What do you want to do with your music? Do you want to do it for fun or are you contemplating to go for a career? You probably have been in this situation a million times, or you have pondered the idea. Should you do it or shouldn't you? You say it is so hard to do such a thing, but what isn't challenging in life? So if your doing it for fun, then have fun! Hope you enjoy the times you have and don't regret anything. However, your putting all this time into practicing, getting fans, self promoting 24/7, 365 why not try and take it to the career level? I'd say it would be a risk worth taking if you try and set out to make it your career! Anything in life is not 100% safe, so you might as well get your act together and start planning this out! *remember I'm taking into account you have a decent fan base already... Some basic questions to ask yourself before planning to make your music your career: * What Genre are you in? * What type of venue do you see yourself playing at, is it a restaurant, concert, pub, hall, etc... * What would be your start up costs? Example: Equipment, Instruments, etc... * What would be your running costs? Meaning what do you have to consistently pay for each month. Including food, housing/rent, clothes, car, etc... * Do you have an easy time talking with people; not signing; but how do you react to the public. If you don't react very well you might think about taking some public speaking classes, etc... These will really help you out! Okay that is basically what you need to figure out before planning to take your music seriously and make it a career. You can do this, so keep reading! What you need to do next is to plan out how your going to create your career, what will be your income? Some Income Examples: * CD Sales, Digital Song Sales * Royalties (this might be difficult) * Merchandise Sales, t-shirts, pants, hats, etc... * Fan Club - Subscription Based - Exclusive Content * Venues/Tours - Get a decent cut or don't do it! * Market yourself, open up grand openings to stores, play live music at car shows, get contracts from local companies needing to promote their product. Now you figured out your potential income, how do you do all this and still focus on your music? Get a management & promotions team for yourself, not a street team! And a record label, the record label might have a promotions team within its organization so that is up to you how that will work. Remember do your research on these organizations and meet in person with them. This will help in the long run! So from there everything should be running smooth, keep getting at least 3-5 venues every week, with decent profit cuts. Make sure you sell your CD and merchandise at the show, basically get a person or persons to help do that; maybe someone from the management and promotions team. Now you're actually in your career doing what you love! Extras Tips: * Make yourself a budget in Excel or other similar software. Creating a budget and really sticking with it will benefit you greatly! I highly recommend it. * Budgets include, income, expenses, and other costs. Make sure you save your money too! Don't go spending everything! You might also want to do a 60/40, 60% saving and 40% spending, that's a good percentage to help you save for unexpected costs. * Remember your a company and there are health care companies out there that cater to your type of company so please do look into getting health care, dental, life insurance, etc... |
