LIVE with Wendy Day #019 | Answering Your Questions Live

Hi guys, this is Wendy Day from Wrap Coolish, and thanks for tuning in to my livestream. I'm so happy that you're here. Okay guys, I'm almost there. I'm coming, I promise I'm coming. Hey, I've got a lot of great information for you today. I'm so glad you're here. Okay guys, there's a counter there. I'm trying to beat that counter. As soon as it gets down to zero, I'll be there. Right now I'm filling up my cup with unsweet tea and extra lemon. Guys, thanks for tuning in to my livestream. We're almost ready to go. I'm so glad you're here. I've got such amazing information to share with you tonight. I'm so excited. I'm so happy. Hi guys, how are you tonight? I see you guys are already hitting me with the questions. Yay, I love it! Ah, Mr. G, Misi, Sheldon, you're back! How are you? Miracle, how are you? Frederick Ellis, Dark Brothers Entertainment. I don't think you've missed one of these, have you? I think I've seen you here every week. We're on number 19 now. Yes, almost, almost 5 months of these, and, um, you guys are still asking great questions. I love it. Okay, let's get right to it. I have a couple of questions here that were emailed to me, but Misi's asking, how do you decide if you pay for studio time or get your own equipment at home as far as quality and financials? Um, you know, that's a tough call, and it really comes down to how much money you're going to spend in the studio. Um, it seems to always be better to have your own equipment because then you can do stuff like drops for DJs without having to book time. Um, I've noticed with Trouble, we've tried to do it both ways. Um, we rent studio time at Hot Beats here in Atlanta, which is where he records most of the time. Um, and because we've spent so much money with Hot Beats Um, we've tried to set up studios for him, and the problem with that is that security is always an issue. As he gets more and more renowned, um, it becomes more of a problem when he goes to the studio. There's more people when they know where he's recording and when he's recording. Um, it becomes a problem, and for us owning a studio is more of a problem because at least when we book at Hot Beats, people don't know ahead of time when he's coming and going. But when we've owned studio space before, um, people just kind of camp out outside of the studio either trying to meet him or get a feature from him or hang out with him, and he just can't get anything done And for me, it, um, you guys can hear me okay, right? For me, it becomes a security issue. Like, I don't like having him, um, so accessible to everyone that's out there. Not everyone means the best for you when you're having success. And, um, you know, he can talk about some rough shit, and I just don't want people out there trying him. You know, it's going to happen anyway when he performs live, but I just don't want it happening when he's recording. So the answer to your question is, how do you decide? Um, I guess you start by buying studio time, and if it's taking you more money to record than you've allocated in your budget, then— or if you have more artists coming, it might make sense to invest in your own equipment. Again though, just be careful where you put your studio because once you make the investment, you can't easily pick up and move. The great thing about us buying time is if it becomes too hectic at Hot Beats for Trouble, he can go and record at Patchwork. He can go and record at Doppler. There's many other choices, but it's infinitely more expensive to do that. Oh, Mr. Gold, thank you! I love when you guys tell me how to pronounce your names. I love that. Yay, Mr. Gold! Are you from, um, Louisiana? My husband's from Louisiana, Tony Guidry. Lyric Luciano, how are you? The Real See-Through TV, Sheldon Johnson. Hey, Tammy Page, how have you been? KJ the Fly Guy. Um, I don't have any seminars coming up. Um, pretty much just this. Um, I chose not to speak at South by Southwest this year. You know, the problem with South by Southwest is they plan the panels in July. For the following March. And in July, I was speaking at so many different conferences that I was just really burning out, and I got tired, and I didn't pitch a panel to South By. And that was long before I even decided to start doing these. Um, and at this point, like, if, if I could have made the decision in December of what I was going to do in March, I probably would have chosen to speak at South By. But they plan so far in advance that when they were looking for me to set up a panel, I just, I, man, those of you who have been on the road knows, know what it's like to be away from home for like months at a time. And I spent most of March, April, May, and June away from home. So in July, the last thing I wanted to do was commit to another conference. So that was a very long-winded answer. Um, no, I don't have any seminars coming up. Um, pretty much just this. And the cool thing about this is it's kind of a seminar, you know, for you. I'm like answering your questions directly, so that's kind of a plus. Miracle, thank you for catching up on all of my videos this week. Um, that Deborah Manus Gardner stuff was good shit, huh? She really, um, it was such a good interview I broke it into 4 pieces. We were talking on Skype for 2 hours and she was just like, she could have gone longer. She just did great. I'll have her back again because I thought she did really great. I've got another interview coming on Friday with Mr. Robotik. Mr. Robotik is an EDM artist. He started as a rapper, a battle rapper, and then his connections at radio were, um, the more pop dance connections. So he kind of filled into the lane where his connections were, and, you know, bless his heart, he's got the talent to be able to do that. But he's placed over 150 songs in TV, film, and video games in the past 5 or 6 years, and he makes a living doing this. He makes a really good living doing this, and I'll bet most of you guys out there aren't familiar with him. I'll bet you don't know who Mr. Robotic is. So I interviewed him for Friday, so you will get to hear exactly how he does it so that you can mirror what he's done and do it your damn selves. Dark Brothers Entertainment, yes, um, Jordan Tower and I, um, did a little breaking and entering on Friday. We had fun though. We went to see, um, we went out to what used to be the, um, Tupac Shakur Center in Stone Mountain. We went because we saw all of this, um, hubbub online about the statue and how it doesn't look like him. And I guess it was just old footage that someone had recycled, because when we went out there to see the statue, to see really, you know, does it look like Tupac or not in real life, um, because sometimes, you know, um pictures can be deceiving. We found that it was in storage in California and had been for over a year, but the Tupac Center sold last December, a year ago December, and, um, they have now fenced off the garden area where the statue used to be, and, and they've locked it. It's a locked gate, and it wasn't hard to maneuver. It's not like I had to scale a fence or anything. Um, but I saw that it was easy to open, so we opened it and we walked in. And on our way back out, the people that now own the building, they saw us on closed circuit, you know, on their cameras, on their closed circuit TV, whatever it's called, and came out to find out, you know, what we're doing. What are you guys doing out here? But then they took us on a tour of the property, and it turned out to be pretty interesting. You can, you can see that at Jordan Tower Films. Um, I think he posted that on Monday, I'm not sure, but I think it was for Monday for his vlog. And then we went and had lunch, which was nice. He bought me lunch. Yay for Jordan Tower buying me lunch! Thank you, Black Voice. I love you too. Sheldon Johnson, um, I don't know if it's my connection or your connection if I'm breaking up. Um, Misi's telling me I'm breaking up too. Um, I think I have a shitty connection right now. They're replacing the, um, Comcast cable in my neighborhood. So, um, I'm sorry that it's, that it's breaking up on you. Mr. Gold, yes, your family's from Louisiana, but you're from Cleveland. Yay! I like Cleveland too. Marlon, you are so welcome. I love doing this. Bubble on Deck, how are you? Thank you, Sheldon. RR, I'm a producer. If I work with an artist, should we both copyright the same song? Um, should I do the sound recording or the other copyright? That you should do the, the— oh, before you sell the beat, you should do the sound recording before you sell the beat, um, because you own the master and the publishing. Um, and you should, um, group your beats together. You shouldn't copyright each one individually. It'll cost you a fortune. There is a video for that. I have a video about copyrights. That talks about how to do that. Um, but yes, you should absolutely, um, you should absolutely, um, copyright the song. When an artist uses the song, if the artist is acting as the record label, they will copyright it. They'll do the SR copyright, um, but you will have the PA copyright for the song— I mean, for the beat, excuse me. But no, you don't, you don't both have to do it. Um, I, you know, I don't— I never owned Ozone. I just wrote for it. Um, it wasn't profitable towards the end. I mean, everybody read it and it seemed like a great magazine, but I don't think Julia was making the kind of money that was necessary. Um, you know, magazines kind of went out of business and went online, and ozonemag.com just never really became what it needed to. Um, I miss it too though. I miss Ozone. You know, it was just a great way to get Southern music information. Um, wow, somebody just donated $5 to me! Alexander, thank you! That is so cool of you. Let me answer your question. This is from Alexander Adigio. Am I pronouncing it right? Adiego. Okay, I don't know how to pronounce your name. Would you consider something like a limited release for a new artist locally to raise $1,000 for press CDs at— by selling them $20 to $25 on campus? Yeah, you could do that. Um, my concern would be that most people on a college campus would want to download— not download, but stream um, because that's how most people get their music. So what if you did a— what if you did a limited release but you still put it on, put it up like through TuneCore or DistroKid so that still got onto all the streaming sites and it was available for sale on iTunes for people that wanted to digitally download it? Um, yeah, I don't see— I don't, I don't, I don't think that's a bad idea. I think you can make money doing that Um, I think also when you walk up to somebody with a CD, there should be printed on the CD the, um, address to download or the Spotify links to it, so that even though they're paying for the CD, they're also going to get the links to where they can find it online. Because you want to reach people in the arena in which they listen to music. Like, I listen to music on Spotify, so if you send me an Apple Music link, um, I probably won't click on it. First of all, I don't subscribe to Apple Music. Tony does, and I have access to his account, but I don't have anything stored there, so there's no benefit to me to click on it. Um, I will go and listen to music on SoundCloud sometimes, but if I'm in the car, it streams from Spotify. It doesn't stream from SoundCloud. So I just think you want to give people your music in every format possible and on every site possible where they receive their music. It just kind of makes sense to me to, um, to do that. But yeah, I think a limited release is a good idea. I think it's even a good idea to do an EP, like, like a, you know, like maybe 6 songs, if you don't want to invest in spending the money to do 12 to 15 songs. I think that makes, um, great sense. And Alexander, thank you so much. That was crazy cool. Alexander hit the, um, YouTube, um, special pay button and sent me money. And thank you, that was extremely kind of you because I know you didn't have to do that. And thank you. Okay, Bubble has a great question. What should artists do about rumors? No address in interviews to keep people talking, or address and keep it about the music because people are going to talk regardless. People are going to talk regardless. And there is, um, there is a school of thought that all publicity is good publicity, um, and if you're trying to build a career, that's probably true. Um, I don't know that for me as a behind-the-scenes executive person if all publicity is good publicity. Um, but I think as an artist that there isn't a whole lot that people could really say about you that would hurt your career. Um, I used to think that there was when I was coming up in the music industry. If there was a rumor that you were gay, it made it very difficult— as a guy, it made it very difficult to build a career. That's not true anymore. Um, Young Thug, who is not gay, came up leading people to believe that he was gay so that they would talk about him. Um, you know, so Bubble, I don't know that there— I don't know that there's bad press that you could get. I think the worst thing that somebody could probably say is that you did something you didn't do.. And in that case, if it's bad enough, I would address it. But if it's not bad enough, I'd probably not address it because sometimes by addressing something, you bring more attention to it than was brought to it when, you know, when it came out, you know, something about you that is not true. So many of my artist friends have died so many of my artist friends have gotten AIDS. I mean, not really, but the rumors are just crazy, you know. I remember a few months ago I saw on Twitter that C-Murder had died in prison, and I was devastated because he's, you know, he's my friend. And it turned out to be a fake TMZ site. It's a TMZ site called tmzonline.com, so it's a bullshit site. But all I saw was TMZ, and I was like, oh my God, like, it really bothered me. And, um, I can't remember who I called. Thank God I didn't call his wife. Like, that would have just been devastating, you know, to say to his wife, I heard that I didn't see Murder died. What's up with that? Um, but I called somebody who then— I was at the airport, and I called somebody who then Googled it for me and said, Wendy, he's, he's not dead. This is the only place reporting it. Um, so it turned out to be bullshit. Um, but for something like that, like if I had gone and, and said, oh, C Murder's not dead, and brought attention to it, I would have reached a whole bunch of people that may not have seen that, you know, those one or two tweets, and I could have made it worse, not better. So sometimes, you know, you gotta just let shit go. And the hard part is deciding what to let go and what not to let go, you know. Sheldon, thank you, very kind. Sheldon just sent me money too. Thank you, dear. You know, you can ask a question, you don't have to just send money. You can— what it does is on my side it pops up this big green banner, um, that says that you donated money, and then it lists a question so that it kind of jumps you in line in front of everybody else. So, um, if you want to ask a question, Sheldon, I'm going to answer you anyway, but if you want to jump to the front of the queue, you know, feel free. Marlon is asking me, what are the 3 best platforms for independent artists to monetize their content for consumption by the public? Definitely Spotify. Spotify is the number 1 platform for streaming. The money's very low. You can see on— if you go to industryreport.com, I wrote an article, I think it was in September, that showed you the royalty payout for an artist, for a relatively new rapper, and it shows you what, what it pays per stream. The money's really low, but once you start getting into the millions— like, I think Trouble right now is at 5 million streams a month, and you can do the math on that. It's, it's decent money. Um, the second platform for monetization is Apple Music, and I'd say the third best platform is probably going to be Tidal. But see, the problem with Tidal is they've only got like, um, 2 million or 3 million, um, subscribers. So it's just there's not enough people there. I, I secretly want to say YouTube because you can make a lot of money if your videos get millions of views on YouTube, but YouTube is also the lowest paying streaming service out there. So you're not going to make a lot of money until you get up into the millions. And just to put it in context, I think with YouTube— in fact, I haven't even made enough money with my little videos here to get a check. You've got to make $100 in order to get the first check. But with the views I get on mine, um, with 3,000 subscribers, and I probably get somewhere around 300 hits per video, um, I think I've made $70 so far, just to put it into perspective. So, um, you would have to do way better than me, um, in order to make money. But I, I really want to say YouTube because it's such an important platform, and the value of people seeing a video Um, seems to be much higher than the value of— I don't mean financial value, I mean the value to your career. It just seems higher than Spotify or Tidal or Apple Music. I think people need an image today, um, to go along. They need a visual to go along with the music. Mr. Gold, I'm a fanatic over music business and I always have artists say I'll worry about the money later. What do you say to artists that feel they can survive in the music business and neglect the business aspect? That's what I say to them. Um, you cannot ignore the business side, you know. You've gotta— you've really gotta pay attention to monetizing this, because fame— what's the point of having fame without the money? And, and the most frustrating part for what I do is that most artists just want the fame. Most artists really just want to be famous. They don't give a shit about the money until, until somebody else makes all of the money, and then they see that person buy a new house. You know, like if they're signed to a label and they haven't gotten paid yet, but the guy who owns the label has a new Bentley or just bought a house or went on vacation with his family to Bali or Hawaii and the artist is still struggling, then all of a sudden it becomes a problem. But, um, somewhere, somewhere artists were told that you have to be broke and poor and struggling in order to have value, and that's just not true. It's okay to build wealth. It's okay to build wealth. And that's one of the things that I've built my career on is Helping Artists Become Millionaires, because my philosophy is if I can show you how artists can make money, then you guys can repeat that pattern and do it yourselves, right? And the whole point of being in the music business— it's not music hobby, it's music business— is so that you can earn a living and you don't have to get a job. You can do this as your job and fulfill all of you, the passion that you have about music, which is wonderful, but you got it, you got to take it seriously. And Mr. Gold, I'm so glad that you brought that up because it's really not hard. Um, Miracle, there— I think I haven't been on the other side of the desk for this, um, but I think there's either a blue arrow or a blue dollar sign. Alexander, you're welcome. King Sesame, thank you for always shining light for us indie artists. Absolutely. How do I get my EP taken down from all digital stores? Someone loaded an EP of mine without my authorization via Orchard. Okay, you need to set— at least you know who the distributor is. Sometimes you don't know, sometimes you'll just see your shit up there, and it happens all the time. Future complains about this. Um, Thug complains about this. Like, so many people will just put albums up and just bootleg the shit out of them. Um, you need to send a letter to Orchard Distribution saying that you did not authorize it, and you need to ask them in that letter to freeze all the money. And then you're going to want to reach out by email to iTunes, Spotify, like all of the big platforms and let them know that they have a song in their store that you did not authorize. And then give them as much information, even if you can do a screenshot of it and send it, you know, when you submit the, the email to them, that would help. Um, but definitely send that letter to Orchard. Um, I would even overnight it to them through the post office. I'd spend the $20 to do that so that I could prove that I sent that letter out on February 16th or February 17th or whatever day you send it out. Measy, in your opinion, who's the greatest female MC of all time? Okay, you're asking me in terms of talent, I'm guessing, um, and I don't look at the industry in terms of talent because I'm on the business side. So I'm really thrilled at Nicki Minaj. I don't listen to her music. I don't own a Nicki Minaj album, but I think she's phenomenal because she built and is continuing to build an empire in music. She's doing what artists are supposed to do. She's making money. If you're talking about lyrical talent, I like, um, Bahamadia a lot. Um, I like MC Lyte a lot. I like Eve a lot. Um, but the real bizarre Wendy Day secret is that I don't love female MCs the way I love male MCs. And it's not, it's not me being misogynistic or sexist. It's that what I look for in rap, I don't really get from female MCs. To me, a lot of the female MCs out here are talking about how fat their asses are, how great their pussy is. They're talking about shit that I don't necessarily care about, so I don't, I don't embrace them. Like, Lil' Kim doesn't reach me. Foxy Brown doesn't reach me. Um, my taste in music is just a little bit different than what they're talking about. So, um, I hope that answered your question. Um, my preference though is always for the artist that's building a business, not necessarily who's selling the most. But who's building a business. Like, I'm really high on Chance right now, Chance the Rapper, because he's really building his own independent company, and I love that. You know, I'm big on Tech N9ne. I'm even on one of Tech N9ne's albums. I'm in a skit in between the music. I haven't listened to that album. I think he's an amazing lyrical rapper, but the music that he makes, he is not for me. I'm not his market. But I love me some Tech N9ne. I love what he's built. I love what he's doing. So I look at it a little bit different than the way you're asking, at least I think the way you're asking me. PV, I'm good. Thank you for asking. Navaso Productions, hey, welcome to the room. Thank you again, Sheldon. Hi Miracle, um, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I don't know. I, I don't know how, um, I know that there's a button there somewhere towards the bottom. Miracle's asking me, he said I've been very generous to him throughout the years, especially lately, and he's looking for the pay option, but I don't exactly know how to I, I haven't, I haven't contributed to somebody's YouTube campaign, so I don't, I don't, I don't know how to do it. I know on my end there's a blue arrow. Dark Brothers Entertainment is telling me not to forget about Lady of Rage. Nobody ever mentions her. Um, I try not to forget about her. She only had one album, and, um, she is very talented. She was very talented. She is very talented. She's very lyrical. So, um, I like Rage, but I didn't, I didn't, I didn't love Rage, you know. I liked her. She had one hot single that kind of blew up. The Rock Father is saying being famous and broke is the worst of all scenarios. You ain't kidding, that's gotta suck. Sheldon is asking me, is a white label streaming service a good investment? I think we've got so many streaming services out here that I don't, I don't know that there's room for another one. Um, I think, you know, I said this about Tidal when it started, like I didn't quite understand what Jay-Z was thinking. Um, I do now. I see that he was thinking that he would corner the market with the hottest rappers being partial owners and they would all give exclusives to Tidal. I guess he didn't take into consideration that they all have labels that they're signed to and the labels might not like that. But yeah, I just don't know that a white label streaming service is a good investment. I think there's better places for you to make money. Vinny G is asking me what I think of sites like Taxi and iStandard for producers. I've never used them, so I can't answer that. I know Taxi is a service that a lot of the rock guys use to get their music to A&Rs. I don't know anybody that's ever gotten a deal from Taxi in urban music. That doesn't mean that doesn't exist. It just means that I'm not familiar. I think as a producer, you've got to be everywhere you can be. It's so oversaturated today with producers, and it's heartbreaking. You know, I I wish there was more that, um, I wish there was more that I could do for producers, but it's very hard for producers to make money today until you become like a superstar producer, until you've got a couple of hit records under your belt. It's just really hard to get paid. Um, Alexander is telling me, Miracle, that it's not on iPhones, the pay option. And that makes perfect sense to me because the thing about iPhone is that they want to make a percentage of everything. So if they can't make a percentage, I'm guessing that they don't offer that option. Desario, how are you? Thank you, Miracle. Sheldon is saying the money sign is in the comment section. Sheldon, we're thinking that it's probably not on iPhones. And Tamara Bubble is saying the pay option is a dollar sign inside a square right underneath beside the live chat. Okay, um, one of you guys asked me about being a publisher, and I saw it, but now I can't find it. So, um, I'm hoping that, um, I'm hoping that I answered— I'm gonna— I'm about to answer what you asked, but you said you started a new publishing company. Where do you find music when you start a publishing company? It's for your own music. It's so that you can monetize and have ownership of the music that you write. And then with that publishing company, you sign up for ASCAP and BMI if you're going to be a— if you're going to have radio play. You sign up for SoundExchange for anything that's streaming online, or for Pandora, which is considered an internet radio station. Um, you don't, you don't necessarily start a publishing company, go do publishing deals with other artists unless you're financially sound, in which case you can go and offer people advances to buy a portion of their publishing. But I didn't get the feeling that's what you were asking me. I got the feeling like you just started a publishing company because you had heard that you should and you weren't quite sure what came next. Um, and I might be putting words in your mouth, so correct me in the chat if I'm wrong. Um, but you start a publishing company for your own music, whether you make beats or whether you are the lyrics, the rapper or the singer, which is music, right? Polly Foster saying, an artist now doing this as a business and registering music and encoding, etc., how do we handle songs that his friends have features on his songs that aren't registered with ASCAP or SESAC, um, or BMI? Um, you know, I tried to register a song this summer. You used to just register it. And then you would leave it blank. Like, let's say that, um, I did a song with Future. Isn't that scary? Better have fucking Auto-Tune. I can't rap a lick. But let's say I do a song with Future and it is over a Metro Boomin beat, and Metro Boomin has a BMI account. Future either has ASCAP or BMI, I'm not sure. I'm guessing he's probably BMI as well, and I don't have an account, right? So, but we know we're gonna go for radio. It used to be that we could just file and they would leave my percentage there, but the name of my publishing company would be blank. Well, when I went to register a song this summer, it wouldn't let me do that anymore. So I actually had to call the producer, make him set up an account at BMI or ASCAP, and then go back in and register it as after his registration cleared ASCAP. It was the most annoying thing ever. Um, so it's become a little bit challenging now that you have— if you're going to give them a percentage, you have to include them. What I didn't try doing and what I will try doing the next time is, um, on the song example that I just gave you, Metro Boomin would own 50%, Future would own— I'm just a verse on it— Future would own— why he put me as a verse, I don't know, but work with me here. Um, he would have two-thirds of the song and I would have a third of the song. Um, if I were going to go in and register that, register that, and I didn't have an account, I would just list Future as two-thirds of the song and I would list Metro Boomin as 50% of the song, and I would just leave me out completely. But I would still leave that, that ownership that I have open. I wouldn't put it under Future or, um, Sunny Digital because then it becomes a problem when I do go back and finally register. The next time I do that, that's what I'm going to try to do. But really what they want you to do is force the person to sign up with either ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC. King sesame! Yeah, Orchard won't reach back, um, by email. And the problem with email is you can't prove that you reached out to them, so if down the road you have to get a lawyer involved, you're going to be able to print out the fact that you emailed them, but you can't prove that they received it. And the thing about sending something either certified mail or overnight— I send them overnight because then once they sign for it, you're going to get a copy back online. You just print it out and it proves that they received it, because other than that, they'll just, they'll just say they didn't receive it even if they did. With Apple and, um, Amazon and the other platforms, Spotify, it's not as crucial if they take it down because you're getting the, the promotion if anybody goes and discovers your song. But with Orchard, I'm concerned because they're making the money on your music and you're not, and I have a problem with that. Okay, J Styles asked me by email this week, um, I was wondering how long one should push a radio single online, online via SoundCloud, YouTube, social media, etc., and in the streets before a radio push? Or if not based on time, what kind of metrics, like 100,000, 2 million, 10 million plays before going to radio? Um, and this is a hard question to answer because it's not based on metrics, it's based on reaction. So it's very hard for me to sit here and tell you what the reaction is going to be on a song. But for, for me, when I'm working a record, I notice that it starts to grow legs when the DJs start calling me and asking me for it, especially the ones that I've already sent it to. When they call me a couple months later and say, hey, how come you never sent me that song? I don't tell them I did, Fathead, I've already sent it to you. I tell them, oh, I don't know how I overlooked you. I thought I had sent it to you. Let me send it to you again. What is your email address? And then I send it off to them right away. Um, I've had people ask me for songs 5, 6, 7 times, so I've, I've used that speech multiple times to the point where it's kind of obvious that I've said it. Um, and for some reason they haven't received it, but who knows, it may go into their spam folder. It may, you know, Who the hell knows? But can you guys hear me okay? I think my, I think my screen just froze. Well, anyway, basically you, you, you want to work it until there's enough of a buzz that the radio DJs start to request the song, and they're gonna come to you. And that is a really good indicator when you're new and at working records, that's a really good indicator that you should be going to radio, and they will call. You've absolutely got to hire an independent radio promoter to work a record. Don't try to do this yourself because you will get burned. You will end up either frustrating somebody, or you will say something you shouldn't say, like what does it cost to get this record played? Um, payola is very much illegal, and every radio person I know will tell you they don't take money to play a record. Um, Faya is asking me, what's proper time prior to a project being released should you begin your marketing and promotional plan? I usually work, um, just a couple weeks before. It used to be 4 to 6 weeks, but in today's environment, if you start talking about music and people don't know who you are and they go looking for it and they can't find it, you could very possibly lose a fan. So I try to drop the music, um, and work it at the same time. Now, if you're going through TuneCore or DistroBaby or, um, one of the more standard distributors, it's going to take them about a week to get your music up online. So, um, I would work it when you drop it. Just remember that it's new to everybody that hasn't heard of it before. So even though you've been working it for 6 weeks or 6 months— okay, maybe not 6 years, but 6 months— um, when somebody discovers it it's still new to them. It's not old and dated, right? And that's what most artists seem to worry about, is, oh my God, I have to get my new music out there. Um, but it is new when they haven't heard it before. Cool. Okay, you guys are hearing everything. My, um, internet connection is janky at best. They're putting in new cable in my neighborhood— not cable, but, you know, new, new internet, which is great. We need it terribly. It took me, it took me like 20 minutes to upload the interview I did of Mr. Robotik to launch on Friday. Crazy. Coop de Trill is asking me, I'm a street-smart corporate savy artist. How can I visually market that so it won't go over people's heads? Um, I think I would market as you're the CEO of your company. I think that's a great way to market it. I don't think you need to stand there and say, I'm a savvy corporate owner of my company. I think if you just say, I'm the artist and the CEO, kind of like what Master P did, I think people will realize that you are savvy. I don't think you need to hit them over the head with that. I think fans are very savvy today, and they pick up quickly on who's doing what. Like, when I say Chance the Rapper, you have an image in your head of what he's doing and how he's working as an independent, right? He doesn't have to keep telling you, um, he doesn't have to keep telling you that he's independent. He's independent. He's in— you know it. You don't have to hit him over the head. Um, Sheldon, I do have, um, 10 gigabyte connection. Actually, I think I have a 30 gigabyte connection. I have the fastest speed that Comcast offers. It's that they're installing new, um, cable in my neighborhood, in this whole area. So my cable's just been really messed up for the past 3 days. It's so messed up, I went and worked in a coffee shop yesterday. That's how slow my cable was. And it was in and out. It kept like going out, coming back on, going off, coming on, coming off. It drove me crazy. Okay, Yoko Sammy asked me, I have a question about promotion. Would it be wise to start and focus on my street promotion before I put money on internet promotion like PR campaigns, blog placements, social media ads, and so on? I got a few people who specialize in promotion and marketing I was going to pay to help me, and you know I'm on a budget, so I wanted to know if it would be best if I focused on street presence, passing out CDs, posters, download cards, etc., a little more before I do the internet, besides the obvious like Facebook and stuff? Okay, um, I work everything at once, and the reason that I do that is I want everything to kind of hit at once. So, um, I work the streets at the same time that I do, um, internet campaigns like blog posts and posting videos and Facebook ads, Google ads. I do it all at the same time. The only thing that I do in advance is I build up the social media first. Like, if I start working with a client who only has 1,000 followers or 2,000 followers, um, we'll spend some money in building their internet presence first before we start working the streets. And the internet, like with a publicist campaigns, like the full-blown, full-scale campaign, because we want there to be enough of a fan base for it to reach. If, um, and I'm sure you all know that when you post on Facebook or Instagram, and, and they're about to do this with Twitter as well, you don't reach everyone that follows you with every post that you make. The more popular posts, they open you up to more and more people. It's almost like they give— they allow you to reach 10% of your people, and then if those people are retweeting and responding, then they let it go to like another 10 or 15%. And if it's still getting retweeted or reposted on Instagram or shared on Facebook, then they open it up to a few more people. They don't— if you're followed by 10,000 people, all 10,000 people don't see what you post. And I have a little bit of a problem with that. So I always try to get the internet, the, the social media poppin' before I start an internet campaign or before I start a street campaign, just so that there's a little bit of a foundation there, so that when we are posting stuff, we're reaching more than 100 people. And then everything else, I work at the same time. And it's all based around releasing music and different events. And by events, I don't mean like live events, you know. Dropping a video is an event. Feeding the homeless is an event. Sharing a blog post that you got, you know, if HipHopDX writes about you, when you share that, that's an event. I make sure that our campaigns have at least one event every week so that there's a reason for people to track you and follow you. Um, dropping your newsletter is an event. Um, Tamara Bubble is here in the room, and she has a great newsletter that she sent— that she sends out. So she's been really diligent about collecting email addresses and sending out her newsletter. That's such an important thing to do. It's an event. It's another reason for me to think of her. You know, my YouTube Live, I do it once a week. That's an event. It puts your names in front of me once a week. So I've been doing this now for 5 months, so there are names that I'm starting to recognize. You know, when you guys see me out somewhere and you come up to me and you say, hey, I'm Dark Brothers Entertainment, I'm gonna know who you are. I won't recognize you, but I'll know your name from my feed. Okay, do we have more questions? Sheldon Johnston is asking me, how do I build a platform for new artists online? I don't know. That's not my specialty. I've only ever marketed and promoted rappers and producers, so I don't, I don't know how to build a new platform for an artist online. I just know how to work the artists that you have on what's already available. See, Sheldon, it's sort of like if, if you wanted to reach people that like hamburgers, the best way for you to reach them is to go into a spot that sells hamburgers. Like, if your market is hamburger eaters, you should be at McDonald's at lunchtime and dinnertime. You should be at Wendy's. You should be at Burger King, right? You should go where the market is. If you decide that you want to reach people that like hamburgers by opening up your front door and putting up a sign that says, 'Come into Sheldon's house for hamburgers,' you're not going to reach a lot of hamburger lovers because they don't know about you. They know about Wendy's and Burger King, and I forget what my other example was, but the point being that You want to go where the masses are. You— if you're going to start your own platform for indie artists, you're going to have to have a shit ton of money so that you can market and promote and compete with the platforms that are already out there. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. I'm just saying that if you're going to do it, take it seriously and treat it like a business. That's all I'm saying. And then find somebody better than me to ask because I've never done it. You're asking me to give you advice on something that I've never done, and I can't think of anything scarier than asking somebody how to do something that's never done it before. Okay, Vinnie is asking me, what strategy do you think an up-and-coming artist should take when releasing new music? Should an artist release one new record a month with an online push or release an album instead? Um, it's a singles market, so I think that you should put the album out that has all of the music on it, but then I think you should focus on a different song. Um, you can do one a month. I would even do one every other week or one a week. Um, Russ did one a week, didn't he? And it worked beautifully for him. Um, with Trouble, we try to release something every other week. It hasn't been working lately because of his schedule. He's just been doing too many other things. Um, but we were, you know, for a minute there we were just dropping constantly. And I think that when people don't know who you are yet, you need to flood the market. Not all at once, because that's too much, you know, all in one lump. But if you drop a song a week or a video a week, or a song one week and the video to that song the next week, and then the second song the third week and the video to that song the fourth week, I think that's a really nice schedule. And it's and it's easy for you to keep up with that. And by about your third or your fourth month, people are gonna start to recognize who you are just from your consistency. Okay, Rockfather's funny. Coop to Trill, the great street smart plus corporate savvy and grammatically correct. You're welcome, Tamara. Um, you're very consistent and I love that. I think consist— oh, you do it weekly? How embarrassing. Which is good, because if you're doing it weekly and my perception is that you do it monthly, that means you're not sending me shit that I don't care about. I thought you were doing it monthly. That's a really good sign. Tamara sends out her newsletter weekly. PTSD, you're welcome. JC Kush, hey, um, first of all, you're awesome. Oh, thank you, you're awesome too. My question is, when choosing a PRO, is it done by random personal preference, or is there some sort of knowledge or strategy behind it? If there is knowledge or strategy behind it, I haven't discovered it yet. Um, I know for most of the artists that I work with, um, when you sign up for BMI, it's $150. When you sign up for ASCAP, it's $50. So I know a lot of people that sign up at ASCAP just because it's cheaper than BMI. Um, in the South, there seem to be more people affiliated with BMI. In the Northeast, when I lived in New York, everybody kind of signed up through ASCAP. So they are different. I haven't noticed differences though, but then I'm also— I'm not an artist, so I'm not signed up to either one. Um, they both do showcases, they both offer information to help you grow your career. Um, CSAC is more of a selective process. Um, you have to kind of pitch yourself to them and they have to choose you. I don't know a lot of people with CSAC. I think London on the Track is the only person I know that's with CSAC. Oh, Flawless, there's an artist out of Rhode Island who's also with CSAC. But other than that, I don't know a lot of people with CSAC. Okay, you guys are letting me off easy again with the light questions. Do you guys have more questions? Let me ask you this: what are you guys struggling with the most? And I think I know the answer to this. I think the answer is going to be marketing and promotion, like building a buzz. Um, if you haven't seen the timing video, you should go back and watch the timing video because it explains why you want everything to hit at once. It explains why you want to work online and the streets all at the same time. And that's just so that you can boost people talking about you. You know, in, in the music industry, the best way to build your career is to get people talking about you, right? You want them talking about who you are and what you have to offer as an artist. And word of mouth is the number one way to build your fan base. And in, in, in the ideal, you are marketing and promoting to get people talking about you, and you want them to share your music with their friends. And you can't force somebody to do that, and that's probably why it's so valuable, because it's so genuine, it's so authentic when somebody, you know, tweets out your video because they like it. Or they share a song with somebody because they think that they'll like it. And everything that you're doing is to build exposure with the hope of people sharing it with people they give a shit about. So it makes it a little bit easier if you keep that in mind, that everything you're doing is to get people to share. So if you create campaigns based around them sharing your music, you might be a little bit happier with the outcome than if you're just putting music out there and getting nothing from it. The Rock Father saying, I'm an Atlanta guitar loop composer trying to collaborate with producers. My first placement dropped 2 weeks ago, my second drops this week. I'm getting top producers wanting to work with me. That's excellent, but I'm finding a long wait between them initially contacting me and actually working with me. Is this normal? Yes. Should I get a manager or keep going it alone? Um, I would keep going it alone until you get to a point where you're attracting the best manager you can. Um, when you're building a career, the bottom feeders come first. And if you think about it logically, The people that have a lot of time to sort of cruise the internet and go to the different studios or cruise the open mics looking for artists, the people that have a lot of time to do that are the people that don't have a lot of business going on. And vice versa, the people that are super busy and that are great at what they do aren't hanging out in those places because they just— they don't— they don't. They're doing deals, they're making money for their clients. So you want to be in a position where you've got enough going on that you're attracting the best possible manager that you could for what you do. JC Kush is saying, how do you know when you should sell your album versus when you should give it out for free? Um, that's a hard question. It's really a feeling you get. Now, first of all, let me say that I sell everything that I give out for free. So if I'm putting an album up on SoundCloud, it's also on Spotify, it's also on iTunes, it's also on Apple Music, it's on Google Play, it's on Amazon Music, it's everywhere. So if somebody wants to pay for it, um, I welcome that. That's not a bad thing, right? There, there are people who will buy music no matter what, and then there are people who will get it free no matter what, even if that means they have to go to a BitTorrent site and download it for free. They will do that. There's just people that won't pay for music. And when you're building your career, it just makes sense to reach everybody. You don't want to cut anybody out of what you're offering. Um, in terms of when do you sell it versus when do you give it away free, that's more of a feeling that you're gonna feel with your fan base. You're gonna know when you're at a point where you can stop giving it away for free. I mean, there's still going to be people that share it, there's still people that are going to bootleg it. But I understand what you're asking. You're asking when do you stop putting it up on DatPiff and Live Mixtapes and, um, Spinrilla and go right for the sites that pay. You can always test this by putting your music up, and let me just pick a random example, like March 1st. You might put all of your music on a paid platform on March 1st, and then if you don't reach the level of sales that you feel you should have by March 14th, then you may want to put it up on the free sites, less some of the songs, so that the people that paid for it don't feel like you cheated them. You don't want to put up, you know, if, if you sold 18 songs, you don't want to give away 18 songs for free. Maybe you give away 10 songs for free so that the people that paid for it got an extra 8. And then you mentioned, hey, if you buy it, you get an extra 8. If you don't, you don't. Um, that might be a way around that. But yeah, that, that's a very hard— it's a very hard call, you know. Um, with Trouble, we have given away 4 mixed CDs. We're about to drop the 5th one in March, and we're going to try to charge for this. And we've given away 4 for free. We think that's plenty. We think he's got enough of a fan base now. And it's not— there's no measurement that I can give you. It's my gut that's telling me that, that we're at a point where we feel his fans will start buying the music. You know, he's, he's at, um, I think he's at 15,000 a show right now. So we feel that if he can get that for a show, then the fans should be willing to pay for the music, because they're obviously paying somewhere between $30 and $50 a ticket to go see him at the club if they're paying him that much to perform, right? That's my thinking anyway. Um, let me come back to, um, Rockfather for a minute. Um, you're in Atlanta, so you're hitting all of the studios too, right? Like, you're hitting all of the producers, but you're also hitting like the working, like the engineers, the producers that hang out like at Hot Beats and Doppler and Patchwork and TreeSound. I'm hoping that you're promoting yourself amongst all the working producers as well, the ones that probably aren't spending a lot of time online because they're so busy. So you should really become a studio rat if you're not already. I'm guessing that you probably are. But just in case you're not, want to put that in your, in your head for you. John Ferg, is it smart for a producer to sign a publishing deal after one hit for financial purposes? Um, I'm not a fan of pub deals ever. I like administration deals. That's where you give up 10% of the money that they collect, but I just don't see a reason why you would sell half of your publishing to somebody unless you knew that you were going to make less money than they're offering, or if there's something that you need to do with the money, like if somebody in your family needs to have a heart transplant and you need the money, I totally get it. Um, but I just don't see why you'd sell yourself short. Like, why not collect 100% of the money that you make instead of doing a deal for upfront money for 50%? Obviously they're going to make money or they wouldn't be doing that kind of deal. Publishers are very savvy businessmen. They know exactly what to pay for music. They, in most cases, have been doing it for a long time. I just don't see why you would sign a pub deal. I'd rather see you keep 100% of your publishing always and then just pay them 10% of the money of whatever they collect. If you— obviously you need somebody to collect your money for you. The Rock Father saying, with my two placements, I've been approached by a reputable publisher who has offered an admin deal. We're here. All the producers I know have this. Your thoughts? You heard my thoughts. Um, I, I like admin deals. I, I don't like co-pub deals. I just don't see see why you would sign away a portion of your— and he just removed the question. I just don't— I, yeah, I love admin deals. I think they're great. Louis Barragan, thank you so much. You just tuned in, but you wanted to say that I am a great resource and I'm knowledgeable. The truth is I've been doing this for 25 years. Next month will be my 25th anniversary in the music business. So I've seen a thing or two, you know. I've been doing this a really long time. I gotta tell you though, it doesn't feel like 25 years. It went by like that. It went by so fast. But thank you. You know, I also, I also, I have never focused on the money. In my career. I've never— I've never— I can't say I've never done something for money because there are times where I've done work for money, but I've never made a decision based on money. I've always made decisions based on my client's career or my career, um, if it was a decision for myself. It was a decision for my client. I always made decisions, and I still do, that are in the best interest of my client, even if it's inconvenient for me. And I think most people in this industry don't do that. It's a very self-serving industry, and people seem to do what's best for them instead of what's best for their clients. Um, and I think a lot of that was what paved the way for me to have success in the music business and to stay relevant after 25 years. You know, many of the people that I came up with in this industry are gone. You know, they're in other fields. They're selling real estate, they're selling cars, they're at tech companies. You know, they're doing all kinds of different shit. They just got out of the music industry completely, and I lost touch with them. But very few people that came in when I came in are still around, so I'm, I'm pretty thankful. Frederick Ellis is asking me for any good music business books. That you might want to buy. You know, not only should you read music business books, but you should read business books as well. I read a lot of nonfiction books, and there's some really great books out there. Okay, in music business, Donald Passman's book. I'm assuming you've already read that. Another book that was really helpful for me was The 48 Laws of Power. You've probably read it. It's a very popular book by Robert Greene. Um, sometimes in the music industry I'm a little bit too nice, and when I read The 48 Laws of Power, it made me understand a lot of how other people do business in the music industry. And just knowing that I wasn't crazy, um, really helped. Like, it really helped for me to read that book because it understood the mindset of a lot of the people that you're gonna meet in this music business, and it will help you understand them. Um, The Art of War, ditto. Like, I— when I read The Art of War, it wasn't because I wanted to be Machiavelli— Machiavellian and like, you know, like hoard all the success and, you know, step on people to get where I was going, but it helped me understand that mindset, and that mindset is prevalent and rampant in the music business. And it just really helped me to make moves in my career and understand, you know, folks at labels and, you know, different people out there that kind of think that way. Um, I'm trying to think if there's any other music business books that are helpful. Um, I'm drawing a blank. There are, there are plenty of music business books that are great out there. It's just I can't think of one right offhand. I should put together a list for you guys of, um, of books that would probably be helpful. I'll do that in the next, um, week or so. Remind me next week on this, um, session, and I will have put it together and I will get it to you somehow. The Rock Father. This publishing administration guy is asking 15% but also doing some connections to other producers, producers for collaborations, and will negotiate for me. So is the extra 5% acceptable? Yes. How about then you give him the 15% on the ones that he does that for and 10% on the ones that you bring to the table? That will keep him honest. Um, I'm a little bit jaded, I have to admit to you up front, Rockfather, that my whole career I've been hearing publishing companies tell artists they're going to go get them work, and I don't know of any who have. So, um, I would, I would just like to see you protect yourself in a way that forces him to do the work that he's going to say he's going to do. So um, like 6 months from now, if he's really doing what he says he's gonna do, I would give him 15% on everything to show him that I like the fact that he kept his word. But until he proves himself, I wouldn't give him 15%, at least not on everything. Yeah, Rockfather, become a studio— become a studio rat. I think that will really help you. Um, producers don't go to the studios as much as they used to, but— and they're clicked up. If you can get into those cliques, I think it'll really help you. Have you met Rico Brooks yet? Rico manages, um, a shit ton of producers. He manages Sunny Digital, he manages Metro Boomin. Um, I can't remember who else he manages, but he manages producers. You should probably um, reach out to him, get to know him, let him know what you do, um, because if you sell him on what you're doing, he can put you in touch with all of his producers. Rockfather suggested Good to Great. It's by a guy named Jim Collins. It's without a doubt my favorite business book. It's phenomenal. Um, it's called Good to Great. And it teaches you how to set up a great company. Not a good company, but a great company, one that's going to last through generations. It's a phenomenal book. Um, there's a sequel to it too, um, Rockfather. What's it called? It's got a red cover. It's also Jim Collins. Um, can somebody Google that or go to Amazon? And, um, but he has two books and they're both incredible. Um, there's another book that's not really a business book, but, but it's something that I read at least once a year Um, it's called The Power of Focus. It is by Jack Canfield. Um, he also has a book called The Success Principles, which are awesome. Um, he gives you a list, and I can't remember how many it is, so I'm going to make up a number, but it's like 50 or 60 or 90 success principles. Um, you're not going to do all of them, but if you read the book, you can pick and choose the ones that are the best for you. That you can apply to your life. But, um, I'm a huge Jack Canfield, um, fan. I've gone to see him live twice. Um, the first time he really changed my life. He kind of changed my— you know how like we all have those voices in our head that tell us, oh, you can't do that, oh, you're not good enough? Um, he really helped me get that shit out of my head. It was great. And I went to see him after I did the Cash Money deal. Imagine if I had gone to like learn from him before that. Oh my God, there would have been no stopping me. JC Kush is saying, um, if a producer gets an advance for a song, how do the people who distribute the royalties know to hold that back until after the advance is recouped. It's all done by accounting, by spreadsheets. Believe me, they know. Yep, there's special accounting software in the music industry that tracks that, and I haven't met an artist or a producer yet that hasn't had to audit his record label or his publishing company to make sure that the software was accurate and because it's only as accurate as the information input into the computer. Jason Steele is asking, how would you go about looking for a credible publicist that will work for an artist? Um, the best way to find a great publicist is to look at the blogs, see who's getting a lot of coverage. And I don't mean Future, I don't mean Drake, I don't mean Jay-Z. I mean artists that are at the level that you are you know, which one of those is getting a lot of press, and then do the research and find out who that publicist is, and then reach out to them and see if you can hire them. JC Kush says he's currently reading All You Need to Know About the Music Business by Donald Passman, um, Wendy recommended. Yeah, it's good, right? It's really good. You know, I like— the thing that I liked about it, and he's, he's in like the 12th edition, so I don't know if, um, Built to Last— Good to Great, Built to Last. Thank you, you rock for that. We have the same taste in books, have you noticed that? Um, Built to Last is a great book. Good to Great is a great book too, and they're both Jim Collins. I recommend them both. They're business, not music business, but basically you're an entrepreneur, you know, you're an entrepreneur first and you're an artist second. And the reason I put them in that order is because you're going to spend more time marketing and promoting yourself than you're going to spend making music. Making music is probably going to be about 10% of your life, and 90% of your life is going to be spent trying to find the outlets to make money from the music that you make. Um, Donald Passman, that's what I started to say. The thing that I liked about it is it allowed you to skip sections. So if you're already somewhat knowledgeable about the music industry— and I suggest you read it anyway even if you know it all— um, but it showed you, hey, if you don't want to read about publishing, skip to page 90. I don't know if the, the current editions still tell you how to do that, but I like that. And that helped me when I went to reread it. I could skip the stuff that I really didn't need to know about. Jamie Sleazy, how are you? Louis Barragan is saying, Wendy Day, I appreciate you answering everyone's questions. Thank you for taking the time out to do this. I'm sure everyone watching has learned something or gained better insight. Um, I'm so happy to do this, and I guess you guys have noticed that I've learned how to interview people, so I'm doing more and more interviews. I'm setting them up, and that's fun for me when I interview people because I ask questions and I learn shit too. So we'll all be learning together. Guys, thank you for tuning in tonight. I do this every Wednesday at 7 PM. You can email me questions to thisiswendyday@gmail.com, or you can ask them in the stream. It's better to email me though so that I can do some research if I have to. And, um, I'm so glad you guys are here. MC Low, thanks for tuning in. I appreciate it. This, this episode, in case you missed the beginning, or in case I spoke too fast or stumbled, or My internet connection was janky. Um, it should be posted in about an hour to YouTube, so you can go back and watch what you need to watch. Thank you guys, talk to you soon. Bye!