Welcome In!

Hi there, and welcome to the blog!  We are The DIYers.

  

James, Nadine, & Val

(don't worry, you can click for bigger versions)

  

We are students of Popular Music and Sound Technology at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts.  You might guess from our being students of pop music that after university we intend to work, in one way or another, within the music industry -- and you would be correct.  More specifically, we are songwriters hoping to make a living in our discipline.

If you’ve found yourself here at our blog, you’re probably just like us: we are performing songwriters wanting to make a living by doing our craft (and only our craft).  But in a world where CD sales are declining and major record labels are signing fewer and fewer acts, with less and less money to go around, many of us find ourselves asking, “…What do I do?”  You have the talent, you have the band, you have the repertoire.  But what’s the next step?  How do you get your music and band established, and eventually get to a point where you can make a living on it?  The purpose of this blog is to address this question and hopefully come up with some answers.

To try to gain some sort of success with your music, you can essentially take one of two approaches: 1. You can try to write the biggest hit possible and focus all your efforts on gaining attention from major labels and ultimately obtaining a major record deal; or 2. You can handle your band’s affairs internally, self-producing records and self-promoting.  We call this approach “DIY” (Do It Yourself).  If your aim is Option 1, this blog is not for you.  But don’t’ be discouraged, I’m sure there are plenty of resources out there for you.  This just isn’t one of them.  If, however, you wish to take a DIY approach to your music as a business, then read on.

(One side-note: There are two types of DIYers: There are some who avoid seeking major label attention on principle: under the idea that they can maintain more artistic freedom, or retain rights to their work.  Others operate by a DIY model by default: they would prefer a record deal, but do not feel that seeking one is particularly viable in today’s volatile music industry.  While these two groups come from two very different ideologies or aesthetics, the model and road ahead of them is the same.)

This model which we will be loosely operating on is one that is familiar to just about every band who has become successful by a purely DIY approach – if you read any music blogs, you will probably have seen it called “1000 True Fans.”   The idea behind this business model is to establish a fan base which consists of a sufficient number of “true fans” – fans that buy all of your releases and spend a certain amount on your merch (we’ll get into specifics in the next section).   Once you have established this core following, if you do a good enough job of keeping those fans, you can essentially make a decent enough income to quite your day job and survive solely on your music.

The first thing we will do on this blog will be to properly characterize the “1000 True Fans” model.  With that to set the foundation, we will move on to discuss how exactly you get your music heard and start to cultivate fans.  From there we will discuss how to keep those fans, and get them to buy your music and merch.  We will then take a more in-depth look at ideas for merchandising and marketing your act, and ways of staying in touch with – and in the minds of -- your fans.  Lastly, we will look at examples of, and interviews with, bands who have already achieved success from a DIY approach, to see how our hypothetical programme works in real life.

We are excited to undertake this endeavour, and hope that if you’ve come here for some answers, we will be able to provide a helping hand.  But further than that, this is a forum for discussion.  If you have questions or comments, if you'd like to put in your two cents, contribute a case study we haven't referenced, give comment from your own experience in the industry, or nudge a conversation in a certain direction, please feel free to utilise the Comment section.