Indie Artist X Project Wrap Up

Background:

About.com Music Careers, Artists
House Music, KnowTheMusicBiz.com, MusicianWages.com, Revolution Number 3
and Hypebot banded together to create a basic, actionable music marketing plan designed around simple strategy,
prioritization of tactics, easy to use tools, and a reasonable budget.  It’s our hope that any hard
working, talented musician can utilize this plan to grow their fan base and
help lay the foundation for a sustainable career in music.

Our group worked
with one anonymous artist to design this music marketing plan then track and
report the actual results over a four month period (July – October 2009).
The group members were allowed to offer suggestions, advice and guidance to the
artist but were not permitted to do any actual work on the artist’s
behalf. During the project the artist had no record label, manager or booking
agent support and was solely responsible for doing all the work to implement
and maintain the marketing plan.

The Artist:

Austin Collins from Austin Collins and the Rainbirds is the artist who
anonymously participated in the Indie Artist X Project. Austin regularly
demonstrates many of the traits required to succeed as a modern indie artist.
Austin not only has the ability to write great songs and personally connect
with fans but he is also tech savvy, business smart and has an undeniable work
ethic.

As the IAXP was preparing to kick off Austin won the 2009
AirPlay
Direct “All Things Americana” artist contest. Austin is
using the $35,000 contest prize package to self release his third studio
record, due out in February 2010.

To learn how Austin originally got involved with in the
Indie Artist X Project check out this blog post.

The Statistics:

Below
are a few of the statistics that were tracked during the 4 month project.

To
see the complete project statistics check out the “Stats Summary”
tab of the publically available IAXP music marketing plan
document.

A Few IAXP Observations:

Like many
experiments this one was far from perfect. For example, we were not able to
successfully measure Austin’s distribution or direct sales. His previous
label only provides semi-annual reporting on distribution sales and failed to
provide the art files needed to setup direct CD or merchandise sales for Austin’s
new website store.

Touring really
makes a difference. Austin seems to have the ability to connect with fans
when he plays live. His email fan list and website traffic both see positive,
incremental growth when he tours. The flip side of this trend is that Austin
spent much of September and October writing and recording his new record and
less time playing live. The stats growth in both of those months slowed measurably.

Digital royalties
are anemic at best. Even though Austin writes his own songs, owns the
copyrights to his songs and has had thousands of plays on Last.FM, Pandora,
Imeem, etc. he has never had royalties reported or paid through Soundexchange. He
has only received two checks in the last four years from BMI. If there is ever
going to be a musician middle class digital royalties must be paid on a per play basis.

A music marketing
plan is no silver bullet. A solid music marketing plan is certainly helpful
but there is no single tool or approach that can guarantee a successful career
in music. Building a sustainable career in music these days takes a
considerable amount of time, an extraordinary amount of talent and hard work, a
“build one fan at a time” mentality and infinite patience.

Wrap Up:

Watching the many small successes and setbacks of a hard
working indie artist from the front row has certainly been a great learning
experience for everyone involved. Many thanks to Bruce @Hypebot,  Andrew @Artistshouse,
Cameron @MusicianWages, Heather @About.com
MusicCareers , Martin Atkins, Katie and Joanna @RevolutionNumber3
and @AustinCollins for all their
hard work to pull the Indie Artist X Project together. – David Rose