assist in showing you where to start and how to think as a new artist.
First, realize that your music will not bring you a sustainable income stream right off the bat, have a day job that will allow you to have a revenue stream to support yourself. A big mistake I see (and at one point even made myself) is artist or anyone trying to make it in the music industry, is not having a paying job. They all think if I put all my time and effort into this music (when in most cases they don’t know what they are doing and/or not putting in the work to make this career work) I will make it big and have all the money I could ever want. This is simply not the case. In the case of professional sports, less than one percent of division one college athletes make it to the pros. This doesn’t account for division two, division three or NAIA college athletes. In music it is even less. Think about all the artists you meet and hear about just walking down the street, or how much time is booked at the studio you are trying to record at, or how many of your friends say they are artists as well. Now think how many of them are anywhere close to being at a level where they can make money at all, forgetting about enough money to sustain a lifestyle of any kind. Having a day job to pay the bills will take a massive amount of stress out of your daily life, and will be able to assist you in paying for professional help in your music career. It is true you can buy cheap equipment and attempt to do it all yourself, but do you know what you are doing? It may get the job done, but it is comparable to the songs being released by even the local artists doing shows on a consistent basis, let alone the top tier artists? Paying for studio time and an engineer is a lot cheaper than it used to be. In most cases you can get in the studio for around $30 per hour. Now if you want top quality work it will cost around $70 or more an hour, but in todays landscape of music, as a new act you could probably get away with the studio and engineer asking for $30.
Second, have a plan. You need to have a plan in place and goals in mind when you are starting off. I don’t mean having goals as in, I want to become the best ever, I want to have a career like Drake, I want millions of dollars, plaques, awards and all the money I can get. I mean realistic goals. Yes, those big aspirations are great, but one those are long term goals and second in most cases unachievable. Don’t take that as me crushing your dreams or thinking that you don’t have what it takes, some of you reading this will reach those heights, but most of you won’t, and starting out with those goals will hinder your growth more than enhance it. Start with smaller, short term goals that are achievable for where you are at in you career. Creating a certain number of tracks per day or per week. Working with specific local artists, that have already established a fan base and name for themselves. Releasing a certain number of tracks per week or per month. These are obtainable goals in the short term. Something else I will tell you to do is write these goals down. Having them in your head is a big mistake. While you are thinking of other things and doing other things that don’t pertain to music and your career you can easily forget what these goals are. I personally every night write on a note pad everything I need to get done the next day. Once I start working, I look at my note pad and start with either the task I wrote first (in most cases I number the tasks in order of importance, or sometimes just which one I thought of first) the task that is of the most importance or sometime just the easiest task to get it out of the way. As I complete tasks I cross them off, believe me this feels great. Checking these tasks off one by one gives me the feeling of accomplishment as I have one less thing to do and have completed something that is going to be beneficial for my career. Having a goal chart is essential to making headway in your career and making sure you are completing necessary tasks and not running in the same circle everyday.
Third, treat your music like a career. If you are going to put in eight hours a day and 40 hours a week into a job you hate simply to pay the bills, why would you put less time into a career you love, have a passion for and want to make sustainable for you in the future. I made this mistake when I was first starting out. I worked at internships for various amounts of times through out the day. Sometimes I would work eight hours, sometimes two hours, sometimes 12-24 hours depending on the schedule and workload for that day. However, I would think that once I was done at the internship that was it. I would go home and not do anything else to further my career. I was in the mindset that simply working at the internship would be enough, and at some point I would reach the tipping point and everything would just work out. I will tell you after five years of unpaid internships, that was never the case. I was jumping from internship to internship, never getting paid (or sometimes getting a small stipend per month, generally not enough to cover any or very few of my expenses thus it was actually costing me money to partake in these internships) thinking that this next opportunity would be my big break. I wasn’t treating my career as a career, I was treating it as a job. It wasn’t until I started working as many (or now in some cases more) hours on my career that I have seen it begin to work and people start to take notice. What ever your chosen field is (whether it is in music, entertainment or some other profession as an entrepreneur) you have to work just as hard and sometimes harder at your career in order for it to work. As it pertains to music this means, developing a marketing strategy, identifying your target audience, understanding how to create and apply branding techniques, creating a budget (even if it a small one, I started with as little as $10) for advertising, build a team around you for help (they will have to understand that they may have to work for free until you get off the ground, but if you can find people that understand this, have amazing work ethics, and believe in you, you can’t lose) and mapping out a business plan. These are some of the things to begin guiding you in the right direction to creating a career (as there are many more and certainly more in-depth options to go into) but starting with these steps will ensure you are going in the right direction.
Fourth, create, create, create. If you have heard of, “Practice makes perfect,” or “the 10,000 hour rule,” as cliche as these statements maybe they still hold true. You have to master your craft. In music with the advancement of technology anyone can record and produce music in their basements. With the increased popularity of digital streaming platforms over 40,000 songs are released daily. You have to take the time to work at your craft, so you can one keep improving at what you are doing, but more importantly two, learn the correct techniques so you can stand out in the crowd. It is great if you can make music similar to what is popular, but this is what every other artist is doing, in hope of creating a hit. Riding the wave means that once the wave crashes, so does your career. You don’t necessarily have to be different, but you have to differentiate yourself enough to stand out. Find your own lane, find what works for you, if you are able to create music that you like, that is different enough from what is popular (not relying on the sound that is popular) and are lucky enough to cultivate a fan base from this, you will have a longer lasting career than most artists today. It is not always about becoming a top tier artist, there are so many artists that stayed on a lower level, doing smaller shows and releasing music to a core audience that have just as good of careers as the main stream artists you see and hear about. Tech Nine is a great example. He is the number one independent selling artist of all time. He and his independent label “Strange Music,” (which he created himself) constantly are touring nationally all year round, doing upwards of 300 shows per year in 48 states. He has a huge following, and is highly regarded as a top tier artist. However, he is not doing arena tours, his venues a smaller but always packed. He is not doing as many over seas tours, but when he does his shows are always packed. He doesn’t have all the accolades that you see from Drake and Eminem and Lil Wayne, but he has songs with all of them (except Drake, but that is mostly because their styles are so drastically different that I don’t know if at this point Drake would do a song with Tech Nine). He spent years honing his craft and becoming the best at what he does, and the best at what works for him. Becoming the best at a certain thing will always work out better than riding a wave. You can only get better if you work at it.
Fifth, network and establish your online presence. In todays digital age these are one and the same. Having a strong online presence is the key to obtaining a large audience. The power of social media (a topic of one of my other articles, shameless plug) if harnessed is an artists most powerful tool. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikiTok, LinkedIn (probably the most under utilized, but arguably the most important for creating contacts and connections) and SnapChat (although not so much any more with the emergence of TikiTok, Instagram Live and TV, and cancelation culture going after it off the backs of Rhianna and the Kardashians) all are different ways to reach large audiences. Read more on how to work each of these social media platforms in my last article “The power of social media in the music industry.” Networking is how you create connections that will help further your career. In most cases you can find conventions, seminars, classes, meet ups, mixers, live shows and events, and many other ways to get in front of music industry people. However, now in the digital age (and with the Covid-19 pandemic not allowing for these types of events to happen at the moment) LinkedIn is your best option. Every business professional in every industry has a LinkedIn profile. It is true that to get the most out of this platform you have to have a subscription, (there are work arounds though) nevertheless utilizing this platform to make connections with these people is invaluable, and grants you access to an assortment of people you would never be able to interact with otherwise. It is as simple as sending a connection request (you can even send this request with an introductory note of up to 300 characters) to the person you want to connect with. Once they have accepted, you can send them messages, just like Facebook, and communicate with them about anything, even sending them your material.
Sixth, know yourself, your brand and build leverage through your value. Knowing your brand and your image is key in connecting with your fan base. If you don’t have a clear brand or image, it maybe difficult for potential fans to connect with you as an artist, as a personality, or even know that you are an artist and making music. You have to clearly show who you are. It doesn’t matter what this image is (it does to an extent, but for everyone there is a niche somewhere that will connect with you) as long as you are consistent with this brand. A consistent image will allow fans to connect with you at first even if they don’t listen to your music. If you portray a bad boy image, girls will be attracted to you because of your attitude and mystique. A female artist, that shows sex appeal (sorry for the stereotypical examples) will captivate a male audience for obvious reasons. However, if you try and change brands and images, you may lose the original audience you had. Think of Miley Cyrus, she was known for her Disney style Hannah Montana persona. She had a huge fan base of young girls captivated by this branding and image. As she got older she wanted to get away from this and began to promote herself in a different way. Getting tattoos, acting wild, taking drugs, different hair styles, racy photos, and being intrenched in the hip-hop community, led people to think she was going through something because it was such a drastic change from what she was known for. Yes, she gained a new audience and new following (I bet you can guess what type of audience that was) but her core fan base could no longer connect with her (at least until she got through that phase and went back to the good girl country singing that she is doing now). Having an image creates your fanbase, creating your fanbase means you have a certain leverage when it comes to promotion. You can use this leverage to not only market and promote your own products, but you will be able to partner with brands that are similar to the audience you have cultivated to sell their products, and thus creating a new revenue streaming. Partnering with bloggers, influencers and companies can increase your reach to different audiences through these different types of partnerships. Shout outs, post for post, and branding partnerships (where companies give you free products to promote on your social media pages) are great ways to engage with new audiences and promote your music to new people.
Seventh, finding live shows and venues to perform at. At this point you have a decent catalog of music, (both released and unreleased) have a decent following on social media (and most likely locally as well) so it is time to take your show on the road (literally). There are many ways as a new act you can do this. The simplest (but not always best) way is a pay to perform show. This is a small local show, most likely at a small venue or bar, with maybe 100 people in attendance, where you have to pay a price (could be anywhere from $20-100 or more depending on the venue size and popularity of the hosts) to perform. You will get either a song limit (one to two songs max) or a time limit (5-10 minutes) to perform. At the end of these shows, there is generally a winner chosen by judges or how the crowd reacted, resulting in a cash prize, a social media or blog feature, or being a featured act at one of their next shows. Another show type is having to sell tickets to perform. In this case, you have to purchase the tickets from the host, sell a certain amount (or you can’t perform) and you are able to keep a percentage of the ticket profit from what you sold. The next is being a featured act. This generally means you have a connection with the host of the show or have a big enough local buzz that you performing on the show will attract a bigger audience for the show then they would normally get. If you’re lucky you can get paid for this type of performance but it is not always guaranteed.
Eighth, building your team. In most cases by this point you have some kind of team set up around you that is helping you out in some aspects of your career. However, if you don’t, now is the time to start thinking about building one. Managers, dedicated engineers, producers, these are just some of the roles you should fill on your team to take you career to the next level. Creating this team will allow you to focus more on just being an artist, instead of all the other minutia that comes with being an up and coming act. Managers can help in booking shows, press, marketing and making connections. A dedicated engineer and producer can help you shape a sound that is tailored to you as an artist, instead of studio hopping for the best deal and hoping the engineer understand what you are going for, and more importantly can provide a professional recording (and maybe mix if they offer that or are capable of doing so) that you can release. There are many other team members that later on become essential to you as an artist in building and sustaining your career (social media managers, media people, stylists, consultants, etc.) but for now these are the team members you should focus on getting, if you don’t already have them in place.
Ninth, distribution, copyrights and royalties. Now in most cases royalties will come later down the line once you have more substantial sales, streams and have your music being placed in television and radio, but it is a good thing to understand. There are three types of royalties, mechanical, performance, and synchronization. Mechanical, comes from you songs being played on different formats. Performance is when you are performing your songs live. Syncs are getting your songs placed in television and film. All of these net you different percentages and in order to receive them you have to be associated with a PRO (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC which you have to be invited into, and SoundExchange for digital performance royalties). When it comes to copyrights, it is best to consult a lawyer as these legal applications can get tricky if you don’t fully understand how to go about them (honestly I am not 100% sure how to do them myself). I will say that simply recording your song, creates a certain type of copyright (not sure in what sense) for the recording and creation of the song. Having a copyright is important as it allows you legal ownership of your material and doesn’t allow anyone else to create this same type of work (either production or lyric wise) for release without the threat of legal action. Distribution is simpler now than it has ever been. By signing up for Distrokid, CDBaby or TuneCore you have the ability to receive royalties from your music. These sites (which you do have to pay for an account, and in some cases they may even take a small percentage for using their services, but you keep full ownership of your songs) distribute you song to all major streaming platforms and other outlets for the public to consume your song.
Lastly, be prepared for the long haul, and be ready to invest in yourself. Through out this article, I have given you some basic steps to help you understand the process and what is needed to begin your music career as an independent artists. If you choose to pursue this as a career, and want to turn it into a viable income option, you have to be ready for all the twists, turns, bumps and road blocks that come with trying to break into the music industry. You will be told no more than yes (in a substantial ratio). You will send out your music and never get a response, never hear back from a majority of the people you speak too. You will go to the variety of the events mentioned above to connect with industry professional, who will (to your face) say how and where to send them your music, and you will never hear from them again. You will make connections on LinkedIn, ask how to send your material, get an answer, and then will never hear from them after that (this has personally happened to me on multiple occasions). It is a tough road to make it in any aspect of this industry, but if you are up for the task and able to roll with the punches you may just be able to make it. Yet another cliche to remember, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.” Along with mentally being prepared for this journey, you have to be ready and willing to invest yourself and your career. Very few, if any people in music were able to and have made it to where they are without investing in their career. Everything from paying for studio time, paying for mixing, travel, paying to perform, merchandise, social media marketing and promotion, advertising, the list goes on and on. You have to budget a certain amount of money for each of these steps in order to make them work. Yes, of course, there are exceptions to the rule. I am sure there is a kid somewhere (whether they are a producer or artist) that spent $100 on a piece of equipment, is using a cracked version of software and was able to create something, release it for free online, and go viral or repeat this process to gain enough of a following to get noticed and picked up by a label in some aspect, but I can assure you this is extremely rare.
I am not saying that doing all of theses steps (as I said in the beginning these are only a few in no particular order and there are many more steps, and a variety of other ways to go about this process) you will become the next Drake, or even the next local sensation in your town. Even by following these steps you could still not reach the heights you were aiming for or expect to reach. It’s sad to say but more artists will fail or give up (not meaning that in the normal sense, but meaning that they are not able to sustain their music careers and have to fall back on a second career option in order to survive) than will make it in this industry. If you are one of the lucky few who do make it through and become famous or get signed by a label, know that that is just the beginning. You have put in all this work and effort to get to that point, now you have to work even harder to sustain it. Think of how hard you worked to get there, and how many other artists you saw and met along the way that wanted to same thing as you, now they see you have made it and think that they can too even more now because they were once on the same level performing at the same show as you. The true work starts once you have made it, because now people want your spot. Put in the time, put in the effort, put in the money and you will see a great difference in the way your career as an artist goes.
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