Publishing Deal!
Current mood: jubilant
Category: Music
We are very proud and excited to announce that we have just finalised an agreement with one of Europes biggest and most respected film companies, Zentropa. Zentropa Entertainments is a Danish film company started in 1992 by director Lars von Trier, famous for numerous award-winning films such as Europa, Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark.
EntropiK is now an official supplier of music to the Zentropa music library, and will also have potential opportunities to score films made by Zentropa directors. This is a significant and very exciting development in our career and we'll be keeping you informed on further developments - especially if we land ourselves a little film score to work on!
Catch Striking Poses at City Fest (Leeds)
Current mood: excited
Category: Music
CITY FEST TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE
Somethingcore Music presents CityFest, a weekend festival of Leeds' finest up-and-coming bands and DJs at Trash (9a Albion Street, LS1) Advance tickets will save you a couple of bob. Striking Poses will be amongst the Sunday lineup at around 17:30. You know you wanna...
Getting your music further afield
Current mood: busy
Category: Music
This blog is fairly similar to one we posted back in January. It was a popular post so we thought we'd update it slightly and get it back in view again.
We can strongly identify with the status of penniless musician - we count ourselves in that category. We spend our waking hours writing, playing and marketing ourselves in the hope of catching a break. We've had a few promising bites here and there but more often than not the oasis turns out to be a mirage. We can't stop though... it's in our blood. We know that the above sentiments are something of an anthem amongst independent/ unsigned musicians.
We all measure success differently and there is simply no magic solution to achieve our goals overnight whatever they might be. Everyone knows that hard work and dedication are vital ingrediants. The rest is trail, error, and often a large measure of luck - being in the right place at the right time or perhaps having access to contacts that most of us would give our eye teeth to have even a brief audience with. These facts aside, it helps to have tips and pointers from people who have gained valuable experience. Over the years we have learnt much of what we know about the music biz from other musicians happy to share their knowlege, and we are no different.
In the time that we've been together, we've picked up some pretty useful tips on effective marketing and we're keen to share these with fellow musicians. You'll notice 3 banners at the end of this message.
The first is for a site called MusicSubmit, an online marketing campaign site, which submits your music to well-targeted online radio stations, e-zines and labels. They have just started a label-only campaign for sending your work to suitable indie labels. They charge a reasonable fee for the work they do. We submitted for radio play 6 months ago and we're still getting onto playlists all over the net, and have landed some FM radio play off the back of it. It has also helped to increase awareness of our music and by extension, album sales. Given the amount of time and money spent posting demos far and wide (often to places that file unsolicited CDs directly in the bin), they are a gem and one of the very few artist-focused marketing businesses around. Unlike the hordes of self-serving pay-to-play outfits who who claim to be your answer to fame fortune and adoration by the masses (regular readers of our blogs will know just how much we despise these low-lives), MusicSubmit delivers exactly what it promises, which is to promote your music far and wide, not to turn you into a millionaire rock star. Anyone who promises you that is lying and should be avoided at all costs. No-one can guarantee you success. Another great feature MusicSubmit offers is their affiliate program, which can help to pay for whichever campaign you elect. All you have to do as an affiliate is copy and paste banners to advertise their site wherever you can - the more, the better. You earn $0.15 per click - it won't make you wealthy overnight, but every little helps!
The banner beneath MusicSubmit is for SongCast, an official distributor to iTunes and AmazonMp3, and soon to Napster, Rhapsody and eMusic. We frequently get asked how we got our music onto iTunes - the answer is through Songcast.com. They are one of a rapidly growing number of digital music distributors, many of which we're not familiar with and so are not able to pass comment one way or another. We recommend them for several reasons: they've been knocking about for a relatively long time and have established relationships with their vendors, they know the market well, so their fees are competitve They charge an admin fee to submit your album and a small monthly fee of $5.99 per account. There is no limit to the number of albums one account can submit and the monthly fee is fixed. Albums take around 6 weeks to appear on the vendor sites and Songcast offers a few marketing tools to help promote your work including linking codes, a profile page and a widget for AmazonMp3. Like MusicSubmit, they also have an affiliate program which pays a fee for artist referrals and tiered commission for their album sales. Very few independent musicians make a living out of their album sales, but it makes sense to use a distributor who doesn't cost you more than you make in album sales and offers an additional way to recouperate some of your costs.
Regular readers of our blog will also be aware of our love affair with the music promotion site, Reverbnation. This is the third banner and we're still singing their praises loud and clear. Reverbnation is probably the fastest growing music site on the net quite simply because there's nothing else like them. They have developed and continue to develop the most incredible marketing tools which can be integrated into pretty much any other networking site or personal website. All free of charge. These include widgets to spread your music, collect fans, build a street team and mailing list, advertise gigs and create banners which both you and your fans can deploy anywhere html-friendly on the internet. They are fully inetgrated with Facebook, and you can use your Facebook network of friends to further promote your music and grow your fan base. Reverbnation has more fantastic tools in the wings including potential brand partnerships for artists, digital distribution and advanced tagging capabilities for your mailing list. Now the cherry on top: one of the reasons the site is so successful is because everytime artists use their tools elswhere on the internet they are helping to advertise and promote the site as well as their own work. To say thank you, Reverbnation has set up Fairshare accounts which any artist can sign up to. Depending on how active your profile is and the number of new users you attract to the site, you can earn a percentage of the site's overall revenue. Again, you won't be sunning yourself in the Maldives on your earnings, but what other site pays you just for using it?
Finally, you may or may not have come across online music libraries. There are hundreds of them and some are not worth the web space they occupy, but there are some decent ones too. We have uploaded a large portion of our catalogue to Audiosparx.com. They are one of the web's largest royalty-free libraries and sell music for use in films, media, ringtones, etc as well as personal use. You set the prices for your tracks and decide what to make them available for. There is no charge for uploading or hosting your work. They take 50% of your sales, but should your music get used commercially, you get the full synchronisation fees. You do not loose any rights to your music and you are free to sell it elsewhere. You can also specify what sort of productions you don't want your music used for - e.g. racist, pornography, political propoganda, etc. Because of the magnitude of the site, you need to upload as much as you can and categorise it in detail to ensure that you will come up in as many searches as possible. It can be pretty slow for sales, but there is always the chance that your work will get picked up for commercial use which is potentially a big break and a foot in the door of more exclusive and selective music libraries.
More BBC Airplay for EntropiK! (Oh, and more dodgy sites...)
Current mood: chipper
Category: Music
Hello lovely people!
We are delighted to announce that Wrong Side of Sunrise has once again been selected for airplay on Tom Robinson's Introducing show (BBC 6 Music) on one of his upcoming Sunday morning shows between 00:00 and 02:00 (otherwise know as very late on Saturday night) and again on Monday morning between 01:00 and 03:00 (aka even later on Sunday night). This is GMT of course. For many people elsewhere in the world, it's on at a much more accessible time. If you miss it you can still catch it on the BBC iPlayer for a week after the show. To tune in online, go to www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/tom_robinsons_introducing/
Onto less pleasant topics: those MySpace parasites who pose as your best buddies in the music industry and enter into a steamy romance with your wallet. We received a friend request from an outfit claiming to be a funky new music library with some impressive looking clients and a few blogs about protecting ownership of your music, getting ahead in the digital age and how well their business has done in the short time it has been running. Perhaps we're just too damn cynical...? Here's where our hackles went up: to be considered for their catalogue, you have to pay $15 to their "review staff". IF they like wht they hear, you will be "signed" and apparently the cash will come rolling in as you see your music getting licensed for film and TV usage. If not, you've paid for a round of Starbucks at the office. We are not in a position to suggest that they aren't licensing music from their catalogue, but as musicians who have written a lot of production music which exists in various music library catalogues, we've never come across one that demanded a fee upfront. So let's take a look at the maths.
In the 12 months or so that they have been in business, they have signed over 300 artists. That amounts to $4,500. Not exactly a sum to retire on, but how many artists didn't get signed? Let's assume that they sign 1 in 10 artists... now the money's looking more enticing. Add to that the 40% of all licensing fees they earn. Admittedly this is around 10% less than most libraries, but that 10% margin is being more than compensated for from the pockets of struggling artists. Simply put, it's just another "pay to play" gig.
What do you think your music is worth? More and more artists feel that music should be free to listen to which is another thorny subject all of its own, but we shall leave that aside for now. It costs $9.99 to download a full album from iTunes. Anybody think it's right to pay someone $15 to listen to 4 tracks...?
Check out this video: One Point of View
Current mood: animated
Category: Music
Hi All :) Just a quick one. This is us busking in Leeds centre the other day. For those that are local we hope you look out for us on nice days. Either in Central square or on Briggate. Anyway we hope you enjoy
Very quick blog here to let you all know about our latest track, which is in some ways a departure from the sound you may have become accustomed to. We'll not be too specific as to how - we'd love you to listen and tell us what you think!
jubilant
excited
busy
chipper
animated
