Slides from a 4 session class I teach call "The Music Business for Fun and Profit"

1. Good News – Bad News
 Good News first:
You can compose and record heavy metal
acoustic disco tuba music sung in ancient
Greek and find someone who will play it and
somewhere you can sell it.
 Now the Bad News:
It ain’t easy.
 Now more Good News:
You took the right class!

2. Most of what all of us have learned is wrong!
 Like no other business in the world, the
music business is full of myths, incomplete
and unintelligible information, PR, hype and
enough nonsense to fill an encyclopedia.
 The industry has really split into two
separate businesses: the entertainment
business and the music business.
 No other business has a model that will
permit such a high likelihood of failure. Let’s
take a look at what that means.

3. Of the 115,000 albums released and tracked by
Nielsen/Soundscan in 2009, here is how well they sold:
More than 500,000 34
More than 250,000 110
More than 10,000 1,500
More than 1,000 6,000
Between 1 and 1,000 107,356
That’s about a .03% success ratio. About 70% of these
releases were from major labels.

4.  Who are the majors and where do I fit in?
Warner Music
Group
Sony BMG 11%
22%
EMI Group
13%
Universal Music
Group
26% Indie Labels
28%

5.  What styles of music or artists do you think
have sold the most music in the U.S.?

6.  Who sells the most music?
Amazon
Wal-Mart
Best Buy
Target
Apple
 So where is that good news again?

7.  Who sells the most music?
 So where is that good news again?

8.  The good news is in being small, smart and realistic. The
business is changing. You have to know to take
advantage of the new music business. For example:

9.  So let’s get educated. We’ll start with the
really important stuff:
Copyright is the most important yet most
misunderstood concept in the music
business.
© Laughing Buddha Music 2011