I’ve been doing a bit of consultancy with independent labels and new online music startups recently. Very few of them can pay me – and actually, that’s fine.
Generally speaking, I’ve done my consultancy on a day rate, on a half day rate, and (in exceptional circumstances) for a bite of lunch and the train fare to London / Oxford / Manchester or wherever.
There are, of course, friends I give advice to back in Birmingham and also here in New Zealand (where I’ve just arrived for a few weeks of meetings, conferences and relaxation) for the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of something cold.
I do consultations in person and via Skype video hookup, though I vastly prefer the former.
But the cashflow thing is a real issue. There are people who have told me they read the blog, but won’t ask for me to come and spend the day with them sounding out ideas, even though they believe this would help focus, strategise and improve the eventual profitability of their online music business – simply because there is no budget whatsoever.
So I’ll put my (lack of) money where my mouth is: if you’re an independent artist, label or online startup, and would like my focused attention over an extended period of time with on-call advice, pointed questions and a sounding board thrown into the mix – and you don’t have any money to pay me, then I’ll cut you a deal.
On a case-by-case basis, if I think I can be of real help to you, over and above the very simple basics, then I’ll be happy to negotiate an equity share with you on what you build. It will be a small percentage, but with a reasonable shot of covering (or exceeding) my usual fee within a year or two.
If you think about it, what this means is I will only do this deal with you if I think I can help you make substantially more money than you otherwise would from your music business or potential online music service. In return, I’d get a slice of that substantial revenue increase instead of an upfront fee.
In other words, I’d make money by helping you make significantly more money.
My conditions are these:
1) You try what I suggest.
I’m of no help to you if you spend the day working through a bunch of online strategies that you don’t then deploy. Action is a pre-requisite of my speculative involvement.2) You let me blog the strategies we try.
I won’t give out sensitive commercial information, of course, but I think if we come up with any good ideas between ourselves, they’ll be in the public domain by the very nature of how they work. Blogging about those instances of best practice3) You aren’t able to pay.
This is not an offer that’s extended to established companies with actual cashflow. It’s nice to have equity in things I believe will eventually do well, but it’s nicer to have food on the table.
Of course, I won’t be able to cover transport costs, so you might have to spring for a train ticket – or put up with the videoconferencing solution. I’ve just been presented with a £95 mobile phone bill, so I might have to lay off on the supportive phone calls and texts while I’m abroad – but essentially, if you think I can be helpful and you’d like a bit of input, advice and strategic thinking about your music business and new technologies, then drop me a line.
Naturally, I will also work for money, expensive gifts and reciprocal favours.
I’m pretty well jammed up solid until late January, but there may be an opening late December, if you really need it sooner.
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In other ‘you give me money’ news, there’s advertising space coming available in the righthand sidebar soon, the RSS feed tag is up for grabs, and I’m taking more bookings for the sponsored blog posts.
Rates on the advertise page.
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10 Comments
My label doesn’t make money at this point, but I would be more than happy to pay you for the privilege of your expertise and insight. I’ll find the money elsewhere.
Personally, I think labels are crazy to expect someone like yourself to help them for free. You’ve already done that through this blog and your book.
I’ll be in touch in the new year.
You’re mad dubber, if I went round talking like this, I’d have to build a moat to keep desperate muso’s from scaling the walls. I wanted to mention though when that guy was moaning about radiohead, I’m happy to help out if it means you’ll say nice things about me.
But one request I wanted to make was that while you’re back home, could you please maybe make some mention about this whole new fangled web 2.0 thing? They’ll listen to you. The state of it here is a real shocker. User generated what? Someone needs to get up in the corners with a broom on every NZ Music portal/platform I can think of. I’d do something about it myself but I’m not a developer. I’ll ride from the west with hired guns from Bangalore if need be.
Hey Matt – Did you happen to read the NZ On Air whitepaper I co-wrote with Russell Brown? I threw some Web 2.0 into this, though of course Russell did most of the actual thinking and writing work.
http://www.nzonair.govt.nz/research.php
There are some people listening here in NZ, but these things take time, I think. And views expressed by the authors are not necessarily those endorsed by the powers that be…
Dunedin’s great. Can’t believe I lived in New Zealand for 36 years, and never made it down here before. Matthew Bannister, Martin Phillipps and the wonderful Haunted Love (remember that Librarian song I wrote about a while back?) all on the same bill last night.
I appreciate your spirit and feel the same way. At our little project, BandConsultant.com, we feel it’s necessary to get the right information out to aspiring artists if, for nothing else, to help process the glut of new music being created.
At this point, we feel the information is worth more in the marketplace than if we held onto it. If we can’t find people to pay for it, we’ll give it away. All “perceived value” arguments aside, we know our advice is accurate because music is our day job as well. It’s better that people just know this information so that the whole system doesn’t grind to a halt for lack of quality control.
With things like Garageband, Guitar Hero, ProTools and MySpace everybody and their uncle has a band now. The music industry will naturally evolve into a more organized, if not sterilized, process for creating new popular artists. Hopefully, with people who care, we can help make the music industry more efficient. If you can get an artist to give up points for your advice, more power to you.
hello Dubber,
This shaft from the south of France
your blog is one of the best about web2.0 and music business.
in the music business only the superstrars have the money.
i think blogging as you do is a good way to enter the business, i have a friend in france name Borey Sok who was blogging about also music web2.0,since 2 years as a student and just now he give consultency Orange telecom and other big name .
don ‘t worry thing will happen to you.
At the moment everybody in the business is loosing money and it is very very hard for small structure and small producer.
i am myself a”small producer!!
i have read carrefuly your e book, i am working on my online strategy and after the new year i will contact you for sure for sharing experience and you gonna tell me what you thing of my strategy.
are you gonna come to the midem in Cannes in january? i think if you contact them in Paris they could offer a free pass as a journalist the midemnet will be very interesting this year!
talk to you soon
shaft
http://www.shaftmusic.fr
http://shaftmusic.over-blog.com/
http://shaftmusic.hautetfort.com/
Dans cette video je reçois mon disque de platine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKzmujSfMwo
Le clip Façon sex (70 000 Euros de frais de production)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqZ9kz9rR6g
Tribal king a la star academy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz0iABf-Dao
Tribal king remise du disque d’or a tf1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =WQW-Lp9wt5A
Well Andrew,
I’ll cut you a deal – for some advice and assistance and throw in a lunch somewhere cellubrious. With a postal address I’d be happy to send you an old fashioned CD or you can check out sounds on line.
A difficulty I have had is in defining the genre of my music and therefore targeting a market appropriately. It’s country music, sort of – that to me also means it is of this country and that’s another point of difference.
With a bit more ‘love’ and some luck I believe I have an internationally marketable product.
I think I know who my audience is when I am out on the street or at gigs. It seems to speak to and for men in their late forties to early sixties. Women of similar age like it too and say they didn’t know it was like that. That’s whose heads pop up above the orange stalls when busking at the riverside fruit market and who leapt to buy our album when first released. There are many of them who are alt country officianados and they file share with their mates and run local radio shows. There are pods of them worldwide and I am guessing they are a ripe for the download if they only knew about it. It isn’t music that dates in conventional pop terms either. It has a long life.
I own the rights. The distribution deal with Elite has lapsed by mutual agreement with the previous owner of the label who took it with him when he sold the business in early 2007.
I have lately been looking at using WordPress or another freeware. I am a little in awe of the technical involved in setting a blogg up (another language to learn) but have come to think that the essence of successful marketing may well lie in building conversations in this way.
I have a pamphlet style web page for which I pay a heap just for a static and undynamic presence. Back up support from the musicsitepro people is minimal and the software utilitarian and dated. I need something else that makes people want to come back. I can write well and have been trying to hit upon a focus for a blogg that would call people in.
I wont risk going on way too much. Get in touch if you wish. Thanks anyway for your stimulating thoughts. It’s virtual communities like the one you have created wherein the future lies. From previous posts you’ll perhaps recognise the Luddite in me. But I’ll try what you say.
hi Andrew, been following you on twitter (as well). Big ups to you blog. I saw you where checking a ravi coltrance concert….you will love my – old fashioned and old school – record label kindred spirits. we are doing a project with Ravi in the near future. Do check the label
next to that, been involved in several online music start-ups.
right now working on a highly ambitious new venture. love to have a chat, or mail, with you in the (very) near future to see if we could mean something for each other.
hope to hear from you here, mail, or twitter :-)
take care
all the best
Tim
That was heavy reading but well worth it, Dubber! At least Russell’s onto it. Probably the best money NZ on Air has ever spent.
I find it so ironic that so many of these flagship NZ music web platforms have a myspace profile. I mean, wow, so a NZ site is thinking of letting fans and users develop personalised profiles and interact with the content. Stream content just like a “real” broadcaster. You’d think alien spaceships had touched down! It’s all so futuristic ;0)
Oh and Dunedin’s definitely still got the magic!
I’ve done some research on the will work for shares issue.
you said “On a case-by-case basis, if I think I can be of real help to you, over and above the very simple basics, then I’ll be happy to negotiate an equity share with you on what you build. It will be a small percentage, but with a reasonable shot of covering (or exceeding) my usual fee within a year or two.”
within a year or two?
a half of one percent share in one record release on a small independent label based in birmingham like the one I am familiar with would be equal to something between 5 and £8,000. But that would be based on a 99 year term.
I don’t think you would be able to put £8,000 of your time into a release in exchange for 0.5% do you? You wouldn’t get a return in a year or two either. I think if anyone is thinking of offering shares in exchange for time they should think very carefully. Cash upfront would be cheaper and more suitable for all involved. 0.5% of nothing is nothing. 99% o nothing is still nothing. But 0.5% of one record release over 99 years could be something else if it works. For example steve hughes just had a number one hit in lithuania with johhny too bad and some lithauanian singer. I wouldn’t have guessed that one, but the news made me laugh out loud that this stuff is still possible with a budget you can stick under a glass….. but at the same time someone could have started an income stream off the back of it. At the same time 0.5% of a band at a level similar to Friends of the Stars could be worthless….until Craig dies and becomes a martyr to the cause. At which point with benefit gigs, memeorials and the rest, your 0.5% could be worth something. just a thought. Have you worked out what a good deal would be from your side? just wondering if people have any clue as to what makes a good deal and where a good deal becomes a bad deal?
Having heard you talk at a Musician’s Union Seminar, Malvern, Sep 2007 and had a brief conversation with you, I would dearly love to spend time receiving and applying your advice and then giving you your required chunk of (hopefully rather huge) resultant revenue when the tree fruits.
If you can help get my head around to happily, professionally and succesfully marketing what I believe is potentially a winner in educational and environmental music; you might just get a planet or a star named after you if I can afford one.
I promise you the challenge would be big but I reckon it would be fun – and the possibility of inspiring earth-friendly acts in a whole new generation could be a nice little side bonus too.
Look forward to more on this.