Hello! If you're stopping by for the first time you may want to subscribe to Art Palaver's RSS feed. Or subscribe by Email. This way you will not miss another post. Thanks for visiting!
I was in Somalia when I first started listening to Nine Inch Nails, a band that played what was at the time called “industrial music.” This title was based on the sound of the music and not its ability to stand up to harsh and tough conditions, which is what I think of when I think of “industrial.” I was not a fan of that style of music or Nine Inch Nails but a friend sent me a cassette tape that had NIN’s EP Broken on it. This was back in 1993 in the era of Walkmans and cassette tapes so I did not have a lot of choices with me during my stay in Eastern Africa. Reluctantly I listened to that Nine Inch Nails tape and it did not take long for it to grow on me. So for the past sixteen years I have been a fan.
Nine Inch Nails is pretty much the musical project of one man, Trent Reznor. Back then he had the image of an angry at the world skinny guy who at every show trashed most of the bands instruments. Even though I liked the music I never cared for Trent. In 1994 he released the album The Downward Spiral and then seemed to disappear. NIN resurfaced a bit in 1999 with the release of The Fragile but that album did not seem to have much traction and Reznor again faded off the pop culture landscape.
It was 2005 when Trent seemed to comeback onto the scene a new man, bigger, cleaner, and most of all smarter. It is when he started to change the music industry through leading by example. A video for the new album was premiered on the band’s website, not on MTV. Reznor released source files of songs so that fans could do their own remixing. Trent saw the new world that technology and the internet was bringing and was early to adapt to it.
Why am I giving you a Nine Inch Nails/Trent Reznor history lesson? Because I feel we have a lot to learn from those who are forging a path. Recently via the NIN Forums Trent offered some advice to musicians who are new or unknown. It is good advice and I wanted to share it with you as well as have a palaver on how it can be applied to other artistic mediums besides music.
It all started with this Tweet (via Twitter), “Beastie Boys / TopSpin get it right once again. This is how you sell music today. http://bit.ly/Aj9yw” And what he is referring to is the fact that the Beastie Boys offer up a bunch of options for fans to get their hands on Beastie music and Beastie merchandise directly from them through a service like TopSpin. Many people read that Tweet and replied with comments saying that only works for musicians who are already established. It is because of those replies Trent offered advice to those musicians still struggling to get known.
His first piece of advise is, “Establish your goals. What are you trying to do / accomplish?” (Where have I heard that before?) Thinking about what you want your art career to look like will help you in knowing what path it takes to reach your goals. If you don’t know your destination how can you know what roads to take? Some artists simple desire the ability and the resources to keep creating. Others dream of being rich and famous in their respective field. These two different paths could be the difference in seeking representation or taking care of your own business. If you have not already planned and written down your goals as an artist that should be first on the list. This advice holds true for any hat you want to wear in life.
Mr. Reznor’s next bullet point may sound a little discouraging at first but I believe he is onto something:
“Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters.”
Remember this is for little or unknown artists. The idea here is to give away something in exchange for information. Most likely a name and an email address. Any artist working in any medium can apply this idea. Photographers can give away hi-res jpgs, writers can offer chapter samples or whole books, painters can offer simple contests for a print, a sculptor could have a similar drawing for a smaller piece, it can work with anything. Heck you can even get people to offer up their friend’s email addresses in exchange for your art, like I write about in this post. Nine Inch Nails gave away a whole album, The Slip, which you can download for free here.
The idea is to build a list. Your list will be the foundation to your creative career. And as you grow your list, nurture your list, and take good care of it, it will become the most valuable asset to making money with your art. Managing and taking care of your list are a topic for another post though. Take his advice and think outside the box a bit on how you can effectively offer something of your art in exchange for a little bit of information. Trust me you will see a return on this investment.
This palaver is continued in this post.
Related posts:
