Album Done - $1000 to Spend... A Discussion

A thousand bucks won't get you far. I'd say invest in a professional promo package (pics, bio, etc...) that you can use to apply for some grants if you qualify. Up here in Canada if you have an album you can apply for grants to do a video, promotions and manufacturing/distro type stuff. You would use the promo package to apply and you can also send it out to labels and stuff. Use them sparingly. I'm not sure how many packages you'd get for a $1000 these days but if my memory isn't too fuzzy you might 20 or so out of it after you pay for the photo shoot and all the other stuff involved. 

You CAN do much of that stuff yourself but if you want to be taken seriously they expect it to be done by an established company who specializes in this kind of thing.

I may be a little fuzzy on these details because I've never done this directly myself but worked at a place that did and was involved in a band years ago that had it done a couple times. We were involved with a pretty well known indie label back then so everything had to be done by the book. Cheers.

If you have photos together already that should cut the cost down significantly but you'll still want to get the promo pack put together professionally. Some places might give you a hard time about not using their photographer but if you push them or hunt around you can get it done.

The promo pack is imperative for grants and stuff because it shows you are serious. Same thing with labels. One thing to be aware of if you intend on marketing yourself to labels on your own... well don't. You can make make up a name and pretend that you are a separate manager/agent but that gets a little sticky if you get busted. Again the promo pack can help you get an agent as a go between between you and the labels.

Again I'll say my knowledge on this is kind of second hand and likely sketchy and I personally don't like all the fake bullpoop we have to go through for the labels to look at our stuff but that is unfortunately the nature of the beast. Seriously with that amount of cash the promo packs are the way to go, find a decent agent (research the hell out of anyone you are considering because there are lot of losers and sheisters out there).

Also you might want to set aside some cash for a website or if you already have one to develop it a little further.

Good luck, dude. It's a jungle out there. 

Yea I wish the video option was doable. Would love to have some videos for the album I'm making. But I know cheap looks cheap haha. Thanks for your input. If anyone else has any thoughts, would love to hear them.

Well here's a question to you and anyone else... Are there any PAID ENTRANCE sites you recommend paying for? For example ReverbNation has it's paid offerings that offer more promotional tools and whatnot. Things like that. On the side from making music for albums I also have scored films and am considering paying for IMDBpro soon since my profile is slowly but surely starting to gain some credits.

Oh yea I have 6 albums distributed through CDbaby. They're all niche type albums though, where as the thing I'm going to be releasing soon is something I take much more seriously. But I have no complaints with CDbaby. They distribute me to iTunes, Amazon and all the other big names and don't take too much off the top.

My personal opinion (and what I plan to do when I finish my album) is unless you have the backing of some serious money behind you, don't even bother trying to sell your music. The most important thing is a fan base. Without that, you have nothing. No-one wants to pay for a band they have never heard of and won't just pick up a cd and buy it just like that. If it's FREE however, you might have a bit better of a chance. I figure distribute it free, and get your friends to tell their friends and their friends about it. Get a fan base. Once you have that, you can go to a record and say "look at all these potential customers out there ready to buy my products". Then they want you. If you got no-one they couldn't care.

Or you get lucky ;)

That's my 'average musician' pessimistic take on it anyway!

I agree with the fan base idea. If you are playing live.... hopefully you have been collecting email addresses and setting up some sort of communication path to your fans... 

As a small time, limited budget, artist, selling to fans is the best way to go. It take huge budgets for marketing and advertising to sell CD's to the masses. 

This is where creative thinking and figuring out how to create the buzz about your product and music is most critical. The internet is a good resource and way to get it out.... BUT, everybody and their brother is also using the same tactics.  How can YOU stand out from the crowd? I'd look back at that fan base and live gigs.... sell the CD's at the venues and other merchandise too...and build that email fan base.... 

good luck. 

You know what you could do is start hunting around for folks who do webcast radio shows and toss them some tunes. Just like college radio stations were a great in for a lot of us not so knowns. In fact... contact some college radio stations too.

This thread is actually getting my brain moving in the right direction too. I've always been bogged down by other dum dums with weird ideas about how this type of thing should be done. It'll be nice being free from those shackles.

Haha yea, I think web radio shows are a big thing, especially for my genre (electronic or more specifically electronic new-age). Gonna just have to start really putting in work gathering names and places. Compilations is a good idea I hadn't thought of though. I mean I've had my music included on compilations in the past, but they're always local and now that you mention it, I haven't really looked into the possibility of getting on other compilations.

I'm glad this thread is getting some hits. I mean there's not really a lot of information out there for people in this situation. It's either "you have ZERO dollars so go start a facebook and do some local shows and get your buddies to share it" or "you have investors looking to fund big professional music videos, a tour, ads and etc etc etc, so here's a list of things to spend tons of money on" ... what about someone who has a healthy but small little pile of cash to spend on getting him (or her)self heard?

i'm aiming to have my press pack together by the end of January. album done by the end of February and hopefully first video ready by then too if some of the collaborators I've met come through... or if i figure out a cool, unique, cheap but cool concept I can do myself.

anyone else with any ideas please continue to post and whatever i think of i'll post here. honestly my main reason for starting the question in the first place was to hopefully find out about some paid-for services/companies/websites that are worth giving a little chunk of my money to help get me some exposure. there's so many of them out there, it's hard to decipher which would be worth the money and which wouldn't.