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Thread started 05/03/07 10:02am

carlcranshaw

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Musician's Cooler (Prince Mention)

Making Money as a Musician in 2012
Category: Web, HTML, Tech

Hello Cooler Friends,

I've heard it in three different places, and it sounds something
like this:

It's the year 2012 and the average person has his personal portable
system. It's a phone; it's a video and music player, an electronic
organizer, and GPS system all in one. It knows your likes and
dislikes and updates the system to fill it up with content based on
your presets. Just like you have a water, gas, and electric bill,
you will have an "Entertainment" bill.

So how are indie bands going to sell their music if the perception
is you should get it for free (as most teenagers don't think twice
about downloading a song) how will they make money?

Here is a possible answer:

Acts such as Kiss (and the Kiss army) Green Day (Idiot club), and
Terri Clark (Hat Brats) have tied in a "Membership area" into their
sites. Now what you can do is for those RABID fans, give them what
they want: YOU. Behind the scenes thoughts (blog), pictures, demos
of songs, etc. Something the "average" fan may not NEED to have.
But by giving this to our members, they feel special.

Prince topped the charts a few years back after being vacant for
many years. How did he do it? He "gave away" his new CD with every
concert ticket purchased. Those counted as CD sales and BOOM, he
was on the charts. Why can't independent musicians do this? You
could sell a membership to your eager fans for $20/year and then
part of the membership perks is (you guessed it) your CD. You can
throw in some bonus tracks as well. Now next year if you do not
have time to record a new CD your membership site will generate
income (possibly funding CD #2) while bands without a membership
site make zero.

I am familiar with membership software. I've used two (one for the
SchoolofPodcasting.com and one for marketingmusician.com). I found
one that fits the musician nicely. It's called DL Guard and you can
sell single downloads, or create a shopping cart, apply coupons,
create bonus items (buy this product and get product 2 for free),
and here is the fun part, it can create a MEMBERSHIP page for your
fans. In fact you can set it up so that people who purchase product
#1 automatically gain access to your membership area. It works with
PayPal and many MANY more payment options. It also gives you
conversation stats (so you can see that 100 people visited your
product page, and 15 purchased your product). Another bonus is
there is a one time only fees (no monthly fees like many membership
software titles).

To find out more about this software go to www.trydlg.com

You can see a demo I did of it at
www.musicianscooler.com/dlg

Dave Jackson
Author
Get Your Band Out of the Basement and Keep Them Out of the Asylum
www.musicianlibrary.com
‎"The first time I saw the cover of Dirty Mind in the early 80s I thought, 'Is this some drag queen ripping on Freddie Prinze?'" - Some guy on The Gear Page
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