How do Netlabels get known? How to build following?

[Shabax]

I know that Stephen who runs Opal Tapes makes a living off it, so it's possible. But to back up what's been said so far: try and get some established names in there. If you're putting out stuff, do it in batches. Three tapes / CDrs / a vinyl and a couple of tapes and an mp3, whatever. Get people in with one name they know and offer them a financial incentive to get some unknown stuff alongside it.

 

A strong visual image - either a house style (common amongst tape labels - check out Tranquility for a great consistency if you're not familiar with them), or a series of strong, striking covers. If you or the artists can't put together a cover that isn't at least as good at 75% of your favourite album covers, ask a friend or acquaintance who's into graphic design, or just generally has a good eye. I have to agree with others that the Corn Cat page looks, at best, anonymous (and at worst, really quite poor.)

 

Physical product - what makes you stand out from every other fucker with a cracked copy of Reason and a Bandcamp account? Even if you're only doing occasional physical releases, it really gives people something to look forward to, and shows that you're putting the effort in.

 

Networking / marketing / PR - the part where other people come into it - is the hard bit, where you have to start 'selling' yourself and your wares. Suddenly you're not an artist, you're a businessman. This has always been a stumbling block with me, as I hate all that side of things, and you've got to have a strong mind for this kind of thing.

There are hundreds of sites and blogs that review music, announce new releases, play stuff on podcasts and radio. A lot of them take digital submissions. Do lots and lots and lots of research. Look at other labels and artists, and find every review of their stuff - and make a note of where it is. Keep a long list of sites that are open to underground music. When you contact people, use their real names. Don't just send out an anonymous "hi listen to my tracks" email and BCC everyone into it, but try and make it personal. Reply and stay in touch with people. Use Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Soundcloud, forums (be a regular member, don't just turn up to announce your latest release and disappear.) Try and be a part of different, separate communities. There's no point in just sticking to the same few sites who have a huge overlap in members and covered artists - you're effectively only talking to one group of people. There are countless experimental/electronic music scenes out there, most of which are open minded. Connect with lots of them! Meet new people.

 

Other stuff - videos, compilations - have been covered, and are all great.

 

 

Oh, and a personal recommendation: don't use the word netlabel. Depending on your experience, it really can suggest 'kid uploading his mates Fruityloops music to an archive.org account and calling it a label' ie 1 2 3.

^^ This. All of this. I was about to write all of these (getting me out of my lurking streak) but Purlieu did it instead.

 

A couple of things I could probably add up on certain aspects :

 

PR : If you don't feel comfortable enough to take care of this aspect, there are some PR agencies here and there that can do the job for you. Although, a personal contact with the blogs/magazines/media (or an introduction by a friend) is always better and leads off to better chances of something written up somewhere. From my experience, some PR agencies tend to treat labels as cash cows, putting minimal effort into your music. Great, you'll probably get a mention of your stuff somewhere on RA on a monday during the night or something. You'll have a troll comment on your news and one random dude writing "Great!" or "Can't wait!" and that's it.

One aspect that probably gives a better image is the amount of love and how convinced you are into your product. THIS aspect though needs to go further than loving your own music and complaining about the music around you.

You (or the PR agent) need to give it ALL you've got. If you need to reach a PR agent, you need to convince him/her that YOUR content is great. It comes down to that. You must believe firmly into your release to the point where you are ready to make sacrifices.

The results vary. I know labels that paid 1000$ per release that had some coverage on Fact and RA but ended up with pretty much the same following of a label without a PR strategy behind it. The reasons may be various (bigger release at the same time in the same kind of genre (e.g. Warp releases something), the nature of the music released having a low potency to attract people (as stated earlier), etc). So a release may not have the attention it deserved but maybe in 2-3 EPs, it will pop up. It's a bit like a lottery. Although, if you win once, that doesn't mean that you'll win twice.

 

Physical : This aspect here is probably the one thing where I agree in some sorts to everything that was said but where I also have most of my doubts.

The basic idea of physical is a bit like what I stated earlier : "You must believe firmly into your release to the point where you are ready to make sacrifices." Releasing on physical is the equivalent of putting your balls on the table and say "HEY! WE ARE MORE THAN JUST A LABEL THAT RELEASES ON BANDCAMP/BEATPORT! WHAT WE RELEASE IS GOOD ENOUGH THAT I TOOK A FINANCIAL BLOW BECAUSE IT IS THIS GOOD."

 

Here are my doubts : I'd invite you to read this article that was published a few ago.

I feel that vinyls and physical media are more a way to shout about your music than an absolute necessity. If you take a look around, you will see old label owners that were selling 2k copies in a month of one specific EP saying they are struggling selling 300 copies. Fair enough, everyone are taking the "struggling to sell 300 copies" and transform it into "limited 300 copies release" which will be then bought in the most part by resellers because of the hype. Although, if you take a look at releases that had a good PR campaign (interviews, mixes on popular blogs, etc) this year with "limited quantities", you can see shops online still trying to sell out the copies they have. Even for popular names, ou can probably see the 12" on sale at the end of the year even if it was a "limited" edition (Four Tet + Burial - Nova anyone?).

 

At this point, I firmly believe a deep knowledge of the scene and the behaviour of your fans/fans of similar labels is required. If you make Braindance, do you know the average amount of copies that can be sold for this crowd? If you make DnB, there's still a huge following that doesn't require much PR, yet, there are good sales of vinyls in there. If you make Experimental music, is it worth it to release it on vinyl or should tapes or digital do the job? How much people can you attract with the new name you found of yours? Is his music STRONG enough so anybody can come back in two years and nobody will wonder what happened to the guy after the hype?

 

Also, Peace 7 has an awfully huge point. Releasing music is not about only the music but the image you want to give to your music. You don't have to lie about it but you need to be 100% clear and this must be communicated on a visual as well as a consistency aspect.

[Braintree]

I eat eggs every morning. I will never tire of them. Sometimes, I'll fry a couple eggs for a sandwich but only cook them slightly on the inside so that they aren't runny when I bite into them, but are still gooey. Other times, I'll make a spinach & tofu omelette or scramble.

 

I've also eaten an emu egg. They taste pretty much the same as chicken eggs, but are faaaarrrr larger.

 

BREFIS 4 EVA

[BCM]

Derek White's Eggs

[b born droid]

Henderson Valley Eggs! You're gonna love our eggs! These ain't your daddy's eggs.

[Guest]

i think he's gone guys....let's talk about eggs instead.

 

I do a fucking lovely poached egg. nice and runny yolk served on wholewheat bread with cracked black pepper. mmmmmm...

 

Dude, hook me up to your egg connection!

[joshuatxuk]

I dunno how much real world popularity netlabels get. Like even if you lived in hipster city you'd need to know some hella-nerds to have BotR just casually pop up in conversation. It'd mostly just be guys on 4chan shitposting about you in between neckbeard rants & paedophilia. And WATMM spergin out and/or comparing you unfavourably to ambient techno from the early 90s

 

Money-wise, I'd be interested to find out what these dudes actually do make

 

Even the most "popular" and critically acclaimed tape and bandcamp labels are still people with day jobs or are kids without financial concerns because someone else pays their bills. Not all, but some. Those who make a living off of it bust their asses doing so though.

 

Consider this a hobby above all else but if it grows into something financially sustainable, then cool beans. One of my musical idols, Fenriz of legendary BM group Darkthrone, literally works part-time, like 30 hours a week. He doesn't have to - his residuals and sales of new music are sufficient - he does so he will never ever compromise his music with concerns of making a living. It's an extreme commitment but it's an attitude I agree with.

 

 

i know one of the people that runs one of these labels and it's pretty much due to having large amounts of contacts within the music-criticism-sphere and a fairly savvy/cynical eye for visual/conceptual aesthetic trends

this

 

 

Yes, and it doesn't have to be pure spamming in the dark nor morally iffy PR maneuvering: most of these labels have a sincere fanbase and community aspect to them. Make friends and contacts. People are actually pretty cool when you reach out. Worst case scenario they just don't respond. There's a huge amount of enthusiasm and, imo, a unspoken resistance to the horrendously fucked up "hyped indie band" machine espoused by media outlets like Pitchfork.

 

Also Vamos - just send some of your existing demos to tape labels. I wouldn't find some of your music out of place on say, a label like Orange Milk. Don't worry if it's already been self-released online. Don't worry about releasing music on various different net labels. I've seen many examples of successful tapes that were essentially reissues of self-released digital music and a lot, in fact most, of the artists on these netlabels release not on one label, but many, sometimes even dozens.

[Berk]

Actually, first and foremost, you have to have good marketing skills. It's more about image than most of you think. Sure, people will often say "My work will sell it self.", but, please, think before you say something like that.

 

 

Your eggs might taste great (baked or cooked), but if you don't have the skills to sell 'em, to make people buy 'em, then you're still nowhere.

 

Get in contact with egg blogs is a good place to start

[Cryptowen]

How is natlabbel formed?

how money get pocket?

[xy_politics]

So what gives? How does one go from being nothing as a Bandcamp label, to having a following, critical attention, etc?

 

1. Close your Bandcamp page

2. Take some of your best music and press 300 records. Don't waste any money on graphic design or packaging.

3. Send 50 of these records to a selection of quality labels, musicians, and even bloggers if you think it's worth it

4. Contact a handful of quality retailers (bricks & mortar primarily, with a couple of online-only) to enquire about directly distributing a small quantity of records to them for sale. If the seller can be exclusive for their territory (they will ask this), do so.

 

If they sell well and are popular, the retailers will request more, so

 

5. Continue to distribute until you run out. There's a chance you'll see some good press start to materialise.

6. Contact the retailers to see whether any of their "important" customers liked your record, or whether they have any tips on labels they are friendly with that might be interested in hearing from you

7. Follow up on these leads, while also following up on the people you initially sent the freebies to, as well as anybody who took the time to write nice things about your record. Offer exclusive access to more music.

 

If these people are positive about what you're doing, and you're positive about what they're doing,

 

8. Enquire about licensing/collaboration/gigs/work

 

If this gets a foothold into something interesting, you could then do one or both of the following:

 

9. Do licensing/collaboration/gigs/work

9. Make another record, repeat above steps

 

This should hopefully build a head of steam, so to speak.. At which point you could possibly

 

10. Re-open your Bandcamp page and start selling to the unwashed masses

 

Please note though, you have to make good music for the above scheme to work. If you don't make good music, you'll have wasted quite a lot of time and money!

[vamos scorcho]

lots of good advice, probably can be used by others. good job and thanks.

 

word of advice in return to anyone who is listening:

 

the key to success is complete 100% lack of a fuck given to what anyone has to say about your style, so long as you believe in it and understand it. the sounds of laughter are, one must remember, tautologically equivalent to the sounds of fear. of course, this doesn't apply to something that is in mere replication of what has already occurred, not being the aim of what is known as experimental music, seeing that experiments often fail, and are expected to do so. anyone who is turned away by a visual aesthetic (or name-fashion-image) does not deserve to be enjoying the music.

[Braintree]

*strokes beard and self*

[b born droid]

Yes, nothing breeds success like establishing contempt for your listener.

[percy roger smith]

if you want your music well known you need to make a youtube music video where the thumbnail is a girl getting fingered and the video itself is some kind of monster hentai in a swimming pool

[autopilot]

Ah, the old "you don't understand my edgy experimentalism, it has nothing to do with my lack of ability to create something aesthetically pleasing aurally or visually" defense.

[usagi]

if you want your music well known you need to make a youtube music video where the thumbnail is a girl getting fingered and the video itself is some kind of monster hentai in a swimming pool

 

I like that tune/video a lot, actually.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqsXshAhC6k

[sun drugs]

some good info in here.

 

personally i have seen the value first hand of being friendly, making online contacts and supporting your new internet mates.

got me a record signed on a decent label so i can vouch. but i feel as though LUCK is a also a big part in many peoples success, i feel like i was right place at the right time

 

everything has been mentioned in a lot of depth in here so good luck re-inventing that bandcamp. get ready for the $$ to roll in

[MadameChaos]

i think he's gone guys....let's talk about eggs instead.

 

I do a fucking lovely poached egg. nice and runny yolk served on wholewheat bread with cracked black pepper. mmmmmm...

 

i love eggs benedict

 

 

 

[poblequadrat]

basically nobody makes a living out of music in 2014

give up

[Guest]

basically nobody makes a living out of music in 2014

give up

 

The successful ones do!

[poblequadrat]

 

basically nobody makes a living out of music in 2014

give up

The successful ones do!

 

 

That's true. I dunno, I think trying to get your music released is a good thing because what's the point otherwise, but I wouldn't expect to make any money out of it. It can happen but even big labels such as Mille Plateaux or Rephlex have had their problems... I posted that comment more than anything because scorcho said he needs money as soon as possible.

[Berk]

Anyone ever played catch with raw eggs? Trying not to break them is the hardest part. And don't cook them that's cheating

[sun drugs]

so if this opal fella is making a living off selling (other) peoples music, what kind of a cut do you think he's taking?
probably most of the physical sale but what % of the digital do you think he takes/ is fair to take?

[BCM]

Anyone ever played catch with raw eggs? Trying not to break them is the hardest part. And don't cook them that's cheating

*jots it down*

[Audioblysk]

 

if you want your music well known you need to make a youtube music video where the thumbnail is a girl getting fingered and the video itself is some kind of monster hentai in a swimming pool

 

I like that tune/video a lot, actually.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqsXshAhC6k

 

 

Same, I love that track and video. Fuck dem h8rz

[Guest 4OOkg]

Gigs at places where people with interest for the music are hanging out.

 

Promotion, of various kinds. Print out 500 + poster stickers. Place them out at places where a lot of people are moving around. Bus stops, metros or around big cities. (this can of course be discussed whether its OK or not, but really.. whatever)

 

Try get some of your artists that are signed at your label to get gigs at small festivals or events.