Tax Tips for Indie Artists

I thought I would offer a few Tax Tips to keep in mind when that time of year rolls back around.

The reasons this topic fills most people with dread, is lack of preparation, little advance planning and minimal education about the topic. It's not necessary to become an accountant, but it is certainly helpful to have some basic understanding of how the money you earn and the expenses you incur in order to operate as a professional touring musician, impact upon your tax liability.

The I.R.S. has a number of informative booklets that they make available in both hard copy form and from their web site.http://www.irs.ustreas.gov, or your may order them by calling 1-800-829-3676. Some of these forms provide valuable information for anyone attempting to run a home-based small business and then another more specific to the entertainment industry.

IRS Publication 587- Business Use of Home

If you are receiving payment when you play music, you are in business. Since most musicians operate their small business from their homes, this publication offers specific information about what deductions are allowable. You may be aware of many of them and some may be new to you. I'll mention just a few major items that ought to be included in your planning.

1. The Office- Whether you have a dedicated office space within your home or you use the kitchen table when meals are not happening, there is potential that the space may qualify as a deductible expense. The rules are very strict. For instance, personal items may not be kept in the space allocated for business use. This will disqualify the deduction. The booklet describes the exact amount of the deduction based on the room's percentage of business usage and its percentage of square footage in relation to the rest of the home.

   
   

2. Utilities- Heat, Water and Sewage and Electric- A portion of your bills may be deducted based upon the business usage.

   
   

3. The Phone- If you do not have a separate phone to use for your business, then you may only deduct the long distance or local call charges specific to doing the business. You may not deduct the basic service charges for the home phone.

   
   

4. Insurance- It's a great idea to have a separate business insurance policy. Check with an insurance agent about adding a rider to your homeowners or renter's policy. This is deductible. Perhaps you have a separate instrument insurance policy; this is a deductible item. Most homeowner's policies will not necessarily cover your instruments. There are special companies who provide instrument insurance. Clarion is one such company. ASCAP also provides an instrument insurance policy plan.

   
   

5. Stage Clothes- Stage clothes may be deducted if you do not where them off-stage. If you are not into dressing up for your shows and don't have separate stage attire, then you may not deduct the cost of your clothing.

   
   

6. Office Supplies, Office Furniture and Equipment- These are all deductible expenses. Check with you accountant though, some larger more expensive items may have to depreciated rather than deducted as an expense in the year they are purchased. If you purchase a new editing suite, recording equipment or various items of furniture, you may have to depreciate the expense over a specific number of years.

   
   

The home office is one the many areas where individuals operating a home-based business have been caught by the IRS for taking unqualified deductions. Use the booklet to plan ahead and work closely with your tax preparer, accountant or CPA.

While I'm on the subject, one of the most important associations you can make as you build your career is to find a really good Tax Professional. Check around and interview a number of people to determine if they have any other clients in the music and entertainment industry. It will be helpful to you if they are familiar with tax rules that may apply specifically to your industry as well as to the fact that you are a self-employed, home-based business.

Brought to you courtesy of NMTINC

Happy Recording

http://www.soforealproductions.com

Real Beats for Real Artists

How to Get Your Music on Pandora

How do I submit my music, or my band's music, to be considered for Pandora?

Overview:

Pandora thrives on little-known and yet-to-be-discovered music. Introducing listeners to music they've never heard before is one of our central missions, and we welcome independent artists from all backgrounds and levels of visibility, working in all styles, to submit their music for possible inclusion in Pandora's Music Genome Project.

We have a deep respect for the music and those who create it and take the responsibility of curating Pandora's music collection very seriously. We see an enormous (and always growing) amount of music, and the task of selecting music is made even harder by the limits on our capacity for adding music. Every song selected is manually analyzed by a trained musician along up to 400 distinct musical attributes, a process that can take anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours per song.

The Basics: How to Submit

To submit music to Pandora, you'll need these items:

1) a CD of your music

2) a unique UPC code for that CD*

3) this CD to be available through Amazon as a physical CD (and not just as MP3s)-- and for the name of each track to be listed in the "Track Listing" section on the page for that CD**

4) the legal rights to your music

5) a standard free Pandora account, based on a valid email address, that will be associated with this submission

6) MP3 files for exactly two songs from your CD

Once you have all of these items ready to go, you can submit your music to Pandora for consideration here: http://submitmusic.pandora.com/.

What criteria do you use in accepting or declining a submission?

We try to balance a knowledgeable and fair evaluation of the music's value to our collection with what we know and can predict about the interests of our listeners and the current state of Pandora stations. Our goal is to put together a collection of music that will be most pleasing to listeners who will hear it. While listeners can quickly vote with their "Thumbs Up" or "Thumbs Down," we have an important role to play in determining what music to put in front of them. There is no larger significance or judgment implied by our adding or not adding a release to Pandora.

After Submission

Please don't write to check up on your submission, as that will just take away time we could be using to work on listening to submissions.

An updated status message for your submission can always be viewed here:http://submitmusic.pandora.com/submit/status. You'll need to be signed in to Pandora with the same Pandora account that you used to submit your music in order to see your submission status.

Please note again that there is no guarantee that your music will be accepted. If the decision is made to include your music in Pandora's Music Genome Project, then we'll get in touch to ask you to send the CD to us, along with a form legally authorizing Pandora to play the music on your CD.

Please don't send us your CD until you hear back from us!

Thanks again for your interest in having your music on Pandora. We wish you the very best in your musical career.

How many albums / CDs can I submit?

It is only possible to submit one CD at a time to Pandora. If you attempt to submit more than one, your subsequent submissions will be marked "Problem" and will not make it through to our review team. Only after your first submission has appeared on Pandora (or been rejected) will you will be able to submit another album-- and we strongly recommend you wait at least six months before you submit an additional CD. If you are a new artist to our collection, usually we will want to wait to see how your first release does on our stations before we consider more of your music.

Please note that having one "Accepted" submission does not guarantee that future submissions will be accepted. Each submission is reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

I already have a CD in Pandora. Do I still have to go through the submissions process for my future releases?

Yes, you must go through the same process for each CD you submit. We take each submission on a case-by-case basis. If you have music in our collection already, its performance on Pandora stations will be a significant factor in our decision on whether to add new work.

Troubleshooting Submission Problems

*IMPORTANT NOTE on Step 2): To obtain your own UPC code at a low cost, click here. If you already have a UPC code for this particular CD-- for instance, through your record label-- just use that one.

**IMPORTANT NOTES on Step 3):

• To make your CD available on Amazon (after you have a UPC code), you can sign up for the low-cost Amazon Advantage program (click here).

• Within the Amazon information for your CD, make sure you are listed as the "Artist" (not "Performer" or any other field) and that "Tracks" are correct for each track on the CD. If you need assistance correcting your album art or information on Amazon,click here. We cannot emphasize enough how important it is to make sure all information is correct on Amazon before submitting your music to Pandora!

• We cannot accept music available only as an MP3 download through the Amazon MP3 store; you must have a physical CD for sale through Amazon.

  • If your CD is being physically sold through CD Baby, and you checked the "opt in for instore distribution" box in your CD Baby account, you may need to request that CD Baby manually correct the meta-data they deliver to Amazon for your album, including track listing, before you can submit to Pandora. You can contact CD Baby to make this request by sending an email to cdbaby@cdbaby.com with "PANDORA" in the subject line.

  • If your CD is being physically sold through TuneCore, it may be 1-2 weeks for the meta-data, such as track listing, to be completed on the Amazon side. Once you see track listings appear for your physical CD in TuneCore, you're ready to submit to Pandora.

  • If your CD is being physically sold through Amazon's CreateSpace program (also known as "CD on Demand"), you should be able to submit to Pandora right away. Again, make sure you are listed as the "Artist" (not "Performer") and that "Tracks" are correct for each track on the CD.

IMPORTANT NOTE on Step 6):

You must submit exactly two songs. You cannot submit a single track on its own.

Thanks again for your interest in having your music on Pandora!

Visit http://blog.pandora.com/faq/contents/31.html to begin the submission process.

Happy Recording,

http://www.soforealproductions.com

Real Beats for Real Artists

CD Release Tips

Here are some step-by-step tips to help make your next CD a success:

1. Pick a single before you have a release date for your CD.
2. Choose a release date for the single that’s a few weeks ahead of the release of the CD.
3. Build anticipation for the release of the single. Mention it on your social networking sites, website and mailing list at least a few days in advance. If you have a good story behind it or anything interesting to say about it then talk about it. You could even add a countdown timer on your website to build the anticipation.
4. Launch the single on your website. Create a very simple landing page with:
   • A graphic that promotes your new album with the release date.
   • A small MP3 player or a video player that plays your new single or a 90 second sample of it.
   • A mailing list signup form.
   • A very visible graphic that says: “Sign up for email updates to download this song for free!” or something similar.
5. Use all of your social media outlets, your mailing list and any other means to direct people to your website immediately upon the release of the single.
6. Play the single at every show after you release it online.
7. Use your mailing list, social media, live shows and word of mouth to build anticipation for the album in the days leading up to the release.
8. Have a CD release party.
9. Work it! Sell some CDs! As the late, great Jim Rohn used to say, “Maturity is the ability to reap without apology and not complain when things don’t go well.”

Now is the time to reap without apology.

(article courtesy of Discmakers.com)

Happy Recording

http://www.soforealproductions.com

Real Beats for Real Artists

Got Summer Music?

Then here's what you need to do... I'ma get simple with this. Pass out the music to the college students... Before they let out for the summer. Because when they let out they will go back to their cities and spread the word for you and party to your music if your music is good.

So if you're in a state that has 2 or 3 main colleges, focusing on those colleges will get you farther, faster. Happy Recording.

http://www.soforealproductions.com/

Real Beats for Real Artists

Test Your Music

There's nothing wrong with playing freshly recorded stuff for family and friends... we do it all the time! Let me suggest some things you can do to get the most out of it.

1) Note their ages. Kids won't lie... look at their faces and body language.. do they get up and start dancing or do they start watching TV? Adults have a hard time making their body language lie too... do they tap their feet? etc.

2) Don't tell them it's you at first... tell em it's something you found lol. Then ask for their opinion and see how they react when you say it's you.

3) Ask them to be honest. Sounds like a 'duh' thing but you will be surprised how different the response will be just by asking them to be honest!

Gather up all of your data and use that to decide if you need to try again or if you have a hit on your hands! If the kids were jumping all over the house, but the adults were like oh, just another one of your lil hobbies I have to smile about (lol), then you know your audience. Happy Recording!

http://www.soforealproductions.com

Real Beats for Real Artists

Twitter and the Indie Artist

As an indie artist, Twitter is a Godsend. Here are different ways to you can use Twitter as an artist:

Use Twitter to meet other artists. There's millions of Twitter users...some of them are bound to be artists like you!

Use Twitter to announce sneak previews for your products or changes to your website.

Use Twitter to announce television appearances. And don't forget any "appearances" on radio, podcasts, blogs, magazines, and newspapers.

Use Twitter to gather feedback about your products. Post a new product and let your customers tell you what they think!

Use Twitter to communicate with your customers when your website goes down or when you lose your Internet connection.

Use Twitter as a survey tool. Need to know what people think about something? Throw the question out there and find out!

Do you have an artist's co-op or Etsy team? Create a Twitter account just for that co-op or team to get your group news out!

Use Twitter as an information resource for your followers by including links to useful websites and bits of news.

Use Twitter to do live reporting at a gallery opening, exhibition, or conference.

Use Twitter to give special offers just for your followers...you might even want to create a special, private Twitter account just for this.

Use Twitter for inspiration. If you follow interesting people, you'll get a lot of idea and resources that you've never thought about...you can use Twitter for more than just tooting your own horn!

Use Twitter to get help. If you have a problem or a question, post a tweet and let your followers come to the rescue.

Happy Recording

http://www.soforealproductions.com

Real Beats for Real Artists

10 Great Music Marketing Ideas

Here are 10 music marketing ideas from the Music 3.0 Internet Music guidebook. It’s easier to sell your music if you add extra value to it, so it helps to think outside the box when it comes to distributing your music. Thanks to Bruce Houghton of the great music blog Hypebot for numbers 7 through 10.

1) Develop a package - This could mean anything from a CD and a vinyl album, to a digital download and album with all alternative mixes, to a boxed set of CD’s or anything in-between (Trent Reznor’s Ghosts I-IV is a great example). The idea is to go beyond just the typical CD and digital offerings.

2) Sequential numbering - Numbering a physical product (for example; "#5 of 1000") gives it the feeling of exclusivity. The product becomes a special edition and a must-have for the true fan.

3) Tie it to merchandise - Offer a physical product that contains the code for a free download of your album. Mos Def was so successful with the T-shirt release of The Ecstatic that Billboard magazine even began counting it as a music release on their charts. Other artists have sold their music via codes on such items as golf balls, bandanas and even canned food!

4) Release a “double-sided” digital single - Rhino Record's digital releases celebrating 60 years of the 45 RPM single set a fine example for this format. For between $1.49 and $1.99, Rhino provided the original hit song, its B side (the flip side of the vinyl record) and the original artwork. You can do the same by providing two songs for price of one - an A and a B side.

5) Release on an old alternative format - We’ve seen some artists (The Decemberists Hazards of Love come to mind) release a vinyl-only physical product to great success. Cheap Trick did it on the old 8-track format from the 60’s, and some bands have even recently released on cassette tape. Releasing on a older format can be good as a publicity tool (as long as everyone else isn’t doing it) and who knows, maybe you can start a trend?

6) Release on a new alternative format - A new alternative format that’s getting some traction is flash memory, or the common USB memory stick. Once again, Trent Reznor met with great viral success by planting unmarked memory sticks in bathrooms at Nine Inch Nail’s concerts, and Sony even released the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s Thriller on the format. Everybody uses these things so you’re bound to get at least a look, which you can’t always say about other formats.

7) Three Sides - Offer a song in an early studio version, the final mix, and then captured live.

8) Radical Mixes - Offer two or three very different mixes of the same song, perhaps even done by the fans.

9) Two Sides of (Your City) - Two different bands each contribute a track to a series chronicling your local scene.

10) “Artist X” Introduces _____ - Add a track by your favorite new artist/band along with one of yours. This is similar to a gig trade-out with another band that many bands use as a way to play in new venues. The idea is that the band you feature will also feature you on their release as well.

Tips courtesy of Music3Point0.. Happy Recording!

http://www.soforealproductions.com/

Real Beats for Real Artists