All posts in Releasing an Album

For decades, record labels have served as “banks” for musicians, loaning artists money up-front to write, record, and release their music. In the utopian scenario, this up-front money (an advance), would be paid back from the artist’s royalty earnings from album sales (recoupment), and everyone would walk away happy.

In the early 2000s, many major and independent labels began insisting that artists also provide a share of touring, licensing, merch, and sponsorship revenues – called a 360-deal – to help make up for slumping record sales. While we’re not going to debate the intrinsic value or various arguments against these deals, let’s just say they often come with strings attached, requiring artists to give the label a wide range of rights (such as ownership of the master recordings) for extended periods of time.

Of course, getting any sort of label deal is not the priority of many indie artists, and paths now exist to connect you to a targeted source of potential revenue to help you fund your next album, tour, or video: your fans. Fan-funding sites like Kickstarter, Pledge Music, RocketHub, Cash Music, SellABand, Slicethepie, and ArtistShare (among others) continue the shift to an artist-empowered music industry, and provide the tools to easily connect your next endeavor with the people who might be willing to provide the funds you need to get your project off the ground (and completed).

A closer look at Kickstarter
Based in New York City, Kickstarter was launched in 2009 to help artists connect with fans and supporters to raise funds for their creative projects. According to Billboard magazine, Kickstarter has already raised $73.5 million for more than 10,000 successful campaigns. Looking strictly at music-based projects, Kickstarter’s second most popular category after film, bands and artists have raised $16.5 million, funding more than 3,000 projects to date.

Creating a project is straightforward. First, you create an outline that describes your endeavor – including your funding goal, timeline, and rewards offered – and submit that to Kickstarter for review. Justin Kazmark, a member of Kickstarter’s communications team, explains that, “Every week we receive more than 1,000 proposals. Our community team reviews all of them, and typically 60% meet our guidelines and get accepted.”

Once the review is completed (generally a one- to two-day process), an approved project will be posted to Kickstarter.com and open for pledges and sharing with family, friends, fans, and social networks. Campaigns are all or nothing, meaning if you do not reach your goal within the allotted time, none of your backers will have to pay and you receive no funds. If you do reach, or exceed, your goal, the total amount pledged will be yours to keep (minus Kickstarter’s 5% cut), and you can then start your project and fulfilling the designated rewards for your backers.

Exactly what are Kickstarter’s guidelines? First, it must be a creative project that fits into one of Kickstarter’s 13 categories, or blurs the line between multiple categories. Second, it must be a project with an “achievable end point,” not just a means to raise money for a general cause. Third, it cannot be a charity or for a cause, because, as Kazmark explained, “We are a site for creativity and creative projects, not to fund charitable causes. There are other places to do that.” Fourth, they will not accept “fund my life” projects that raise money for things such as to go on vacation or pay for classes. And the final guideline is that there must be rewards offered. “We exist somewhere at the intersection of commerce and patronage, and the reward system is what compels project backers in exchange for pledges,” explains Kazmark.

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