Lou
Digital rambles
Feb 6, 2007
So lately, I've been reading up on how to run an independent record label and on do-it-yourself business law.
Why?
Well, It's almost common knowledge that major recording artists need major representation. That's for several reasons, I'm sure, but here are 2 obvious ones: 1 - You have to protect your name, your music, and your earnings; 2 - Major record labels & publishers won't even think about considering you unless you're runnin with the big bulls.
But if you're only a no-name music dude like me, you have to know your way around the minor leagues before you can get called up to swing the big bats.
Naturally, this means you have to get a little bit of know-how (hence, the aforementioned reading), and you have to put yourself out there. The former is a little bit easier to manage than the latter. To achieve the first, you hit up your local library or book store, and presto--instant knowledge. But for the second, you have to switch skill sets from musician to librarian. Right now, I have music accounts on MySpace, Soundclick, and mp3.com (Notice I didn't link to any of those. That's cuz my pages suck and they're not ready for you yet. In due time, my young grasshopper). I also have my own website.
Now, I don't have the resources to hire my own web developer, so I do it myself. As of today (2/5/2007), my website looks good in Mozilla Firefox, but it looks like garbage in IE7. On top of that, I have 4 blogs floating around the 'net--one at mp3.com, one here (SoundClick), one on Blogger, and one at MySpace. AND, I can only import one of them into Facebook, which is where a lot of my friends from school and home know me.
And let's not forget that the music is a one-man operation, too. I compose it, then I perform it, and then I master it.
All this micro-management is teaching me a lot of skills I probably wouldn't have learned anywhere. As a fledgling, I don't really have the option to delegate some of these responsibilities to 3rd parties just yet--I have to build a wider following before I can consider hiring people to do things for me. Until then, I'm the songwriter, performer, studio engineer, webmaster, mayor, president, CEO, and all-around top-dogg.
Ah well, I really don't know where I'm going with this blog, so I'm gonna end it here, but as usual, stay tuned. I have new songs recorded; and I'm going to record more music, master the songs, and post them.
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