It’s no secret that record sales have been declining for quite some time now. This has resulted in record contracts that are more favorable to the record companies and, consequently, decreased revenue for artists. Bands are turning to a variety of sources to increase their income streams, such as licensing deals and streaming music sites like Spotify. But merchandising has been a constant source of income for bands for decades, even when record sales were soaring.

In addition to increasing revenue, having desirable merch than your fans want to buy also helps your band image and helps spread your name to more people. Here are three reasons that merchandising is so important.

It’s All Yours

Unless you’ve signed a 360 record deal that gives a record company a cut of your merchandising sales, then you usually get to keep every cent that is spent on the t-shirts, posters and whatever else you’ve got set up on your merchandising table.

Of course, to be able to make that money, you’ve also got to spend money. Since you get all the cash from merch sales, you also have to fork over the money for the merch up front, which can be difficult, especially for younger bands.

But there are ways to cut costs. I was in a young band many years ago, and we bought cheap t-shirts and painted our band logo across the front of them. These didn’t look like professionally made shirts, but we promoted them as one-of-a-kind DIY shirts for fans, which thought it was cool to have a shirt that no one else had. We then used the money from those shirts to have a set of shirts professionally made (and many of the fans that bought the original shirts bought the new shirts, as well!).

A great way to get well-designed posters is to ask your graphic design friends to help out. Many times, these friends will be glad to help you design a great poster that you can sell and they can use in their portfolio.

Free Advertising

When a fan purchases a t-shirt with your band logo on it, they are essentially paying you to advertise your band for you. When they wear the shirt, anyone they come into contact with throughout the day gets to read your band logo. The same goes for anything else you put your band name on and sell.

Connect With Your Fans

While the biggest bands obviously don’t sit at their own merchandise tables – opting to let hired hands perform that task – you can use the opportunity to make personal connections with your fans. If you have a merch table set up at a show, you can head there after your set. When the fans that were impressed with your music come back to buy the CD or a shirt, you get a one-on-one interaction with them that you likely wouldn’t get otherwise.

All in all, spending the money on your merchandise is one of the best things you can do for your band. Even if you’ve been established for a number of years, the merchandise is a continuous stream of income that you shouldn’t overlook.

Obviously, there’s no online marketing plan that will assure that your music will get to the ears you want it to reach. The unfortunate truth is that there are plenty of artists out there that have great material that just never get heard by the right people that could make those great songs into hits.

There are, however, a few things you can do to help your chances. Here are three ways to successfully promote your music online.

Social Media

Ok sure, this seems obvious – and it is. But just creating an artist page and throwing together a bio is not going to entice more fans to listen to your music. No, you need to be just as involved in your social media as you want your fans to be.

One way to help boost your social media saturation is to be sure to lead fans to all you social media sites. Tweet about your new song you posted to SoundCloud, use Facebook to post a link to your new video on YouTube. The more places your fans can interact with you and your music, the more fans will eventually create.

And, perhaps most importantly, be sure to create a dialog with your fans. Respond to comments and do everything you can to make sure your fans know they are appreciated.

Kickstarter

Kickstarter is a great and growing tool for artists of all types that has been featured before in this blog. Many musicians, from those just starting out to well known artists, use the site to raise money to fund their artistic endeavors. But the great thing about the service is you can use it to connect with your fans, as well.

If you are asking for money from your friends and fans to help fund your next album or tour, offer something back for their trouble. Give anyone who gives a certain amount toward paying for studio time a free, signed album. Offer a “Dinner with the Band” special to anyone who gives to help fund a tour. Not only will help you achieve your artistic goals, you’ll also be gaining close connections with fans.

Pound the Pavement

As odd as it may sound, one of the most important ways to make yourself more successful online is to make yourself known offline. Many artists to day seem to forget that not everything can be done from home behind a computer screen – there’s still an art to pounding the pavement.

Part of the goal of meeting and making fans in the real world is to send them back online. Make sure they know about your social networks and then you add not just them as a fan, but everyone they go on to tell because you made a personal connection. After all, there’s no way to get closer to fans than by actually being out and talking to them.

The web is constantly shifting, as are the sites that are most advantageous to bands. If I were writing this blog a few years ago I might have just filled the page by writing the word MySpace over and over again. That is no longer the case (though you should ignore MySpace fans either, of course). The point is you must keep up with the changing trends of the internet to remain successful in online promotion.

What all of the above comes down to is that you’ve got to work extremely hard to make your social media presence stand out from the rest. No matter which sites you are using or how the internet is changing, success will always be dependent on how hard you work to show the world how good you are. And that’s whether you are on the internet or not.

Unless you are planning to never play for a public audience, and never want to release recordings for people to buy, then there are few additional steps you’ll want to take before getting into business with other musicians. And yes, I used the word “business,” as hard as it may be to hear.

There’s a reason many bands are incorporated, or are Limited Liability Companies, and that’s because they are in fact businesses. Do you need to go to your local courthouse and legally declare your band a business before you even have your first practice? No, of course not. But you do need to already be thinking about the business aspects of the band. It’s not the most attractive side of the music business (to most musicians), but it is a necessity.

Here are a few things that you’ll want to do before you ever play your first show as a band. As unnecessary as they may seem at the time, they can save big headaches (and big money) down the road.

Sign a Band Partnership Agreement

None of the points I’ll touch on today are as important as this one, and in fact the remainder of the topics will be related to this.

A band partnership agreement is (likely) the first business document you will sign as a band. In it, you will state exactly what the band is, and how all business matters will be handled. This includes stating the official band members, and stating how income will be split between them. It will also state how expenses will be handled, as well as what happens if members leave or new members are added.

The dotted line at the bottom of this contract may seem daunting. What’s a contract among friends, after all? But many groups have been saved a lot of fighting because this agreement was in place. And unfortunately, many other groups have not made it through later fighting because of the absence of a contract.

That Thing About Money

“Why should I state how money will be divided up? There is no money!” you may say. And while that is exactly right, the lack of money is the reason that the percentages need to be determined in the beginning.

It’s much better to find out that Band Member A feels that he deserves 75 percent of songwriting royalties before there are any royalties than after there is money and everyone else in the band reveals that they were under the impression all money would be split evenly.

This is just an example, but these kind of disputes pop up all the time. And heading them off before they happen is a great way to ensure a long future for a band before arguments arise.

Ch-ch-changes

The best thing about all of these points that you need to consider and decide on before forming a band – all of the things that you put into a band partnership agreement – is that you set the contract up to be changed.

One point you may put into the contract is that everything can be reconsidered if and when the band acquires a manager. And if this is the case, there’s a clause that the decision to hire a manager must be unanimous among band members. These stipulations are here to ensure all future decisions of a band are made in a certain manner that is all members have agreed on.

Every band partnership agreement will be different, and the points included here are by no means an exhaustive list of what will need to be included in the contract. But this is a primer to show how important these contracts are. No matter what they contain, their purpose is to create an agreeable way for all members of a band to make decisions about their group, about their business.

And after you’ve done this, you’ll find that starting a band is in fact not harder than you think (unlike that whole becoming successful thing…)

Definition

First things first – what exactly is a 360 record contract? With traditional record contracts, artists are typically fronted money from the label to record an album, and then the record company takes a percentage of record sales after the album is released (in addition to recouping the advance). The record company usually was not involved with any other aspect of the band’s career, including touring and merchandise revenue.

In a 360 deal, however, the record company has a hand in most or all aspects of the band, including the aforementioned touring and merchandise revenue. In return for this, the record company is responsible for spending more time building the “brand” of the artist, and will theoretically invest more money toward covering touring, merchandise and other expenses.

The Good

The good news for bands in a 360 deal is that they have less money to invest up front. Often touring costs will be taken care of, and sometimes the booking will even be done for the band, depending on the contract.

The obvious upside is that the band doesn’t have to pay for a booking agent out of its own money, and it doesn’t have to worry about how to come up with the funds to buy the merchandise they will take with them to sell at shows.

The Bad

The downside of this is the fact that the record company has more control over the artist –financially and, often, artistically. Additionally, the more money a record company invests in the band, the more money they have to recoup.

We’ve all heard horror stories about bands that get an advance from a record label to make an album, and then go into major debt when the album doesn’t meet sales expectations. 360 deals make this even more likely because of the higher amount of money originally invested by the label.

Should You Sign a 360 Deal?

As frustrating as it is, the answer is the same as the answer for whether you should sign any music industry contract: It depends. Labels have had great success using 360 deals to make young artists enormously successful (Paramore is a commonly cited example), and the current trend is to sign already successful artists to these types of deals. Jay Z’s recent deal with Live Nation is a good example of this.

All too often, however, the contracts give the advantage to the label, and unfortunately that puts bands that don’t succeed within a certain timeframe (determined by the label) in a position to not only not make money, but also to go into great debt to the label.

The best advice is to know exactly what the 360 deal presented to you means, and understand the risk it presents to you as an artist – this may mean hiring an entertainment lawyer to look over the contract with you. It’s hard for a young artist to turn down any recording contract offered by a label, particularly if it’s a major label, but sometimes that can be the best thing for a long-lasting career.

ASCAP, BMI and SESAC are the three major performing rights organizations (PRO) in the United States. PROs are intermediaries between the copyright holder and the person or organization using the song for a “public performance.” Many situations constitute a public performance, and these can range from a concert performance radio play to songs used on television shows. It is the job of the PRO to collect the royalty payment from the user of the song and distribute it to the artist.

Since each PRO is responsible for providing payment for each song broadcast, it is easy to see why every music artist seeking to make a profit belongs to one of the groups. Since all three PROs function in the same basic capacity, there is no “best” organization, so it is important to look at the differences between the three to understand which would best fit your music goals.

ASCAP

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is the oldest PRO in America – founded in 1914 – and currently represents over 427,000 artists. The not-for-profit organization is the only of the three that was created and is controlled by composers, songwriters and music publishers. The Board of Directors for the organization is elected from its members. Anyone is able to join ASCAP.

In addition to PRO duties, the company also offers additional perks to its members. These can range from music industry workshops to discounted health insurance plans.

Notable ASCAP members: Lana Del Rey, Peter Frampton, George Strait

BMI

Also a not-for-profit, Broadcast Music, Inc. represents over 500,000 artists in the U.S. and was founded in 1939. BMI prides itself in remaining on the cutting edge of the music industry, and offered membership to artists performing genres like jazz, R&B and rock and roll before ASCAP.

BMI also allows any songwriter to join and has a number of “career-building” assets like showcases and seminars to help its members.

Notable BMI members: Rihanna, Hank Williams and Eminem.

SESAC

SESAC was formerly an acronym for The Society of European Stage Authors & Composers, though now the company’s official name now is simply SESAC. Founded in 1930 to represent European artists that were underrepresented in the U.S., the company now works with a wide-variety of artists in many music genres. Unlike the other two groups, SESAC is a for-profit company and it uses a selective process when allowing members to join instead of permitting any artist to use the company’s services.

IN part because it selectively keeps its roster less numerous than the other two companies, the company claims that it is the “clear technological leader among the nation’s performing rights organizations.” The company also is the fastest growing PRO.

Notable SESAC members: Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, RUSH.

But here I want to delve a little more deeply into the advice and get to the crux of just why writing every day will improve your songwriting. It is grounded in the fact that, though it may not seem like it, songwriting is work. And just like any job, you will get better at it the more you do it.

One thing that’s important to understand about the advice and makes it feel more managable is it tells you to write every day, not that you have to write a song each day. Sure, some days will result in a song, but most of the time you’ll end up with a couplet, maybe a verse, or even just some seemingly random words. However, it is important to write something, not only because it forces your brain into creativity mode, but also because you can often come back to these pieces and use them as parts of a later song.

So here are three reasons why writing every day will improve your songwriting:

It Forces Discipline

Though I mentioned that songwriting is in fact a job, it is unlike many other professions in that you rarely have any sort of deadlines, which in turn often leads to procrastination. But if you are writing every day, it is much less likely that you will fall into this habit.

I like to set aside a certain amount of time – maybe 30 minutes – each day to focus on writing. The great thing about this is that those 30 minutes often turn into a much longer period of time as I get on a roll and don’t want to stop writing, but I’ll always have at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted writing.

It Will Help Writers Block

As with any art, your creativity will ebb and flow as a songwriter. I’ve had days when I’ve written three songs in a few hours, and I’ve gone a couple months without producing a completed song at all. And its in times when you can’t seem to get the right words together that you start feeling a writer’s greatest fear: writer’s block.

But if you are writing every day, it is much easier to get yourself back on track and not succumb to writer’s block. If you can’t write a song, just make writing exercises for yourself. Write out in detail the scene outside your window, or inside your favorite restaurant. This will get your mind back in a creative mode, and you’ll be back to songwriting in no time.

It Will Force You Into a Routine

I don’t like to write at the same time every day – it feels too much like an office job to me. But I do need consistency when I write, which leads to the aforementioned self-discipline. So what I do is schedule the times I write each day around my other duties at different times on different days. For instance, I like to get up early on Monday and write in the morning, but on weekends I like to push writing back into the afternoon. This not only provides a good routine that will help with self-discipline, it also allows your brain to be in different modes each time that you write, which often helps creativity.

The reasons for the need for band contracts are wide-ranging and varied, but perhaps the best way to illustrate just how important they are is to look at examples of bands with unfavorable contracts or, worse, no contracts. The following is quick snap shot of the contract problems some of the biggest bands in the world have had to deal with. And if the biggest bands in the world can’t avoid these problems, it stands to reason that other groups of varying success levels have the same or worse issues all the time.

Beach Boys

When the Beach Boys announced late last year that all of the surviving original members of the group would reunite this year for a new album and tour to celebrate the band’s 50th Anniversary, it was something of a shock to music fans. Original members Brian Wilson, Al Jardine and Mike Love have been filing lawsuits against one another for much of the last three decades over songwriting credit and use of the band name, with the most recent being filed in 2007.

Prince

A large part of Prince’s decision to change his name to an unpronounceable symbol that led to him being referred to as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince throughout most of the 1990s was because of his dissatisfaction with what he saw as an artistically limiting contract from his label, Warner Bros. Records. He said once that his name had become “merely a pawn used to produce more money for Warner” and did not release records under the name Prince again until his contract with Warner Bros. expired in 2000.

The Beatles

Most of Brian Epstein’s work as manager of the Beatles from 1962 until 1967 is seen as a success, though the contracts he negotiated during the band’s early days led to the group receiving extremely low royalty rates. In 1969 they signed with new manager Allen Klein, who re-negotiated the contracts to give the band much more money from album and single sales. The downside was that Klein’s negotiation funneled a huge portion of the band’s income to himself, and left the band’s record company, Apple, in financial turmoil and led Paul McCartney to comment that he would rather dissolve the band than have its artistic legacy diminished by Klein.

The Rolling Stones

By the time he got to the Beatles, Klein was no stranger to working with the biggest bands in the world. He also served as manager of the Rolling Stones in the late 1960s, but was fired. However, after being fired he sued the group and obtained the rights to most of the band’s songs recorded before 1971.

TLC

Bands often sign contracts early in their career that come back to haunt them. One famous example is TLC, which had a contract so bad that the group eventually was forced to file for bankruptcy even though its CrazySexyCool album sold more than 11 million copies.

Toni Braxton

In a similar position as TLC, Toni Braxton was forced to use legal action to rectify pending contracts with two of her record labels. One of these involved her ex-manager Barry Hankerson, and the lawsuit alleged he mismanaged her relationship with Arista Records.

It seems the days of the enigmatic rock star are gone. Instead of wondering just how Kate Bush came up with all those surrealistic lyrics and, moreover, who she actually is as a person, we read Adele personally announce her upcoming throat surgery on her blog and Nickelback tweet “Happy Birthday” to specific fans. Things have changed.

But one result of this free exchange of ideas back and forth is that fans are getting actively involved in the creation of the music. Instead of just using the net as a way to get to know fans “personally,” many musicians are using the connection to help there career. Here are a few ways that you can get your fans directly involved in your music.

Use Sites Like Kickstarter and PledgeMusic

Late in the last decade, sites like Kickstarter, PledgeMusic, Sellaband and more began popping up and allowing musicians to reach out to their fans to fund recordings, tours, and other aspects of being an artist. Since then, these sites have been used by everyone from artists just trying to record their debut albums to more established bands that are eschewing the record label process.

In return for funding, donators often are given perks such as free copies of the resulting album (or tickets to a tour), exclusive unreleased tracks and much more. This not only helps the musicians raise money they otherwise lack, but also lets the fans feel like they have contributed to the band’s creative process. Additionally, it creates a communal feeling for fans, which brings us to our next point.

Create a Community Around Your Music

As mentioned before, in today’s music industry climate, fans often expect to be taken into the inner fold of a band, or at least feel like they are. The exclusives offered to donators in the last section are an example of this, but there are many other ways to make your fans feel like they are actually part of the music.

In addition to more standard practices like an often-updated Facebook page or an email list, create other ways to reach out to your fans. Use the above Nickelback example to make an effort to communicate with fans on a personal level via Twitter, or create a contest on your Facebook page that rewards the person with the best band promotion tactic with a handwritten letter. The possibilities for making this happen are endless, and is one of the easiest way to create a dedicated following that will be sure to purchase your next record or buy tickets to a concert the next time you come to their town.

Use YouTube to Bring Concerts to the Fans

Speaking to the last point, maybe your band doesn’t yet have the following (or Kickstarter funds) to take on a large-scale tour. But that doesn’t mean you should not provide a live experience to bands that can’t actually attend your shows.

This doesn’t have to be a professionally shot HD experience, but a good quality video with decent sound – even if its shot in a basement in front of a few friends rather than at your local venue – will be a great way to introduce your live show to fans around the world. Post the video on your YouTube page, and when you do finally have the funds for a tour, you are guaranteed to attract those that were impressed by the live show they saw on the internet.

None of these tactics are by any means novel or innovative in this day and age, but the most important advice is that you’ve got to be proactive about them all, and you have to consistently find new ways to make fans feel like they are part of a community. Setting up a Facebook page with some information about the band that you then neglect for months at a time will do little to help your cause.

Put yourself out there, and do it over and over again. There are many great ways to connect with your fans, and they expect those connections. You’ll have a sizable and, importantly, dedicated fanbase in no time.

But, obviously, arguments aren’t just confined to successful, well-known bands. Learning how to work with others within a musical context is an essential part of being in a band from the day it is formed. That’s why from the beginning, it is nearly as important to get together a group that can work together successfully as it is to get a group that can play together successfully.

However, arguments are bound to arise no matter how compatible band members’ personalities are, and here we present several ways to settle disputes when they inevitably come up.

Band Partnership Agreement

This is a great way to solve problems before they start. It is imperative that every band write and sign a band partnership agreement in the very beginning of the band’s life. The contract will state how disputes will be solved when they arise, and will deal with various factors from how money is split to what to do if a band member leaves the band. Being a legal document, the band members decide how to handle tough situations in the beginning rather than after tempers rise.

Talk It Out

Sure, this seems like the most simple and clichéd advice that can be given. But most arguments get out of hand when there is no communication between members. Rather, voices are raised and opinions are voiced with very little listening going on. But if members can agree, at the very least, to sit down and actually discuss the root of the problem, it is much easier to see all sides of the discussion and be able to come to a logical solution.

Take Some Time Away

Sometimes in the heat of the moment, discussion is just not an option. When tempers are burning out of control, trying to talk to each other can prove impossible, and in times like this, it is best to take a break. Everyone should agree to a time and place to reconvene after the initial anger has worn off and they’ve had some time to consider what the best course of action would be to solve the given conflict. Then, it is time to actually discuss what the best course of action is, and hopefully develop a solution everyone will be happy with.

Bring in a Mediator

Sometimes, intra-band conflict can just not be solved by the band members themselves. When this happens, a non-biased outsider should be brought in to listen to all points of view, and try to work with all band members towards an agreeable solution. Sometimes having a fresh perspective is the only way to really realize the source of the problem.

Of course, every band will have to find their own specific ways to achieve the above goals, but they are good guidelines to solve the types of problems that cause the premature break ups of far too many bands.

I ended up joining the band, touring with them for a few years and playing on their next record. But even discounting the nerves that come with any audition, there are still other factors that need to be addressed if you are thinking about joining an established band. No matter how successful the band has been in the past (or promises to be in the future), there are some key elements you need to keep in mind consider your options.

Be as familiar as you can with the band

Before you even audition, you want to make sure the group is something you will want to be a part of, at least for the foreseeable future. At its most basic, this means the band has to play a type and style of music that you will want to play (and that you are capable of playing). Check out any recordings and live shows you can to get an idea.

But you’re also going to want to know as much as possible about the dynamic of the people in the group. If possible, I always liked to hang out with the band briefly before even auditioning, just to make sure that there’s a personal dynamic you can fit into. Grab a beer or a coffee and see if it leads to the practice space.

Know the material

If the band does seem like something you’d like to join, and they’ve offered the chance to try out, you want to make sure you don’t waste anyone’s time. Before I tried out for the aforementioned band, they told me we’d be playing three specific songs off their last record. And I learned those tunes backward and forward.

Also, you’ll want to know what’s expected of you. If you are replacing an exiting member, find out if you’re expected to play the old parts just like they’ve been played before (and decide if you’re alright with this scenario). If you are being brought in to add a new element to the band, you’re still going to want to know the songs (if possible) before getting there, and have an idea what kind of things you are going to play, even if you don’t plan on writing permanent parts until you actually get the job.

Sign a Band Partnership Agreement

This is one of the most important parts. If everything went well concerning the above two points and you’re asked to join the band, the very next step you’re going to want to take is to sign a band partnership agreement. Since these contracts legally stipulate what will happen in nearly every situation the band is in, they are one of the most important things in the life of a band. Particularly since you are coming into an already established situation, you want to be sure that you are treated fairly as the band continues. If the band already has an agreement, make sure you agree with any stipulations of the contract before you sign. If the band does not have one, explain the benefits and suggest they write one (or have a lawyer write one).

After all these three situations are met, its up to you to find that fine balance that lets your own unique style shine through while initiating yourself, as seamlessly as possible, into the group. This can be difficult and can take time, but the hope is that your contributions will improve the band, while the band challenges and improves you as a player.