Start and Run Your Own Record Label, Third Edition

Book excerpt: For everyone interested in starting a record label–to market new talent or to release and promote their own music–there has never been a better time to do it! Music can be released, distributed, and promoted for a fraction of traditional costs. Veteran author and music-business consultant Daylle Deanna Schwartz (who started and ran her own label) has rewritten and expanded her classic, Start & Run Your Own Record Label, to reflect industry changes and new opportunities for marketing music in today’s climate. Start & Run Your Own Record Label is a comprehensive guidebook to building a record label, packed with how-to information about market trends and revenue streams for music releases. In addition to updated information on physical distribution, generating publicity, marketing, and promotion, it also has new information about key issues including: •Balancing on and offline promotion and marketing •Making the most of online resources (social-networking sites, blogs, ringtones, videos, radio, and more) •Using digital distribution profitably •Licensing your recordings for use in the media •Marketing music overseas Ms. Schwartz has compiled new interviews with top industry professionals and independent labels–including recording artist CJ Baran (Push Play), Jed Carlson (founder, ReverbNation), Daniel Glass (founder, Glassnote Entertainment), blogger Perez Hilton, Scott Lapatine (founder, Stereogum), recording artist Ingrid Michaelson, Jeff Price (founder, Tunecore), MP3 bloggers, music-magazine editors, publicists, and others–for the most up-to-date, authoritative, and practical compendium available.