LIVE with Wendy Day #003 | Answering Your Questions Live

and we're going to be right with you with some great information. Pond 5. I know you're anxious to get started and you're saying, where is she? But I'm filling up the cup with Diet Coke. I'll be with you in a minute. You're gonna get some great information today. I'm really excited about this. Pond 5. Hey, I'm almost there, bear with me, it's gonna get started in a minute. Hey, thanks for tuning in though to the live stream, I'm so happy that you're here. I've got some great information for you today, hang in, I'm almost there. Thanks so much for tuning in. Make sure you share this with your friends, and you know what, hit that little subscribe button. I'd love to have you subscribe. Hey, this is Wendy Day. Thanks for coming to my live stream. We're gonna get started in a couple of minutes, so just Chill out, kick back, and we'll be right with you with some great information. I know you're anxious to get started and you're saying, where is she? But I'm filling up the cup with Diet Coke. I'll be with you in a minute. You're gonna get some great information today. I'm really excited about this. Hey, I'm almost there. Bear with me, it's gonna get started in a minute. Hey, thanks for tuning in though to the livestream. I'm so happy that you're here. I've got some great information for you today. Hang in, I'm almost there. Thanks so much for tuning in. Make sure you share this with your friends, and you know what, hit that little subscribe button. I'd love to have you subscribe. Hey, this is Wendy Day. Thanks for coming to my livestream. We're gonna get started in a couple of minutes, so just chill out, kick back, and we're gonna be right with you with some great information. 5. I know you're anxious to get started and you're saying, where is she? But I'm filling up the cup with Diet Coke.

I'll be with you in a minute.

You're gonna get some great great information today. I'm really excited about this. Pond 5. Hey, I'm almost there. Bear with me, it's going to get started in a minute. Hey, thanks for tuning in though to the live stream. I'm so happy that you're here. I've got some— hey everybody, how are you guys doing? This is Wendy Day. I have Tony over here hanging out on the side. Do you want to come say hi? Oh, he ran away. I have Tony over here on the side. He's gonna try to catch some of your questions on the message board because I noticed last week that I missed a whole lot of questions and it made me sad. So thank you for doing this, Tony. I appreciate you.

No problem.

I'm gonna start with one of the questions that somebody emailed into me. This week, and I didn't know if she wanted me to say her name or not, so I'm not going to. I'm not gonna embarrass her just in case. But she, she mentioned that I talk a lot about building buzz, and I've got a video about building buzz, and she wasn't exactly sure what that meant. She doesn't really know what buzz is, so Um, this is for her to clarify. Buzz is the action that occurs when you build awareness about yourself. So the more that other people are talking about you, that's your buzz. If your buzz, the talk about you, is strong enough, then people will come to see you perform, they will stream your music, they will download your music, they will buy your music. They will in general share videos that they like that you make with their friends. That's buzz. Buzz is creating a fan base and enough talk amongst potential fans to turn them into fans, and then to turn those fans into rabid fans. Um, rabid fans are the folks who, um, are your ride or dies. Pretty much you guys here for me That's your rabid fan base, the people that give a shit enough to take time out at 7 o'clock on a Wednesday to tune in to hear me ramble on and answer questions. That's, um, that's rabid fans. Not that you guys are fans, but you know, you're, you're my inner circle, you're my friends. Okay, um, the next question I have is from Courtney Jackson, and Courtney is a producer who's asking whether or not there's such a thing as too soon or too new to try to reach out to music supervisors to get placements on TV shows and other media streams. Um, is there such a thing as too new? No. Is there such a thing as bad music? Yes. You want to make sure that you are at a point in your career where the feedback that you're getting from people around you, and not your family or friends because they probably won't be as critical or as honest as you need them to be. But when you're posting music online and people are responding, not the haters, you know, not the people that have nothing good to say about anybody, but the people who are genuine fans who give you feedback, they tell you what they like and they tell you what they don't like. They just don't, they don't just come out and say, you know, you're a piece of shit and I wish you'd die. The folks that give you positive and critical without being mean feedback, when they start to tell you that your music is at a point where you can actually start shopping it to music supervisors for TV, film, and for video games, then no, it's not too soon. Just make sure that your music is strong Do the research, find out who the legitimate players are in the film and TV world. I should probably put a list together for you guys in my spare time, right, of all the different film and TV folks so that you can reach out to them by phone and by email. But having said that, no, there isn't such a thing as too soon. Just make sure you have ownership of the music and Make sure you have ownership of the lyrics if you're a rapper. In other words, do not rap over a Drake beat and submit it to a movie. It's not gonna— that's not gonna be to your advantage. And then make sure that you follow up with people respectfully. Don't just send it to them and do nothing. You're going to want to follow up and build a relationship. You know, I've attended a lot of panels with music supervisors, and one of the things that they, that they really like in dealing with independent artists and unsigned artists is they don't need a record label to sign off on your song. They just need you to say yes and, and sign a release. And they build up a file of people that they know they can call at the 11th hour. So if they're working on a song for a movie and they can't get it cleared in time and they're at their deadline, they have a list of people that they can reach out to, um, to utilize their music. So it's really great when you reach out to these folks if you let them know that you are the decision maker and you can sign off on your music pretty quickly. Tony, do we have any, um, questions coming in?

Right, well, Mike Doe wants to know, uh, Mike Doe, if you think that Drake is really going to sign with Apple after his last album.

Um, you know, that's such a great question. Um, I, I gotta, I gotta give you the funny answer and say, well, if he signs to Apple, at least he knows he'll get paid, right? Um, I'll be here all night. Tip your waiters. Um, do I think that Drake is going to sign to Apple? I don't know that Apple is trying to become a record label. Remember, the music side of Apple is such a small percentage of what they do. Um, I wrote an article on my blog about a month ago, and in that article I figured out what percentage of income music is for Apple. And I can't remember it offhand, but I want to say it was around 1% or less than 1% of their income comes from music. So I don't imagine that they would want the expense of an artist like Drake where they would have to put up, you know, more than a million dollars in order to properly market and promote him in order to make back, you know, $10, $20, $30 million with him. I just can't imagine, since he's not an Apple product where they could make the lion's share of the income, that they would want to do that, that they'd want to be in the label business. I think it would be really cool if they did do that, they certainly have the exposure. But if he signs to Apple, you know, how is he going to get— how's he going to get streamed on Pandora? How's he going to get streamed on Spotify? If you sign to one of the major outlets, how do you— how do you get on the other outlets? You know what I mean? They're competitors. Are they gonna— is Spotify gonna wanna put Drake into playlists when he's making their competitor, their biggest competitor, wealthy? Er, I don't know, um, but that's a great question. I, I'm anxious to see what Drake does. I imagine there's going to be a wicked bidding war for him.

Um, Coop de Trill the Great—

Coop is in the house!

He wants to know if it's best to release EPs or LPs nowadays.

Um, it's a singles economy. First of all, hey Coop, how you doing? Um, it's a singles economy, so I don't know whether an EP or an album really matters. Um, a year ago, if you had asked me this, I would have told you to put out an album because it takes just as much money to market and promote an album with 10 songs or more as it does to market and promote an EP with 8 songs or less, and you can charge more for an album. So my advice would have been to focus on an album, but the world is so focused on singles now. Like, hip-hop artists, rappers, you guys make the bulk of your money from streaming. You don't make it from people downloading albums. You make it from getting your songs in playlists. Um, you make your money from streaming. So is it better to put out an album or an EP? I had this conversation with, um, Sonny Findley, who works at One RPM Distribution, just this week. He's also an artist, and he puts out— he's a rapper, he's a country rap artist. Um, he puts out only EPs because he feels that he can put out 5 or 6 songs 4 times a year and build his fan base up that way rather than putting out like 2 full-length albums a year. Um, to which my response to him was, well, why not put out 4 albums a year? You know, why hold back? Why not give your fans as much music as possible? Not oversaturate them, but why not? You know, I, I remember when Gucci Mane put out a mixtape a month while he was incarcerated. And by the time he got out, he was at $30,000 or $35,000 a show, which isn't too shabby. Do we have more questions?

We do have more questions. We got a question from Music Edits who wants to know, how was meeting Eminem for the first time?

It was awesome. First of all, thank you for asking that. It was amazing. When I met him, I had just spoken on a panel in Detroit at the Athenaeum Hotel. Um, shout out to the Music Mecca music conference. It was an incredible music conference in Detroit, and I wish they would bring it back. Um, he was so incredibly talented. And you know, back then, the prevailing attitude in the music industry, including myself, was white boys can't rap. And he kind of proved all of us wrong. Like, he just He's so incredibly talented. He was always that incredibly talented. Um, but the thing that I remember most about him was how humble and respectful he was. You know, I shopped a deal for him for almost a year and got really frustrated because none of the labels wanted to take a risk with him. And, um, you know, he had even put out Infinite, his LP— I mean, excuse me, his EP— to try to, you know, show the labels that there was really no risk that people would respond to him. And even that didn't work. And I remember doing Rap Olympics. I really did Rap Olympics for two reasons. One was because the focus was going away from lyrics in rap, which kind of pissed me off because I love lyrics. And the second reason I did it was I wanted to showcase Em and put him in a light where the press would cover it. And, you know, MTV News was there, BET News was there, all of the magazines. This was before the internet. Um, in fact, I added a video to my YouTube page, um, under the Wendy Day interviews. I added a section— excuse me, I added a video, um, from Rap Olympics showing Eminem rap. It's all over the internet. It's not something that's that's exclusive to me. But it just shows you how incredibly talented he was, you know, even back then, and he's just gotten better with age. Thanks for asking that. That was a really cool question.

Okay, Jason Williams wants to know, what's the best market for sync licensing, advertising or film TV?

Film and TV is a little bit easier to, to get to the people, and I think that's what you're asking. I think you're asking what is the best lane to take for the path of least resistance, and it's definitely film and TV. When you start working with the ad agencies, you've really got to get inside the agencies. You've really got to build a relationship with the folks that are in charge of music supervision inside of the ad agencies or inside of the product directly if you're pitching like, you know, Nabisco or, you know, whoever, Budweiser, whoever. The agency folks are a little bit easier to get to than the corporate folks, but for the most part, you've gotta— it takes a little bit longer to build a relationship with an ad agency or the, you know, the advertiser than it does the film and TV folks. The film and TV folks, that's what they do all day, every day. Is they look for music. Inside of an ad agency, the person who's in charge of the music supervision does a whole host of jobs other than just finding music. So they're a little bit harder to reach, and you got to really kind of put in, put in your time there.

Okay, you're going to go—

I'm going to go to— yeah, and then I actually have a question for you that somebody had sent in, if you don't mind. Okay, speaking, but And I don't remember who sent this in, and forgive me, um, I did put your email aside. I don't know what happened to it, but you had asked about crowdfunding. You were thinking about crowdfunding your next release. And the thing about crowdfunding, and I haven't done it yet, but I'm about to— I'm about to crowdfund for my next book, um, not necessarily because I need to crowdfund it, but honestly because I need a deadline. I've been writing it for 3 years and I keep finding stuff to add to it, and in a minute it's going to be this thick, which just doesn't make sense for a book. Um, but for crowdfunding, you need to have— you need to have some sort of a fan base. You need to have people that will tune in to your campaign, your Kickstarter campaign. You've got to have different, um, financial levels so that you could reach people who are willing to give you a dollar— and I'm exaggerating the extremes— and willing people willing to give you $5,000, which are like friends and family, right? They have to know you pretty well to be able to, to cut you a check that large. Um, I know that De La Soul did a Kickstarter campaign. It was extremely successful, but De La Soul has been in the music industry longer than I have, and I'm at 24 years now. So, um, if you're gonna do a crowdfunding campaign, please build up your Twitter followers, your Facebook friends, your Instagram friends. You need to be able to launch your campaign and have enough eyes viewing you that they'll actually, you know, open their wallet and, um, and, and give you something, right?

Julio wants to know, did you really throw Em's tape on the floor?

Yes. Okay, not proud, not a proud moment.

Okay, Baltimore Swagger would like to know, who do you think will be bigger in 5 years, Chris Brown or Drake, as far as success and business?

Drake, Drake, Drake, Drake, hands down. Chris Brown seems to have a lot of demons that he's fighting and Um, he— his attention isn't necessarily great attention, and a lot of that is, is self-propelled. A lot of it is not. A lot of it is the media kind of stirring up, you know, whatever they can because they want bigger eyeballs on them and bigger ratings. Um, but Drake definitely, um, Drake reaches a larger audience, I think, than Chris Brown. Um, do you want to, do you want to weigh in on that, Tony? No.

No?

Okay. Yeah, um, Drake has a bigger audience and Drake seems to have some really great professionals around him. Not that Chris Brown doesn't, but, um, he just seems to have a lot of really strong, you know, empire builders around him. Um, Mandy Savage asked me, um, and you're welcome for, for me doing this, And I love that you guys say thank you. That's really an awesome trait. Um, is there a way to get Facebook and Instagram views monetized? If not, besides YouTube, is there any other sites that are monetized that may be beneficial for me to use? As far as I know, YouTube and Vevo are the only monetized video sites that exist. In terms of audio, I believe SoundCloud just started paying artists. I know Audio Mac, um, started paying artists about maybe a year ago. Um, I know obviously Spotify, Apple Music, you know, I know of all the ones that you know of. Pandora, um, they all pay artists. Make sure, um, you sign up at soundexchange.com so that you get paid for all of the internet streaming sites like Pandora. Pandora just kind of triggered that thought in my head. Um, but no, as of right now, there is no way to get Facebook and Instagram monetized. Um, I do know that they're talking about it. This is kind of Tony's world, and when you sent me this email, I asked him, um, if he knew of any of the scuttlebutt amongst the Facebook community as to when that would happen, and he wasn't quite sure when it would be happening, but he's hearing the rumblings that it's coming. The re— the fact that Facebook isn't monetized is one of the reasons that I started my YouTube channel instead of doing this Facebook Live. For those of you that tune in to Tony, he does Facebook Live. Do you do it every day, Tony?

Almost every day, something like that.

He does it pretty much whenever he feels like it. And if you're following him on Facebook, then you get alerted and to the fact that he's going live and you tune in and, and he does his thing. Um, but it's not monetized and, um, YouTube is. And I think I've made $9 so far, guys. So, you know, keep the questions coming. I mean, $9 for the 2 weeks I've been doing this, not for the 30 minutes that I've been on here.

Okay, uh, Damien Dame wants to know if you could talk about the Bay Area indie hip-hop scene In the '90s.

Oh yeah, the hyphy movement. Wait, in the '90s? Because the hyphy movement didn't come until like the mid— early to mid-2000s. Um, I didn't spend a lot of time in the Bay Area in the '90s, but I learned a lot from E-40 and Too Short, actually. Um, when I was negotiating Twista's deal and we got to a level where the labels, the major labels, were starting to offer him a joint venture, in order to find out like what was fair and acceptable, I reached out to E-40's camp and I reached out to Too Short, and both of them were really awesome in that they gave me the details about their deals with Jive Records. I knew exactly what their advances were, how much money they were getting paid, so that when I was negotiating Twista's deal, I knew that I could ask for that or more. I had learned from them what areas that they were able to get paid in and what areas they were not. For example, creative control. You cannot get paid in— excuse me, you cannot negotiate creative control with a major label because their attitude is, if we're putting up the money, then you get no control. Like, they're not going to put money into something that they don't feel warrants their investment. And the way that E-40 and Short got around that was they delivered completed albums. So instead of recording song by song like most artists do when they're signed to a major label, they just delivered finished albums and got a check for it. And so for the rest of my career, I very quickly learned to deliver completed albums when negotiating a deal. We did that with David Banner, with Twista, with Cash Money, um, pretty much everybody that I worked with. So big shout out to Short and E-40 for, um, giving me that early advice in the beginning of my career when I didn't really know any better.

Got you. We got more questions. Um, I'm going to skip over the guys who've already had one question answered and go to the unique askers of questions. J Shells would like to know, what steps should an upcoming producer take to make sure he's paid properly?

Oh, great question. And, and for those of you that are getting your second or third question skipped over, if you would email them to me at thisiswendyday@gmail.com, I will answer as many of them as I can. I'm gonna do this every Wednesday night until you guys stop joining me. So, um, if you'll email me the questions, I will print them out and put them right here and answer them, you know, as we, as we move forward.

Or you could do what, um, a sensible person would do. Since this is priceless advice, you would filter your questions and ask the one that's most important or hardest for you to find the answer for yourself. That would be my suggestion to you, would be if you want to make sure that Wendy Day answers your question, find out the answers to all of the easy questions and ask her the hard ones.

And don't ask me questions that I've already answered. If I've got a video, like for example, I've got a video about copyrights, so please don't ask me about copyrights. Don't ask me stuff that I've already answered.

Okay, so J Shells is waiting on you.

Yeah, could you ask me again?

J Shells wants to know what steps should an up-and-coming producer take to make sure he is paid properly?

Absolutely. And you know, it's so hard for producers to get paid because it's so oversaturated right now that there's so many producers that are just giving beats away for free, and it's very hard to compete with free, right? Um, but as a producer, you want to make sure that you own 100% of your publishing, which is 50% of the song, and you should not give that up. You should never do work for hire. Work for hire is a very evil phrase. It means that somebody can give you a sum of money, or, or even no money, and when you sign away as a work for hire, it means that you no longer are due any money on the back end for your publishing, for anything. So definitely don't sign a work for hire agreement. But in order to ensure that you get paid properly If the song is a song that's going to get to radio, you definitely want to make sure you're signed up and registered at BMI or ASCAP or SESAC. They're the folks that pay you when you get radio spin. You want to make sure you're registered at soundexchange.com. SoundExchange pays for all of the streaming online, any of the web radio, internet radio streams that occur. The payments come through SoundExchange. Also, Pandora comes through SoundExchange, I believe. You want to have a split sheet. You want to have something in writing, and I like when people do split sheets in the studio when you're still recording because sometimes after people leave the studio, they get selective memory especially when the song blows up and there's money involved. People who didn't do as much on songs tend to remember incorrectly that they contributed more than they really did, and they tend to fight when there's money involved. But if you could do a split sheet in the studio right after you finish recording that breaks down the song and talks about who contributed what and what percentage, you know, if you're the producer, you contributed 50% of the song. If there's two of you making the beat, then you divide that, um, 50% between the two of you however you deem fair. It might be 25/25, or maybe you did more than the other producer, so it is 40%, 10%. But you want to split that half of the song, um, and, and get it in writing. Put it down somewhere on paper and have everybody sign it so that there's no confusion later. And have a lawyer. If somebody gives you a contract, please have a lawyer look over it and advise you as to, you know, what you should sign and what you shouldn't. It's not always what's in a contract that can screw you. Sometimes it's what's missing in a contract that can screw you. So, you know, have an entertainment attorney look it over. Um, can I ask you a question that I got by email this week?

Okay.

Um, and, and I'm a little embarrassed because I don't remember his name, but he sent me an email He had attended— um, do you want to sit down?

No, I don't need to sit down.

Okay. He had attended, um, when we spoke in Chicago, um, on the CD Baby, uh, panel.

Okay.

He had been in the audience and he heard you talking about getting on playlists.

Okay.

And he asked, um, what is the best way to approach somebody and build a relationship with them to get on playlists? Let's take it out of Spotify because I don't want to be that exact Let's talk about how you build a relationship with anybody, whether they're at a streaming service or a record label or at Apple or Pandora.

Well, in this particular instance, he's trying to build a relationship with somebody via online or online digitally. So the very first thing, we know that you want what you want from the person. And the person knows that you want what you want from them. They know you want something from them. So, um, the best way to approach them is not to step right in asking them for what you want from them before they even know who you are, how you are, the type of person you are. So the best way to approach someone digitally that can stand to help you, that is an influencer, is to start by listening. Like, follow them on the different social media sites, um, sign up for their newsletter, um, set up alerts for their web page. Check out what they do, what they say, what they like, and, and, and what their interests are, and then approach them based on the interests that you guys share, um, without being fake. Without being fake.

Without being fake.

Um, a great DJ, a serious DJ from Hip Hop Nation, Nina Nye, is a person that I have met 4 or 5 times, and every time I met her, she always never remembered me. Every time I met her the first 3 or 4 times, she gets mad. When she sees this, she's gonna be mad because she's— I'm all— I always tell her, man, we met 2 months ago and you don't remember me? You got my number in your phone. And she gets mad when I poke it at her. No, no, no, I remember you. No, you don't. So, but anyway, I really like her too.

Yeah.

What I did was I met Nina at a music conference, and, uh, her career has expanded as mine has grown as well. And so, um, in keeping in touch with her and trying to get some, some spins on her show at SiriusXM, um, anytime I would reach out, she wouldn't be sure who I was. So I backed away from her and took some time and just monitored her social media. I noticed that she was a football fan. She's crazy about the Raiders, and she gets her name from being a gun fanatic. And so I started reaching out to her via Twitter and Instagram, um, here and there, once a week, maybe once every other week, about gun picks that she would post on the Raiders who are on a winning streak or what have you, until we developed a rapport. So now we have such a rapport that When we dropped Trouble's last song and she saw it on BET Jams, she hit me and asked me why I never sent it to her. So the way you approach a person or that you establish a relationship with them is by listening to them first. You know, the old folks say you got two ears and one mouth, so, you know, listen twice as much as you talk. Pay attention. We know you got the best music ever. It's better than the angels singing in heaven, and we know that. But before you approach somebody and ask them to give it a listen or ask them to help you promote it or spread it, first learn what they do and how they do it and the best way that they can help you. And it— and especially check to see if there's a way that you can help them, because if you can help them, then that even gives you a better position to deal with them.

Absolutely. I think, um, as well, when you, when you're dealing with somebody, um, like a Nina Nine or even like myself, I meet so many people every day and I've been doing this for 24 years and you may have talked to me 50 times, but if we didn't have some sort of a, a, a bond, a link that anchored you in my mind, I'm not going to remember you. So it's very helpful when people reach out to me if they say, hey, I met you at such and such seminar with so-and-so, or hey Wendy, um, we had lunch at— with, you know, a group of people and I was the guy in the bright red shirt. Um, there's a lot of folks that I take photos with, and when they email me questions, they'll say send a picture that they took with me at an event, and when I see them, I remember them immediately. I'm great with faces, but I'm horrible with names. And I think that if you can just remind people until they get to the point where they say to you, look, I know who you are, you don't have to tell me anymore. But it's just very— it's very respectful, and it's a great way to make them want to interact with you. Because nothing, for me anyway, nothing is worse than when somebody comes up to me and they say, hey, I met you at Jack the Rapper in 1993, and then they're waiting for that, for me to say, oh, hi Bob, how have you been? And it doesn't come because I don't remember them. I don't remember people that I met last week. I certainly don't remember somebody that I met from the '90s. And, and it makes me feel bad when I see that it makes them feel bad. You know, when I don't remember them, they kind of go, ooh, and I can see that, you know, even though they may be trying to hide it. I can see when they're upset and I can see when they're disappointed, and then it makes me want to get away from them as quickly as possible because I've hurt them. Not because I don't want to be around them, but because I can see that I've hurt them and it wasn't my intention.

Okay, Curtis Brasfield, who is my buddy Chuck, wants to know The best way to start a publishing company?

Um, the best way to start a publishing company is to— it's like starting any other business. As soon as you write a song or you record a beat, you own it. So your publishing company now has assets in the company. If you are someone who samples and you're a producer, I suggest strongly that you set up a corporation, either an LLC or a, um, like a, a Subchapter S corporation. Um, and you can find information about corporations at sba.gov. It's the Small Business Administration's website, and they do a pretty good job of explaining, um, how to incorporate and why to incorporate. But in the case of a producer, um, you want to be incorporated because if you don't clear a sample and you get sued, you want the company that you own to get sued, not your person to be sued. Um, and I say that only because if you own a house or if you have any stocks or bonds or any wealth and you get sued and you lose, they can come after what you own. And it's very hard to hide assets, um, once you've already been sued and lost. So I suggest that you start, um, your own corporation. I also do that with artists. Um, the first thing that I did when I started working with Trouble was I incorporated him. I think I came home from the meeting where, um, I was hired, and I think I incorporated him that night as Trouble LLC. And the reason that I did that was because I had heard when he had performed around Atlanta prior to me coming on board that some fights had broken out and I didn't want him to be sued personally, um, if anyone was injured and chose to sue him. And you got to understand that it's, it's not the artist who starts the, um, the, the fights. It's usually the people around the artist that starts the drama, but those people are not the ones to get sued. It's usually the guy who's getting paid 10 grand a show to perform that get sued because that's where the money is. So, um, coming back to the publishing company question, um, definitely incorporate it. You're going to get a tax ID number, you're going to set up a bank account, and once you do that, you are a corporation. There is one thing to take into consideration before you start your publishing company, and that is when you register with ASCAP or BMI or SESAC You have to be very flexible in the name that you choose because so many of the names have already been taken. So if your publishing company, if you decide to call it Pimp My Pen Publishing and you want to incorporate that, you could spend the money to incorporate that. You go to sign up at ASCAP or BMI and you find out that there's already a Pimpin' My Pen publishing company owned by Pimp C, and you can't use that name because it's already taken. So my suggestion would be for a publishing company to make sure that the name is available through whichever— whether you choose ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC is kind of irrelevant for this question, but you want to make sure that the name is available before you spend the money to incorporate it.

Okay, Fat Boy Bands wants to know, what's your title? Are you a manager?

Oh God, no, I'm not a manager. God, I managed for many years. It's a very thankless babysitting job. I know every artist that is here listening to me say that just cringed because you're thinking, not me, not me, not me. I guess my title is consultant. I'm not exactly sure what my title is. Um, probably the nicest thing somebody calls me is a consultant. I help artists, um, build their careers, um, but I only work with artists that have investors already in place because I found that to market and promote in this music industry is very expensive. And I've also learned that I can't succeed unless I have a budget for marketing and promoting, um, even with the— even with my know-how and all the favors that I'm owed and the connections and the relationships I have, I'm not able to do this cheaply. So, um, I started a consulting company and I work with artists that already have their investors in place.

Okay, CEO Odie said what up and that he loves the content. He's hitting me from Chicago.

I love Chicago, that's my favorite city. Okay, um, but it's brick in the winter. Oh my God, it's cold.

Yeah, Greg B said he sent you a Gmail about starting a record label.

Um, I haven't seen it yet, which means I'll probably cover it next week. Um, I, I pulled my email up until about 1 o'clock today for, um, for today.

Okay, Taimon Perez says thank you, that he's learning a lot from your videos.

Yay, that's a beautiful thing.

Uh, Benny Hurst, Bond Productions, says you're a genius.

I don't know about that, but thank you.

Okay, and there was one other question that I misplaced.

Hey, Tony, thank you for doing this. I did this for the past 2 weeks by myself, and I missed like 90% of your questions in the little message window because I found that I can't talk and read the questions at the same time, and I refuse to have like dead air. It makes me very uncomfortable. The real hippies are here! Yay! Hi guys.

So, um, Baltimore Swagger, he had a question here.

You asked the question for him already, but this is his second question, and this is gonna be my last one, guys, because I've already been here 40 minutes and I haven't eaten yet today, and I'm a fat girl. I like to eat, right?

So he's asking, is it possible for a nonprofit label to prosper and grow all over?

Wow, for a nonprofit. See, the thing about a nonprofit, and I call them not-for-profits, but they're interchangeable, they mean the same thing. The thing about having a not-for-profit is you have to spend all of the money that's inside of the company by the end of your year, whether it's December 31st or the end of your fiscal year if you operate on anything other than the calendar year. And the problem with having to spend money is that if you sign an artist who becomes wildly successful and you've made $20 or $30 million in income, you're gonna have to spend that by the end of the year. So I just don't see the value in starting a, a record label as a not-for-profit Even some of the universities and the colleges that have started record labels in order to teach their students, you know, in the music business program how to run a label, even those aren't set up to be not-for-profit organizations. I get why you would want to do that, but I just— I, I'm nervous to have you do that. On the upside, you're going to get grants and funding, you know, as donations. But on the downside, if you become profitable, you're almost punished for being profitable. And the whole point of being in the music business is it's a business. You're trying to make money. So I would hate for you to— I would hate for you to not be able to enjoy the fruits of your success.

Okay, before you go, before you go, I want you to answer two quick questions.

I can do that.

I skipped over Lil Grip's question. This is the one I was looking for.

Okay.

He wants to know if there's a way he can use his recording studio to help artists push their music.

Absolutely. You can use your studio by offering them studio time. That's the one thing that artists need that when they're new they don't really have the money to buy beats and record music. And that's why a lot of artists will record out of their house over somebody else's beat, like, you know, the hottest Drake beat or the hottest, you know, whoever's beat, Future, whoever. Um, you can open up your studio to some up-and-coming artists. You may want to be a little bit selective over who you open it up to And I don't just mean that talent-wise. I mean, obviously you want to have really talented people in your studio, but what matters even more in the music business— and this is going to kind of blow your mind— but is somebody's work ethic. You want to make sure that you're giving away something that you have, which is your studio, to people that are actually going to get out there and market and promote their music.. And in marketing and promoting their music, you want to make sure that your logo is somewhere attached to what they're marketing and promoting so that you're benefiting from their increased awareness.

Okay. And, uh, Boogie 100 Block wants to know if you can check out a song and give them feedback.

Wow. I hate this question.

Okay.

Here's the thing. I get so much music sent to me that I can't possibly listen to it all. Even if I listen to music 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, I could not listen to everything that I receive. Therefore, in order to not play favorites, I don't listen to anything, and I know that that sucks. Having said that, I do listen to my clients' music. I do listen to the music of artists that I have a relationship with. But the reality is what I think of your music doesn't really matter. What matters is what the fans think. I don't, I don't look to work with people whose music I like. I look to work with people whose music the fans like. I'm not your fan base. I'm a 50-something-year-old white woman who lives in the suburbs, right? So I'm not your market. I am probably never going to download or stream your music. You're never going to make money from these ears. So what I think really doesn't matter. What I would do if I were you, instead of asking industry people for feedback on your music, I would ask the local DJs. I would ask DJs that I've met online. I would do some research and find out who are the hottest up-and-coming DJs in different regions. I would send them my music and ask for feedback. And I would ask strangers, people that were on my social media that were following me because they had some interest in who I am as an artist. I would ask them, what songs do you like? Why do you like them? What do you like about this song? Is it too long? Is it too short? Is my cadence on point? You know, try mixing up your style and see what people respond to. You know, the great thing for me about, um, my clients having SoundCloud pages is that it is absolutely hands down the best way for me to tell which songs are hotter than other songs. Because when people come to a SoundCloud page, they're going to listen to as much of the music as they can possibly stomach, right? And you're going to be able to see by the hits, and you're gonna have to take into consideration that the first 2 songs are obviously going to get more hits because they're the first 2 songs.. But when you start really watching the responses, you can see how far into the song somebody got. In some cases, people will leave comments and you can tell where the song really reached them. You can tell where they left the song. If you've got— if you're looking at your statistics and 80 or 90% of the people listening to your music are stopping after the first verse, you've got a problem. Because that means your song isn't good enough. So I would test it with people that were willing to become your fan, people that were willing to buy your music. That's whose opinion you want. What I think doesn't matter, honestly.

Okay, on the way out, the housekeeping. Knight Rider Films has a question about budget. Would you tell him where he can find the information about the type of budget that you need?

Yes, um, on, um, on my website at helpfulangel.com, it talks about what I do and how I do it. But if you're, if you're asking because you're looking to put together a budget for yourself so that you can be more effective in this industry, um, go to industryreport.com and Google marketing I can't remember whether it's a— it's an article either about marketing or about building a buzz. In fact, you know what, I posted it underneath the video on my YouTube channel about building a buzz. So if you go to that video and you click on the caption underneath the video, it links to that article. And in that article, about 3/4 of the way down, it It tells you all of the different things that you're going to spend money on in this industry, and you can just make a list of the things that you want and leave out the things that you don't. Price them out, see what it's going to cost, and you're going to know exactly how much money you need when you find out what it costs to mix and master your music, what it costs to print posters, what it costs to print download cards or CDs if you're still in an area with CDs. If you want t-shirts, you know, they're $5 or $6 apiece in order to get a t-shirt printed. So you can figure out, you know, how many t-shirts do you want to give out. Figure in money to travel. You're gonna need to travel outside of your area to, you know, to market and promote. Okay, you got to add all that stuff in.

And not to cut you off, but for next week or for next session, next week's live session, I Absolutely. Tamara Bubble said that she sent the email a couple of weeks ago.

Tamara Bubble, have I not answered your question?

She said hopefully next week. She said she sent you a very long email. Um, and so we got Peter Panson has a question about ghostwriting. Um, and the kid Greg B, you answered about his record label. He gave you some more, um, clarification about his question about the record label thing. Okay. And then you have a last question about Slim from Cash Money. So you have 3 unresolved questions from this session. And Dev down in Tampa from Hip Hop Flavors and Billy Dance Company says, hey, hey, how are you guys?

Um, Bubble, can you resend me the email? I don't actually remember getting it, but that doesn't surprise me. I get, I get like 600 emails a day, so if you'll resend it Wow, I feel badly that I missed that. Missed that. And anybody whose question I didn't answer, if you'll email thisiswendyday@gmail.com, I will absolutely answer your question next week.

And Knight Rider Films, go to helpfulangel.com. He just chimed in, he says he understands the expenses.

Okay, helpfulangel.com.

Yeah, he wants you on board.

Gotcha. Gotcha, absolutely. So, and you should, you should definitely email me privately as opposed to, um, having this conversation making everybody like sit there like this. Okay, y'all, thanks for tuning in. This is Wendy Day Live every Wednesday at 7 PM. I'm gonna do this as long as you're, as long as you're there, so tune in and, um, send me your questions. Okay, guys, thanks so much.