Cutting Edge Voices News

Daylle Deanna Schwartz e-mail Newsletter Issue # 32

I hope that your passions are getting stoked as fall changes the season. I always think of September as a time of new beginnings. Many people see September that way. My birthday is tomorrow so that makes it a real new beginning for me!

Feel free to contact me about my fees if you need CONSULTING on how to make progress in your music career or need a shot of motivation by using my CAREER COACHING. I do it in person and by phone. You can email me at consulting@daylle.com for more info.

Please forward this newsletter to your mailing list or anyone you'd like. If this was forwarded to you and you'd like to subscribe, send me an email that says "subscribe" in the subject header with your name and city/state. If you'd like to post it on your site, please ask for permission and I'll give it. Read past issues at http://www.daylle/monthly.html If you prefer to be taken off my list, please say unsubscribe in the subject header of an email.

My other newsletter, Self-Empowerment Quarterly, for the body, mind and spirit is also free. This WON'T come to you automatically. If you don't receive it and would like to subscribe, please send an email to subempowernews@daylle.com with you name, city/state. Read back issues at http://www.daylle.com/daylle/newsletter-growth.html

If you want a stronger dose of self-empowerment tips, check out my BLOG, Lessons from a Recovering DoorMat.

For those of you in the Miami area, I'll be speaking at the Music Entertainment Book Fair & Conference 2008 at the University of Miami, Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music in Coral Gables, Florida on September 25, 2008. This event is FREE and open to the public from 9am - 7pm, hosted by Demo Entertainment Group, in association with the University of Miami's Music Entertainment Industry Student Association (M.E.I.S.A.).

Anyone in this area should come down as there will be panels and other opportunities to learn from, for FREE! For additional information you can go to <http://www.demoentgroup.com> or email info@demoentgroup.com.

I'll be staying in the Miami area until October 1st to do some work with clients there. I will have some free time, if anyone wants to do consulting with me in person or get a group together for me to speak to. Know it's last minute but I figured I'd put it out there.

For those of you in the NYC area, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts is having a free Copyright Tutorial for Musicians and Composers on Monday, September 22nd. It will focus on new technology issues and starts with a light reception at 5. The talk begins at 5:30, and there will be time for questions. This is a great opportunity to learn for free! You can get more info and register at <http://tinyurl.com/5uogoe> It's free but you must register.

This issue has interviews with Brad Jefferson, Co-founder of Animoto, a company that provides the ability to make videos from digital photos, and indie artist, Rich Hardesty, talking about how he's taking advantage of digital marketing and promotion. There's also an article about what SoundExchange is by its Director of Artist-Label Relations, Neeta Ragoowansi. The rest is written by me. Please feel free to write with suggestions and questions that I can include in future issues.

1. Making the Most of Your Time Resources Online 2. Interview with Brad Jefferson, Co-founder of Animoto 3. Daylle's Seminar & Books 4. SoundExchange by Neeta Ragoowansi 5. Interview with indie artist, Rich Hardesty 6. Minding Your Music Biz: Helpful Resources for Better Customer Service 7. Ask Daylle

Indie artists often complain about not having the budget they'd like to market and promote their music. Nowadays, digital marketing offers a plethora of opportunities for marketing yourself and your music that doesn't cost anything in dollars.

But, it can be hard to know where to begin-and end. While much of it is good for those of you with small to no money budgets, there's still a big expense for taking advantage of so many opportunities-TIME.

The good AND the bad news: the cost to break an independent act can be more in time than in dollars. It's great to have free tools! But you could spend all of your waking hours going onto all the different social networking sites and other avenues of promotion and still not make a dent. With all the artists and labels vying for online attention, you must work to make your music stand out.

It's important to brand your name online. The more people see it, the more curiosity can be generated, which leads to potential fans or clients checking you out. The more you respond to fans who write to you, the more loyal fans you'll have. But so much of the efforts to find fans is one by one, which accounts for a lot of the time you need to put into it.

It's not enough to just register on all the websites. While there's unlimited space for everyone online, you can get lost in it all and not make any constructive progress. I know. I'm always getting links to sites I "should check out." People email me both to my server and on the social networking sites. It gets overwhelming. Another day ends and I haven't done any writing. So I must get tough with myself in order to function.

Time isn't FREE when it costs you your sleep, your personal life and even your sanity. But you can take control of online activities to make the most of the best opportunities. Here are so DOs and DON'Ts for getting the most out of your online resources.

DON'T jump around to everything that seems interesting or the new flavor of the month.

DO force yourself to stay on track. Put aside things you want to check out for when you have some time or accept you can't look over everything. Learn the benefits of hitting DELETE.

DO: Prioritize what most needs to be done at this point. I have a NEED TO ANSWER folder and put personal emails and those asking questions into it.

Have a block of time set aside when all you do is answer emails. When time is up, leave the rest for the next block!

DO plan your direction carefully and prioritize your needs to work them properly. Social networking sites allow musicians to seek fans out and interact with them. But working one or two hard is strongly advised as opposed to doing a little bit on many. If you have too many, you don't work anything well and you can spread yourself too thin. Decide which sites are best for you and concentrate your energy to build up relationships with fans on them.

DO mobilize fans to help. Get volunteers to assist you in following up with online activities. Ask them to tell other musicians on the site about you, use your music as their default on their MySpace page and drive potential fans to your sites. If you have a budget, hire an online marketing specialist to direct your efforts and do some of the legwork.

DON'T register with any social networking site that you're not prepared to follow up with.

Nowadays, when people hear an artist they like or see you perform, they'll leave a comment on your MySpace page. It's important to respond. Musicians who keep in touch with their fans religiously build the strongest communities and get the most support.

DO diversify. While pure social networking sites are great to exploit, get your music in places where people can find it. Do as many things as you can that don't require constant attention that give your music potential exposure. Create iMixes up in the iTunes music store. Get your music into streaming radio sites, such as Last.fm, Pandora, Launch, iLike, etc. Send it to MP3 bloggers who review your genre of music. Post videos on YouTube. And get yourself on wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. These efforts often just require doing something once and can drive people to find your music.

DO everything you can in real life too. Touring is still important for creating a strong connection with fans. People do live a good part of their lives off the computer so follow traditional promotion routes too.

DON'T put all your energy into inviting people you don't know to be your friend or worry about having big numbers of them.

DO be more concerned with connecting to real fans. Successful artists say they don't worry about how many friends they have on MySpace. What's important is that they're real fans who care about reading bulletin posts and getting invitations to your gigs. Of course you can invite people to be your friend if you want to know them. But do that with an email to introduce yourself so they know who you are and why you're requesting them as a friend. Just inviting for the sake of upping your numbers is a waste of time these days. I don't have thousands of friends on MySpace but every one of them came to me. I like that better! <http://www.myspace.com/Daylle>

Before you begin, make sure you're ready to commit the time. Even with limits, you'll spend hours a day keeping up. Find sites that are the likeliest to reach your audience and work them with a vengeance. Take advantage of every function they offer. Join relevant communities. Interact on them as much as you can so people get to know you. Eventually some will come to your page and hear your music.

Being online can be a full time job and you might only have a limited amount of time to devote. ReverbNation, which I featured in the last issue, has many helpful tools that can save you a lot of time and maximize your online reach. Some people hire a promoter to do it for them. If you don't have a budget, I highly advise that you put aside time every day to work this new model for marketing and promoting music online, with a real plan.

I was very excited to discover Animoto, a service that allows you to create videos from digital photos. For those of you without a budget to film a video, this gives you an alternative. You can have someone take pics during a gig, load them onto the Animoto site right after, and post your live show with one of your songs. Include fans in the picks and they'll send friends to see the videos! The best part? The cost to make as many videos as you want for a whole year is 30 bucks! I talked to its CEO and co-founder, Brad Jefferson.

What is Animoto? "Animoto is a simple concept where a user uploads pictures or retrieves them from popular photo sites like Flickr or Photobucket, picks a song or uploads their own songs if it's a musician, and a few minutes later they get a video with high production value in it. We're trying to mimic the creative process that's done in the postproduction room for film and television. When they're putting things together, there are certain things they do that are kind of repeatable. We patented something called Cinematic Artificial Intelligence, which is algorithms that mimic the postproduction process to put imagery together with music in a way that's compelling, and looks like the images go together with the music perfectly.

They can be from thirty seconds to ten minutes. Our business model is that it's free to create a thirty-second video. If you want to create a larger video, it's three bucks per video, or thirty bucks a year for as many as you want."

How does it work? "We wanted it to be accessible to everyone. A thirty-second video is typical 10-15 photos. It's usually about one photo for every two seconds. It depends on the music. The algorithms analyze the music, looking at the beat, tempo, the energy, if there's climactic elements, like a cymbals crash. Then we map in the imagery with the appropriate motion design based on that song. It's all automated. It really is a combination of science and art. Because of that, we feel like there's an infinite amount of area to improve. Given the movement we put into them, some people ask, "How did you animate my picture?" Some of it is just luck."

What happens when the video is done? "At the end of your video there's a bunch of buttons at the bottom. The first is a one-click remix button. You click on that and a few minutes later the video comes back totally different. No two videos are ever the same, even if you use the same photos.

The next button is for email. You click on it, put in people's email addresses and it will send them an email with a URL link to the video. The third one is to post it. So you can post it to your Facebook or MySpace page, your blog, any website, you click on that. With one click it will post onto the page. We also give you the code to embed it anywhere. The next button is to download it into M-peg 4 format. And we use H264 compression, which is the YouTube standard. That allows you to synchronize it with your iPhone, or most mobile devices. The next button gets it on YouTube."

Who uses Animoto? "We've notices that it's mostly independent artists that create them and put them on their MySpace pages. Artists will change their video with every tour. The best thing about Animoto is that at the end of every concert, if you have pictures from it, you can upload those pictures with a song, and a few minutes later you have a video from that show. It allows fans to stay current with the band and experience a concert at nearly real time."

Most of the Animoto team are musicians, so they have an indie outlook and truly want to empower other musicians. I absolutely love this service and plan to use it myself. They also have a program that allows you to submit your music for people who aren't musicians to use for their videos, which can give your music exposure. I'm excited to take some photos and try it!

I've been doing private workshops for over 15 years but my time is getting tighter. From now on, I'll only speak when someone puts an event together and brings me in for it. If you want more info about booking me to speak, please email me at booking@daylle.com. I'll keep you posted on my speaking gigs that are open to the public. I do music industry and self-empowerment workshops. Right now I'm planning some fantastic talks at the Cutting Room. I'll send out an announcement when they're set.

My latest book, I Don't Need a Record Deal! Your Survival Guide for the Indie Music Revolution, continues to do really well! The focus is on making money from musical talent. It guides you to creating as many income streams as possible and has specifics on how to pursue the variety of opportunities.

It's the only book I know of with so many specifics on how to tour and license music in international markets. People are surprised to find chapters on taking care of your physical and mental health too. But part of surviving and thriving includes taking good care of YOU.

return) in check or money order (made out to Daylle Schwartz) with your name, address, and email address. My other books, The Real Deal: How to Get Signed to a Record Label and Start & Run Your Own Record Label are also available from me at the same price. Please specify if you want it autographed. Send it to:

       Daylle Schwartz
       PO Box 6802, FDR Station
       New York, NY 10150

Many people who write, perform or release music don't know about SoundExchange, yet you should if you want to collect more money! SoundExchange collects royalties from online revenue streams. I asked Neeta Ragoowansi, Director of Artist-Label Relations for SoundExchange, to explain to my readers what they do.

If you don't know about SoundExchange already, it's imperative that you listen up! There is a new revenue stream for artists/musicians who perform on sound recordings and/or anyone who may own their own master rights (or sound recording copyrights). When your recordings are played by certain digital music services--such as XM and SIRIUS Radio, internet radio/webcasters (including radio stations that simulcast over the internet) and digital cable/satellite television music services like Music Choice and Muzak -- these services are required by law to pay performance royalties to SoundExchange.

SoundExchange is the sole performance rights organization designated by the US Copyright Office to collect and distribute these royalties to artists and sound recording copyright owners (SRCO) (typically record labels or recording artists themselves) for the use/play of their recordings.

SoundExchange is already holding royalties for thousands of recording artists and indie record labels. SoundExchange may have money for you, but you need to register with them to collect, - so they know where to send the payment. There is no registration fee.

Currently, SoundExchange represents over 35,000 recording artists, 3500 independent labels and the 4 major label groups. SoundExchange is different than ASCAP, BMI and/or SESAC. They collect for you as a songwriter and/or music publisher. SoundExchange collects for you as a performer and/or sound recording copyright owner. They do not compete with each other whatsoever.

Like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, SoundExchange takes its operating costs from the collection of royalties and then distributes the remainder to performers and record labels. SoundExchange is a not for profit organization.

The law requires that SoundExchange divide performance royalties between copyright owners, featured performers and non-featured performers as follows: 50% to the sound recording copyright owner, 45% to the featured artist (which is basically the main artist(s) on the track) and 5% to the non-featured artists (basically session musicians and background singers).

SoundExchange has processed over 2 billion performances and has already paid out over $200 million in royalties to thousands of artists and copyright owners. (This revenue stream has grown from approximately $3 Million in 2000 to $140 Million in 2007!).

SoundExchange is searching for recording artists and labels who have yet to register and start receiving this new revenue stream. They have a search engine on their website called PLAYS where you can see if you've been reported as having been played (and if you see your name on there, you should definitely register!). It's important that you help spread the word too. . .Please tell any and all musicians and labels to register with SoundExchange when you talk to them so they too can get what's coming to them. Also, time is of the essence-if recording artists, or their heirs, do not come forward and register with SoundExchange soon, they may forfeit their rights to all or a portion of their royalties.

Five years ago I interviewed indie artist, Rich Hardesty. Many artists get on a roll, hit some setbacks, and give up. After the interview, Rich and I became friends. I've watched him bend in the winds of technology change and come up stronger than ever. Since the Internet has become a big part of music marketing, Rich has taken his offline creativity and found ways to carve a strong presence for himself online. I asked him questions for my next book and want to share some of his wisdom here right now.

How do you view MySpace as a marketing tool? "MySpace is like a website with extra bells and whistles. Let's say I have a show in Warsaw, Indiana. I go to the browse section and type in the zip code near my show. I can choose from 5 to 10 to 15 or more miles from the venue. I click on new people and ask them to come to my show. It is amazing how receptive someone is if you just strike a convo. I usually put them on the guest list if they are new to my music. I post banners on MySpace each time I have a show. I post it on my own comment section and I send it out to all of my friends and ask them to do the same."

I learn about them as I read their profile. I message them and break the ice with convo. I end up sending them an mp3. It is fun to show up at a venue I have never played before and have someone say that I am on their MySpace. It helps me create fans but more that that, I like how it brings people from all over the world together."

How does having a fan club help? "Each person on MySpace who wants to get involved is a member of the fan club. For example I send out a message to all. Who has an idea for a design? Who would like back stage passes for a show coming up? If so, tell me who I toured with on '06 on the Jager Tour and be the 50th MySpacer to respond and win. I recently did a concert at Ball State. I asked for people living in Muncie to respond. I gave them free tickets to the show and double disc live show. All they had to do was post flyers around campus. The show was packed. The sky is the limit when it comes to a fan club on MySpace. MySpace is a fan club. You can make something happen with very little effort. If a fan has you on their top friends or use your song as their default song then they are active fans in the club. It's a domino affect, especially if you have a good song. If no one is using your song for their default write one that they can't refuse."

How have videos helped? "I post on YouTube. My fans love to see me jamming my guitar up in the mountains of Jamaica with a Rasta man. Or watching my husky pull me on my skateboard, unicycle while playing the guitar. I also post location videos. There is a place up in Malibu in the mountains I call "Top of the World" where I sing acoustic songs and videotape. Just search my name on YouTube and see the diversity. I don't just post myself singing songs on stage. Music is my life. Life isn't always on stage. But you will see that everywhere I go music follows. My dog likes to sing along with me on the piano and guitar just like the fans."

How else have you used digital marketing successfully? "I have a jukebox on MySpace. I also have links to CDbaby. I send out a mass mailer and say "go get the new Rich Hardesty "Indiana Girls" fresh of the burner. The coolest thing about this is that the CD isn't even out yet but I am marketing it with one of the songs and making money at the same time. I still sell lots of CDs but 90% of my internet sales are coming from individual downloads."

Do you mind that they buy individual songs? "My website is like a basket full of colored eggs. You can find me on MySpace, YouTube and CDbaby. You can then fill your little basket full of colorful mp3s or CDs. It's not about buying a CD anymore. I have 11 independent CDs out. I don't expect my fans, especially a new fan, to buy all of them. I like the fact that they pick and choose a greatest hits of their own. Technology has made that an option."

Check Rich Hardesty out as an example of an indie artist who's maxing out the opportunities that new technology offers. http://www.richhardesty.com

Helpful Resources for Better Customer Service It's so easy to get caught in the frustration of trying to get good customer service. It can be a major time killer and a major cause of agita. And trying to get through to people and get issues resolved can eat away at time you can spend pursuing your musical endeavors. There are ways to expedite results. The Consumer Action Website (Federal Citizen Information Center) <http://consumeraction.gov/corpormain.shtml> has corporate contacts for most major corporation. It also has many of the organizations that regulate some industries, like banking and credit cards, who can give you numbers to the office of the president, etc. That makes it easier to start in the right place with your calls.

For problems with utilities, phone, and cable, call your state's Public Service Commission. When they call the one you're having problems with, action happens fast! And to find codes for getting through automated recordings when you call for service, check <http://gethuman.com/gethuman_list.asp>. It lists many companies you may need to call and what buttons on your phone to press to get a real person fast. I get crazy screaming at a recording, so this has been helpful! All of this can save time and aggravation, which can give you more time to mind the rest of your business!

I'm a songwriter and someone advised me to collaborate with other songwriters. Do you think this is important?

Absolutely! Working with other songwriters can expand your skills and your contacts. Co-writing can teach things about your writing style and broaden the scope of your songs to make them better. We all have strengths and weaknesses. When you connect with a good collaborator, you can tap into each others, take advantage of the strengths, and compensate for the weaknesses.

Plus, collaborating is a great way want to expand your contacts. Two writers have twice the power to find outlets for the song and get it licensed. You can also share resources such as a home studio or the ability to play instruments.

You can meet potential co-writers at songwriter organizations and events. If you're a good writer, you'll find others to write songs with you. And if you're not, take classes to improve your craft and then try to get in with other songwriters!

I hear a lot of complaints about not achieving goals. Musicians haven't become rock stars yet. Songwriters aren't earning a full time living from placing songs. Managers haven't gotten their acts where they want them to be. No matter what their field, many people are working toward a goal they want to reach and feeling impatient about getting the end results. The trouble is, that takes the joy out of what you're doing now.

Greg Anderson, bestselling author and founder of the American Wellness Project, said, "�focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it." Getting antsy about becoming more well-known or solvent as a musician can sap the pleasure out of doing your music NOW. Yearning to be a famous songwriter takes the pleasure out of writing songs NOW. I'm far from where I intend to go but heck, I'm loving every second of working toward getting there. Whatever you do and whatever goals you're trying to reach, if it's something you love, step back from the bigger picture and enjoy the details NOW!

If you're in the music biz because you love performing, writing, or working with those who do, enjoy the act of doing it, even if you have a long way to go to your dreams. Many people never even get out of the box to do it so making the effort is an achievement in itself. I still have a long way to go to realize my long-term dreams but I give thanks every day that I get to write, which I love doing whether I'm rich and famous or just getting by.

Hold onto your passion for the work and consciously enjoy the ride. The more you enjoy, the more the Law of Attraction with bring more joy from your work to you. That's why I'm always smiling! :)