Creating Your Own Label 5 IMPORTANT STEPS: 1. Timing - Are you ready to run a full-time business? - Is your brand ready to back a label? 2. Branding - Logo & Merch - Social Media Presence - Artwork needs to be professional 3. Connect with Artists to Sign - Create your network as an artist first, than create your label - All your networking you have done will now translate into helping you form a successful label - Find ways to leverage your label with the right artist & their following(s) 4. Finding Distribution - There’s many sites & platforms today, today, find what works best for your direction - Utilize many different streaming & selling platforms - The more promotion or distribution the better - Every piece of promotion is good promotion 5. Scheduling - Make sure every single release has it’s it ’s own release campaign and timeline - You need to address every ever y release in a unique fashion, but utilizing a schedule will keep things flowing - Always have releases span out between to give space for growth & organic sales or streams - Do not over release & create too much content, content, quality always over quantity! Cymatics.FM
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Creating Your Own Label DO NOT DO: 1. Do not copy another label - It might be hard to fight following the success of another label, but in the long run will not help - ie: spinnin records - Always develop your own brand & vision 2. Do not worry so much about online sales - Yes we all want to earn for our label, but times have changed - Distribute for online sales, but focus on streaming - ie: Beatport, iTunes, etc 3. Do not create a lot of overhead - Expenses can add up fast, keep things simple & within budget as your label builds - Try for the first year to keep expenses low & focus on your social media presence first 4. Do not open a label because of frustration - Just because your tracks are not getting signed or gaining traction online, does not give you a good reason to suddenly open your own label - This should be a long thought out process that you have built from the success of your own brand first - Opening a label without having a respectable following from your brand could be extremely hard to develop - Having an online following within the industry will help your label take off much quicker - Open a label when you feel ready to take on the next stage of your career, this is a full time job
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Creating Your Own Label CHECKLIST TO DO: 1. Have a strong following online with your brand first - Make sure your brand feels developed - Be sure you have a great resume of releases - This will help you gain traction quicker 2. Distribution - Make sure you using a website service that’s going to work best for you & not take money from you - Find the best % plan for releasing on that platform - Try not to lose out on money, own your releases 3. Contracts or Head of Agreements - Design a head of agreement for your artists that you will be signing - This needs to be professional & legal for you to own all the releases you will be signing 4. Artwork - Get a graphic designer, someone you might already know in your circle could be best - Make sure you develop strong graphics for your label - Your graphics & branding play a major roll in the releases 5. Social Media - Is your brand online? Do you have a place for these artists to look you up? - Make sure your online presence is professional - Always have information available online for fans or artists to find you easily - Demo emails - Social media inboxes - Upload services Cymatics.FM
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Creating Your Own Label CONTRACTS & HEAD OF AGREEMENTS: 1. Speak with industry label owners - Ask for advice if you need it - Don’t ask for their contract template - Ask for guidance if needed for your terms 2. Protect your self & your artists - A lot of artists sometimes get into legal issues - Copying artists or using samples - You need to protect your self in writing in case these issues come up - People steal from others, it’s unfortunate but it happens quite often, you need to be protected 3. Splits & percentages - Be sure to be clear on what your getting & what your artists will be getting - Are you doing a sales or free download label? - Splits will be much different depending on what tye of distribution you’re doing 4. Legal names & address - Always get the artists permanent address with their legal name - Do not sign them as there artist name, you’re signing them as a legal entity 5. Example of Powerkat (Shanahan Label) - Shown on page 5
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Creating Your Own Label DISTRIBUTION: 1. There’s many options for distribution - It’s a lot easier than most think, you need to spend time finding the right platform & website - Figure out what you want first - You can still gain great revenue from free download distribution - Powerkat raised over $4,000 within 12 months as a free download label - Between streaming on multiple sites only - ie: Spotify: Approx 500,000 Streams - 1,000,000 streams on SoundCloud 2. Distribution Examples (Many More) - RouteNote (Powerkat) I’ve used for 2 years - Keeps track of sales & downloads - Monetization (process of converting existing traffic being sent to a particular website into revenue) - YouTube - SoundCloud - If you want to join RouteNote inbox me for help - Symphonic Distribution - Label Engine 3. Free Download vs. Sales - Utilize download gates for fans to download your music - Gain followers & traction to your label - Even if you do free download you can figure out a way to take donations if needed - ie: itunes .99$ upload your song and put a donations tab on your socials or website Cymatics.FM
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Creating Your Own Label RELEASE SCHEDULE: 1. Have everything organized - Work on Google doc or Google excel - Share with your artists for them to have access 2. Work with Blogs or Channels - Schedule release dates to work with their platform - This will help immensely with sales or streams 3. Plan releases apart from one another - Don’t double up on releases - Let each song organically get gaining traction - Give a gap between each release that works - ie: 1-2 months is usually safe - If you have a hit record, don’t release anything for a while, let that record run its term 4. Work on the label daily - The schedule for your releases most likely will have you working 2-3 weeks prior to the release, setting things up for promotion & release day - You will be working on the schedule throughout the release day and further until the track starts to burn off or lose it’s traction
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