LIVE with Wendy Day November 1, 2017 | Answering Your Questions Live

Hi guys, this is Wendy Day from Wrap Kolish 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. I've got a lot of great information for you today. I'm so glad 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 live stream or 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, can you hear me tonight? Hey Coop, how are you? Coop, thanks for doing the, um, podcast. Have you guys checked out the, uh, podcast interview that Coop de Trill did with me last week? It was pretty awesome. Hector, how are you? Money baby. Harry, how are you? Henry, excuse me, how are you? Dylan Francis, yes, it's the last 2017 live stream. Just noticed. How are you? Henry's looking for an artist manager. You know, you're gonna, um, attract a better, uh, level of manager once you have a really strong buzz. So maybe go build a big buzz before you start looking for a manager. And do you have enough to, to manage, um, for a manager? Once you start making money, you know, it's going to be so much easier to find. And maybe you are, maybe you already are making money. It's going to be so much easier to find, um, a great manager. Sandlot Music Group, thank you so much. Larry Bird, how are you? Just notice Odd Man Out Music, happy to have you here. Media Kings, yes. Odd Man Out Music, it has been, it has been a good year. Has it been a good year? Yes, it has been a good year. So guys, what questions do you have? And hopefully you've got some, some new questions. I'm looking I think I answered this. I answered this one last, last month about how managers get paid and their revenue. Oh, Dylan, thank you so much. I'm so glad that, um, I'm so glad that you guys are learning from this. Yay! You know, it's funny, it seems like the first of every month I'm always downtown at meetings and I'm driving like a crazy woman to get back here in time so that, um, I can launch this. And it's funny because, um, last Wednesday, which I think was the 30th, right, of the month, I was like, oh my God, I gotta go live! And I was in a big hurry to get home, and then I realized like halfway home that it wasn't December 1st, it was November 30th. So I was like, oh, okay, I have another week. Thank you, Pat. Denise, how are you? Henry, yes, managers get paid anywhere from, um, 15% to, uh, to 20%. Okay, I need to put this aside because I want to play with it. Um, Tony got me the new, the new iPhone X today, so it's over in the back charging. But you know how like when you have a new toy and the box is sitting on your desk, you want to like go in and play. So I'm just going to put it way over here so that I'm not tempted to play with it instead of paying attention to you guys, because you guys matter more. Vici de Menes is asking, what's the best way to reach out to new fans on Instagram? The way that we do it is we find artists that are similar to you, and we go through and we follow a bunch of their followers, and the ones that follow us back, we interact with. There's different Instagram app— Instagram apps that can help you do this, that can help you go through and capture. There isn't one that I use specifically, so you're gonna probably have to Google that and see which ones are out there. But that's probably the fastest way to build your Instagram with real people. And remember, you want real people because you want to be able to bring them into your fan base. These are folks that you want to come to your shows and buy your merchandise and support your music and give you feedback. Make sure you guys, um, interact with everybody on Instagram, right? I know it's really time-consuming to go through your comments and respond, um, but it's a really good idea to do that. You guys should post your, um— thank you, Coop— you guys should post your Instagram handles in the feed, and you should all follow each other because you've got me in common. Right? So you might as well follow each other and help each other and interact with each other during the month when we're not here answering questions and talking with each other, right? It's just a natural way to find new people. Hector's asking me, does the money you make from merchandise go to your labels bank account, publishing bank account, or touring bank account? Um, I usually have it go to the touring bank account because most merchandise is sold at shows for, um, for artists. So that's usually part of the touring bank account. Happy holidays, Ronnie Lee, um, and thank you for all the cool ask— the cool ask— the cool ass emojis in the feed. Thank you, love. You're being artistic, I love it. You've got flowers and balloons and Christmas trees. Um, Henry's asking, do I think it's time for another hip-hop duo like Outkast or Field Mob? Um, yeah, it's very likely. The reason you don't see as many duos as you used to see is because it's very hard to get paid as an artist, and when you're a duo, you have to split all the money. So most artists want to do this themselves so that they can make the lion's share of the money instead of it— instead of having to split it. I'm tongue-tied today. What is my problem? Maybe I just need to relax. Maybe that's what it is. Dylan is asking, in this day and age, would you recommend signing to a social media agency other than a traditional record label? Um, You know, you know what, it's Dion, not Dylan. I'm sorry, honey, I need to have my eyes checked. Um, I don't— it depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to be an artist, um, I don't see the value of signing to a social media agency, but I do see the value of hiring a social media team to help you boost your social media. Um, for me, I'm not really great at building my own social media. So if I were— if I were starting another business, or if I were an artist, I would hire somebody to help me do that. Um, I hire people to help my clients do that because it's not something that I'm super great at. I'm not patient enough to, um, to really help my artists grow their social media. So that's something that Tony does. On, on our side because he is patient enough and he's willing to be on his phone 24/7. Like, if you guys have ever seen Tony out there in the real world, he's like this, like constantly. Like, we have dinner together and it looks like this, and I'm not kidding. He's just always on his phone, and I'm not willing to do that. I want to have Wendy Day time. I want to be able to talk to my clients. I want to do more than just interact with people on social media. Visita Menes, um, you've been doing this too. Should you ask them to buy music? Um, I wouldn't ask my fans to buy music. Um, I might ask them to put me in their playlists so that when their friends are listening to music, they discover me. I don't think I would ever, um, walk up to somebody and say, hey, buy my music. But I'm not a promotion-y type of person. Like, as you guys see here, I don't really hawk my shit. Like, I don't try to sell my books, I don't try to sell the list that I have. I'm really kind of laid back. I figure that people will discover on their own what I have, and if it makes sense for them, they'll do it. Um, should you ask somebody to buy your music? You might ask them what they think about it, and then that's going to— that's going to trigger them to listen to it at least and give you feedback. I guess you do what's best for you. Henry's learning in class about artist management. Searching our target audience and demographics, how important is that for new artists? Um, artist management, I don't believe is important for brand new artists because brand new artists don't yet have the value and the leverage to attract a really strong manager. They only have the ability to attract somebody that's kind of new to the game, and I don't know that you need to do that, right? So, um, hey Miracle, welcome back. Um, so I can't really speak to the importance of management because I don't find it super important for brand new artists. I think you can manage yourself until you can't do it anymore, then you need a manager. Um, but searching your target audience and demographics is hugely important. You want to make sure that you're reaching the people that are potential fans of your music, right? Like, if you're making street music, you should be targeting 60-year-old white ladies that live in retirement communities. That's not your market, right? So it's very important to know who your target audience is and to reach them. Young Yoda: I have a friend that's a producer and got a call from a mag collective and saying that they work with Rich Gang and come to Canada and to come sit on sessions, but it's $15,000 a year. Don't know about that. Do the research, I guess. Briggs Crawford, thank you, Denise. What a huge compliment. Denise says that she's the mother of a rapper and she's gained a lot of knowledge from me. You know, it's really cool, and I give Denise like mad props. Um, and as a disclaimer, she's become my friend. She started out as, um, a rapper's mom, but now she's my friend Denise, right? Um, but I think it's really cool. Like, the thing that first attracted— Denise, I hope I don't embarrass you here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna embarrass you a little bit. Um, the thing that really caught my attention about Denise is that she's the mother of a rapper and she's supportive of him being a rapper. She's not— she didn't reach out to me like, oh, my son's a rapper, would you talk him out of it? She's like, oh, my son's a rapper and I really want to see him succeed, and I've already like taken a second mortgage on my house and I've lost a little bit of money. Sorry to embarrass you. Um, I've lost a little bit of money in this industry and I don't want to lose more, and I want to help my son. And I thought that was really cool because so many parents, like including mine when I first started working in the music business, So many parents are like, no, get a real job. Like, music isn't a job. Like, go get a job job, you know. We don't, we don't want to see you as a rapper. Rapping is negative, or, you know, whatever. So that really attracted me to her. I thought it was really cool. And then I got to know her as a person, and she didn't come to me asking me for, you know, help me with my son, help me do this, help me do that. She came to me bringing me articles, and I'm a data geek, so she would see see, um, statistics out there about, you know, the music industry. And she would email them to me and say, hey, have you seen this? Hey, Nielsen just put out this study on, um, diversity in urban music. Have you seen it? And it's like she wasn't just trying to get information from me. She will— she wanted to interact with me. She wanted to bring me value as well as get value. And that's a really intelligent way to approach people. And Denise, I hope I didn't, um, embarrass you by saying all that, but we've become friends, you know, through this. I love her dearly. Just Notice says it can work. Guys like Lil Pump and Lil Perp came into the game together. Um, yeah, wasn't there another guy, uh, Rojas, that came in with Pump as well? There's a, um There's a bunch of people that came into the relationship. Pat's asking me, what was your relationship with Cash Money Records? Um, I'm going to let you Google Wendy Day and Cash Money Records and you can actually see for yourself. Henry's asking, when you were managing Eminem— I never managed Eminem— how did you pitch him to the labels at that time? As a white rapper. Um, I didn't manage Eminem, I just recognized his— I recognized his talent. I had just done, uh, Twista's joint venture at Atlantic. I had just come off of the Master P deal, so the labels were open to me. Um, and I sent his music to them. And no, I didn't pitch him as a white rapper because back then being a white rapper was super negative and super difficult. It would be like trying to pitch a deaf rapper today, like going to labels and saying, hey, here's this deaf rapper and he's really talented. The labels would be like, what are you talking about? It doesn't mean he wouldn't be talented, it just means there is no example of a successful deaf rapper, so it would be a really hard sell. Well, at that time, Eminem, um, was coming into the industry right after um, there were some white rappers that had been exposed for not being real, and it was very difficult to, um, to get a rapper on. We ended up doing Rap Olympics to really showcase his talent in order to get him the deal at Interscope. Um, Sandlot Music Group— there is a, a video, there's an interview where I interviewed Sonny from One RPM for distribution. I'm gonna let you watch that so that you can see what they offer because I don't— I don't want me answering questions into a sales pitch for one company over another company. I think that would be kind of foul. But I did interview Sonny from 1RPM. If you search back a couple months in my videos, or if you go to rapjewels.com All of my videos are archived there, and just search, um, One RPM and you'll find it. And you can watch that video and you'll hear it from the horse's mouth. He'll tell you exactly what the advantages of them are. Corey Grimes said, I saw a video on YouTube saying that if you're with BMI, they will collect your publishing royalties even if you're not a publisher with them. If that's the case, why would I need to sign up? Um, Not sure that's accurate, Corey. Um, BMI and ASCAP are, um, performance royalty collection agencies, and I do know they collect money for all artists. And if you're a member, they will pay you, but if you're not a member, you're not going to get a check from them. So the reason you would need to sign up would be to get a check. Now you don't sign up with all of the PROs. You don't— you sign up with like one of the three. So either ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC. Um, somebody was telling me the other day there's a fourth one. I'm not familiar with them, so I don't want to talk about something I don't know. But as you do the research and you find out there's a fourth one, that may very well be the case. Young Yoda said nothing. Email from personal email saying they like the beats on SoundCloud. I don't trust emails from people that tell me that they like the music and then there is a cost involved. If a label wants to work with you or sign you, they will fly you to their offices, usually in New York or Atlanta or Los Angeles. Um, but you don't have to put music up. Um, yes, Yoda, I see that it's Rich Gang Management. Um, I can't speak on that. It, it doesn't sound right to me. Talon Bryant's asking what an LLC is. It's a type of corporation where the, um, income passes through your personal income so that you pay a little bit less tax than if it's a corporation. Like an INC. Supreme General is thanking me for my book. He says it's fantastic. Thank you so much, I appreciate it. Um, Just Notice is saying, as a producer, how do I get music to movies, commercials, and TV shows? You either build relationships with the music supervisors, or you find someone that does that for a living and ask them to pitch your music to them. Don't give up your publishing. Some of the people that pitch music want to take a percent of your, of your publishing. If that's the case, move on to somebody who does not. Also, I have some lists— oh, this is going against what I just said about commercials— I have lists at rap-resources.com of music supervisors the people that buy music for video games, a bunch of other folks. If you go to rap-resources.com, you can see what's there. That wasn't a commercial. I mean, it sounded like one, but it wasn't. I didn't mean it to be. Yes, Odd Man Out is saying if you don't sign up at BMI, you can't collect the publishing royalties. You guys understand that BMI is a professional performance rights organization, and they pay one kind of royalty. They pay performance royalties, okay? And yes, it is a kind of publishing, but there's a myriad of publishing royalties. So if you guys would just do a little bit of research, um, Donald Passman's book Everything You Need to Know About the Music Business— it might be All You Need to Know About the Music Business. Anyway, it's by Donald Passman. His book explains publishing beautifully. And 3 Stunna Bands, um, does street promotion work? It absolutely does. That's how I build 100% of the clients that I work with, is through street promotion and promotions online. How do you start managing yourself? You are managing yourself. You're doing the work. A manager sits down with you, plans a strategy on how to market and promote you. They help you plan how you're gonna get from point A to point B in in terms of achieving goals in your career. When you don't have a manager, you do that yourself. You figure out, how am I going to get from here to here? And you manage yourself. Once you've got a little bit of, um, once you've got a little bit of momentum and you have a buzz and you've got a fan base, you're going to be able to attract a manager that already has clout in the music industry, and they can just step in and apply their connections and their relationships and their experience to what you're already doing and get you to the next level. But until you're at a certain level, there's no one that has connections that's going to really want to do that because there's too many artists out here today that already have some movement. So you can jump on a moving train and help them get to the next level or you can start from scratch and help somebody get to the next level. It's a little bit harder to find somebody who wants to help you start from scratch. Thank you, Denise, such a huge compliment. I hope I didn't embarrass you. Devonta Taylor's asking if I'm the writer of the lyrics on a beat that I've purchased to copyright it properly, should I submit as a performing arts or sound recording? A sound recording, because you're, you're on the song. You're actually— it's actually the song that you're copyrighting. You know what, go to copyright.gov just to make sure that that's correct. I don't want to tell you— it's the PA form which that I usually fill out, not the SR form, which would imply performing arts. So would you please go to copyright.gov and just do a little bit of research there. Um, I think it's the label that fills out the sound recording copyright, but when you're putting out your own music, you are the record label. So just go do a little bit of research on there. I, I don't want to steer you wrong, but, um, it's the PA form I think you fill out— Performing Arts— and I just told you the opposite. So go do the research to make sure. No, Son of Bands, I think it's a scam. I think anytime that you interact with somebody and they want you to pay money to them to do something, that's a service, it's not an opportunity. So just make sure that they're real, right? Mike Woods, how are you? Koop de Trill is asking, where are some places or sites early adopters exist? Like, where can you send your music to people who appreciate new music? Um, the number one place that people discover music is YouTube, so you're gonna want to make sure that all of your new music is on YouTube. Um, the second place is streaming, so you want to be on all the streaming sites like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Google Play. Other than that, you're gonna need to go in and find your market and see where your market discovers music. You know, some of them go to open mics to discover music in their area, so you'd want to have your music at the open mics. Sometimes you can reach people by hitting a college campus, and if you walk up to them and interact with them and then hand them a um, you know, a download card so that they can find you online. Some will go and check out your music, or you can just build a buzz and people will share music with their friends when they really like something. Get on as many playlists as possible. Playlists are a great place to be discovered, and you don't have to be on the biggest playlist. Like, you don't have to be on Rap Caviar to be successful. But people who appreciate new music are everywhere. Um, the mixtape sites attract a lot of people that like new music, like Spinrilla, mymixtapes.com, Datpiff, Live Mixtapes. There's a lot of people that love new music on those sites. Todd's asking, how do I go about paying for a one-on-one video chat with you or Tony? I still read your Kindle books. That I bought years ago. I have a book by Passman. It's All You Need to Know— All You Need to Know, thank you. The book is All You Need to Know About the Music Industry by Donald Passman, and he covers publishing beautifully. Like, that's where I learned about publishing. And publishing's not easy, guys. Like, don't— if you struggle with understanding it, don't feel stupid, because you're not stupid. There's a lot— took me like 5 years to really understand all of the ins and outs of publishing, and I still don't know it so well that I can sit here and teach you about publishing. Like, if you notice, there is no video really on publishing. I interview somebody about publishing because it's a really difficult topic for me. Um, Todd, to answer your question, um, if you go to askwendyday.com there's a link there, and I think it's also at rap-resources.com. I think both— I think both links go to the same site. Mike Woods, how can you ensure you've registered a track with ASCAP or BMI properly? They will let you know. They will accept it once you've uploaded all the information. You will get a confirmation that it's accurate. Odd Man Out is saying PA is for the artist and SR is for the sound recording, which would be the record label. PA would be the writer, you, and the composer, which is the producer. And the sound recording is, if you're gonna put it out as a record label, that would be the copyright. Cursor TV, I have never heard of Mia Mind Music. Tony! My husband's on here. I love him. He's a keeper. Yes, SR is for the, um, sound recording, the record label. Oh, Polly, that's so cool! Polly watches Tony's live. That was really cool. You guys, Tony does, um, Facebook Lives, as you've heard me discuss many, many, many times. I think he does them almost every day, so you should definitely, um, make sure that you're attached to his feed. Make sure that you're watching him. So that when he goes live you get a notification. Um, he is a little bit— he is a little bit more blunt than I am. I'm a little bit kinder than he is. Um, but you can learn so much from him because he will just give it to you raw, and I love that. Like, there's no bullshit with the man. Um, He is my husband, so I support him greatly, but I probably would tell you if his shit sucked. I would probably tell you, hey, he's my husband, but his shit sucks. But it's really pretty amazing. Mike Wood says it's funny to watch Tony get annoyed with cars around him. Yeah, he does it. He does it when he's driving most of the time. He also does it on our patio, which is kind of funny. I get to see it like from in the house. Like, I can hear him talking to you guys. It's really kind of cool. But I love that he does that. Like, so few people, um, don't really give up information, you know. Their MO in this industry is just to hit a lick and make as much money as they can. So I love that he does that. Mike Wood says he's legit, check him out. Absolutely. Um, somebody just asked how Trouble's career is going, and I didn't mean to skip over it, but I did. Um, Trouble is temporarily locked down. I think it's for like 30 days or so from, um, something that happened, uh, in July of 2016. When you guys are building your career, for those of you who, um, like to party and like to do things that are slightly illegal Remember that if you get caught, it will affect your career. And Trouble had to sit down for like 30 or 45 days or something, but he'll be, he'll be back out at the top of the year. Um, the Truth Is Refreshing, a download card is like a business card. Um, I'm looking for one on my desk. I usually have one here. Yeah, this is kind of one, not really. Um, a download card, it looks like a business card um, but it's got all of your links. It's got your website, it's got your Spotify, your YouTube, so that somebody can, um, go to your links and check out your music when they meet you. And obviously you want it to be as attractive as possible. It can be a thin paper, um, business card, or it can be like this, which is a little bit more credit card-y, um, for a little bit of a lasting effect. It can be square, it can be round, it can be whatever. We used to give out CDs back in the day. On some clients I still do give out CDs, it just depends on where I am. If I'm in the Southeast, I still give out CDs because there are still many, many, many CD players. If I'm in New York City or Chicago or LA, I do not. I give out download cards. Excellent answer, Tony. Tony's telling Coop, um, try community.spotify.com for people who like new music and are looking for it and are willing to swap out promo for you. Great suggestion. Thank you, love. Um, companies that make download cards— Cursor TV is, um, any company that makes business cards. Um, Vistaprint is a very inexpensive company. Um, MooCards is very inexpensive. Uh, Jakprints, which is spelled J-A-K-P-R-I-N-T-S, is where I've gotten round cards. When I was working with Joyner Lucas, we gave out round, um download cards because it just matched his logo at the time. Sandlot Music is asking, does Empire do deals with fairly new artists, or do you need a really good buzz first? Um, you need a pretty good buzz. I mean, any distributor is going to be happy to collect money for you if there's money to collect, but if you put music up and you're only getting, you know, 5 or 10 downloads a month, they're not going to be so happy to have you as part of the team. I mean, you're going to be there, but you're not going to get any attention. Um, most of my newer clients that are brand new, I'll start out at TuneCore or DistroKid just to sort of get their numbers up a little bit, and then I bring them to, um, to a distributor. Travis, we sell music and we give it away. I want to always make sure that I'm reaching fans the way that they want to hear their music. So if you're on Spotify, right, and it's the only place as a fan that you receive music, I want to make sure that my artists are on Spotify because I want you to hear their music. If you don't have Spotify and you're really just somebody who cruises the mixtape sites, if I don't have my artist music on DatPiff or Spinrilla or Live or MyMixTapes, then you're gonna miss the music. I would rather you hear the music when it's a new artist to build the fan base than to make the money. I mean, making money is great and you gotta monetize this, but I just feel like I want the music to be wherever somebody is receiving the music, right? Wherever somebody wants to get music. So I prefer to be everywhere. Benny, how are you? Benny binge-watched my videos. Okay, so Benny, Benny has a Twitch now, right? Um, you binge-watched all of my videos and studied for a whole weekend, but I want to know your opinion on the market. You're in New Haven, Connecticut., and there's a bunch of colleges and high schools around. I like New Haven. I think New Haven is a decent marketplace. I'm not sure what type of music you're making, but don't just, don't just market to New Haven, right? You want to go a little bit wider, like make sure you hit Providence, Rhode Island. You want to hit like Brown University and that whole area. Springfield, Massachusetts is a great market. I guess what I'm saying is go a little bit bigger than just New Haven, Connecticut. You know, hit as many markets as you can afford. Obviously blitz your own market first, but go bigger than just one market. You're not gonna— you're not gonna find enough fans to sustain a career in just one market. Odd Man Out is asking when we'll be in Chicago. Um, Tony and I were just in Chicago a couple weeks ago, um, for a client, but we were there for I think 12 hours. We flew in in the afternoon and we were out first thing the next morning. Um, I know I don't have any plans to be in Chicago Um, my schedule's pretty set between now and March, and I'm not scheduled to be in Chicago anytime before then, so it might be a minute. Um, Cursor's asking, is Selecto Hits still distributing CDs? I believe that they are. Um, I don't utilize a CD distributor. I give CDs away for free and try to drive people to the download sites to monetize. And the streaming platforms to monetize and YouTube to monetize. Um, so I don't, I don't know if they are or not, but I believe they still exist. They had a very large Latin music, um, following Selecto Hits client, client base. And I believe people still give away a lot of CDs in the Latin, uh, music community. So Dion is asking the age-old question: is it better to be signed or is it better to be independent? And I gotta tell you, I'm really biased with this, you know, so I'm gonna answer your question, but I'm gonna tell you to seek out more answers than just me because for me, independence is great, but I know how to do this, so it's easy for me to say that. You know, if you don't know what you're doing, sometimes you have to sign to a label because they have the money and they have the know-how and you don't. So is it better to be independent and not have any money and no career and just bumbling around and nobody's hearing your music, or sign to a label? See, for me, independence is great because I think it's easier to find an investor than it is to find a record deal. And once you find an investor, you can hire folks, you know, people out there like me that are consultants. You can— and Tony, you can hire people to help you put your music out and become successful. And then you own a larger percent of the music. If you sign to a record label, you're only going to get somewhere between 12% and 18% of the income, and that's after you pay back all of the money that's spent on building your career, you know. And almost everything is recoupable. So, and you pay that out of your percentage, it doesn't come off the top. So you pay back what's spent out of your 12% royalty or your 18% royalty. Um, I just really prefer independence. I think there's enough people out here that will invest in you once you've got a little movement forward. And I think that there's enough people that you can hire somebody to help you excel, and then you can be your own record label. I just don't— I don't see the value of major labels today. That's a personal opinion. Mike Woods is asking me, he's trying to be part of every music video he hears about. Do you think it's good to be part of other artists' videos even if their art is different from yours? I don't know of anybody who's ever been discovered from being in somebody else's video, so I'd have to say no. I think that it's great for exposure, like it's getting you fame, or at least you feel like you're getting fame, but it's not— it's not like somebody's watching a video and going, oh, who's that guy? Let me go listen to his music, because they won't even know that you're an artist, right? I think the best way to promote yourself is to market and promote your own music and make your own videos. And then once you're known, if you want to be in other artists' videos, I would be very selective about whose video I was in. I'd want to make sure that we share the same fan base, because remember, the goal in this is to expand your brand. And then once you expand your brand, to make money doing this, right? Odd Man Out saying independent's best, but it's a harder grind. You know, I think, I think they're both a hard grind. Like, I don't know of a major label that just starts, like, jumps in and starts working you. Like, you've really got to get it started for them, and then once you've got a movement, then they'll kick in with the money for marketing and promotion and put the, put the team behind you. But to me, it's, it's kind of the same. You know, the great thing about a major label is if you want to be a pop star, if you want to be Lady Gaga or Drake, you almost have to have the major label because it's going to be millions of dollars spent pretty quickly. And if you do that independently, you can certainly do it independently. Look at You know, look at Tech N9ne, but it's a slower grind, and most of you guys aren't 16 or 17 years old when you're starting out. You know, a lot of you start out in your early 20s, so you've already got a limited window in order to get on in this. That's, again, this is just my opinion, but if, you know, you want to be a superstar and you want to get on quickly, you, you might need to sign to a major label. But you're gonna have to be better than everybody out there, and you're gonna have to have some sort of a buzz in order to get signed. Todd's asking, how do we get verified on Twitter and Instagram? Very often your distributor can help you do that. I know with Twitter there's an actual form, so if you Google how to get verified on Twitter The link will come up where you can go in and fill out the form. I don't know if the form works or not. I just know that it exists. With Instagram, they're a little bit more selective. I know there is a shit ton of people out here that offer their services. If you pay them X amount of dollars, they will get you verified. I don't know if that works or not. I, I really don't know if that works or not. Mike Woods is asking, even with the way the industry is moving, social media, internet-based, when it comes to trying to build your buzz, what importance percentage would you say internet versus street is now? Um, I don't know that I can put it to a percentage, Mike Woods, because it's different for every artist. Like, Lil Pump started online and then moved into the streets. Um, Ditto 69, you know, he started as an internet artist. Nestle started as an internet artist. Um, Trouble started as a street artist. So I think you need both. Um, I don't know that I can put a percentage on, on which is more important. I, I don't think I can answer that, but I do know that you need both. Desario, you're so welcome. Benny is a hip-hop artist. The scene in New Haven is shitty. He said shoddy, but I'm assuming shitty since other artists don't really get along. But I understand branching out through New England. Absolutely branch out through New England. Um, Joyner Lucas really struggled. He's based, um, in Massachusetts outside of Boston, and I know that he's been struggling since 2014 to build his base, and he just did everything and anything that he could do. And eventually people caught on to him, you know, on the streets and online. Odd Man Out, I agree with you 100%. Um, Odd Man Out is saying 12 to 18, and you created the material, it's not even a thought to sign to a label. I agree. I, I think ownership is better You know, very often people look at the advances— like if you're signing to a label, they'll give you a check up front. A major label, they'll give you a check up front to sign to them, but you realize you've got to pay that back before you ever make any money. If you do this independently, you're gonna make money on the back end, but you gotta wait. You got to do the work first and wait for the money to come. So a lot of times people look at the money up front, they say, gee, I'd rather have 50 grand today than $100,000 6 months from now. I'm the opposite. I'd rather have $100,000 6 months from now. I'll find a way to, to sustain for those 6 months until my money starts coming in. I'll figure it out. Cursor TV is asking, how much longer will you be taking clients? Right now I'm not taking clients. I'm kind of maxed out. It depends on the day of the week that you ask me that. Sometimes I think, oh, I'll be doing this for the next 10 years, and then sometimes I think I'm out of here after this, after this run, I'm tired. So I don't know the answer to that. I wish I could answer that. Media Kings is asking, what's the difference of uploading your music videos through Vevo? Vevo reaches fans that watch videos on Vevo. YouTube reaches fans that watch videos on YouTube. It's different people watching your video. I think you should have both. There was a time where I was not a fan of Vevo, but I went to a conference in Nashville, and you guys may want to look into this. It's called musicbiz.org. It's in Nashville. It's It's sometime in May, I think, May or June. It wasn't a very expensive conference. I think I paid $250 to get in, and then I stayed in a really inexpensive hotel and just Ubered every day, but I really learned a lot. Like, it was really a great conference in terms of learning stuff, and the guys from Vyvo were there, and prior to hearing them speak, I didn't really have a lot of respect for Vyvo. Vevo was just a channel on YouTube, and I thought, well, if Vevo's just another channel on YouTube, that means YouTube is bigger than Vevo. I, I'll just want to be on YouTube. And then these guys did their presentation, and I saw how many viewers were discovering music on Vevo, and now I make sure my artists are on both. I believe you have to pay for a Vevo channel. Um, Google and do the research. But, um, I just believe— like, I keep coming back to this same philosophy where you want to be everywhere. You want to be anywhere that a potential fan is receiving their music, because if you're not there, they will never see you. Hub City Rhymes is saying, if you had $100 per week to spend on ads for music, for a music video of a single, would you spend all $100 on Facebook? Or YouTube ad, or would you split it 50/50 or do both? Um, it depends on where my market is. Um, I'm a big fan of Facebook ads, so, um, I would probably spend the bulk of it on Facebook. Tony probably has a different answer to this because he does this all day, every day. He places ads for, um, for his clients and, and for my clients constantly. Um, but I'm a big fan of Facebook because it's still the number one platform for social media. You know what, you know what I think? And thank you, Odd Man Out, you just triggered something else. Odd Man Out said do both, why not? Um, you guys know about testing ads, right? Like, you don't just wake up one day and start placing ads and dump all your money into that ad. You make a few different ads and you put them up on Facebook or whatever platform, YouTube, wherever you want to, you know, wherever you want to reach your fans. And you put a little bit of money behind each one and see which one is doing better. You know, it's called A/B testing. And if Advertisement A is getting more click-throughs, or if Ad A is getting more eyeballs or interactions or whatever your goal is for the ad, then B, then you're going to want to switch to putting all of your money behind Advertisement A. But change different things. Change the call to action, change the colors, change the photograph. Test these ads before you dump all of your money in it. So if you've got $100, maybe test the ads using $10 and then spend the other $90 on the ads that are really performing well. Thank you, Cursor TV. I'm not ready to retire yet. Well, that's not true. Some days I am, but right now, today's a good day. Um, Todd's asking, have Tony and I ever thought about collaborating and hiring a team to help you consult so you could reach a larger spectrum of people and it wouldn't all fall on you? Um, I've done that before, Todd. I actually set up an office in, uh, Buckethead. This is before— this is before I knew Tony. Um, and then I had a staff so that I could bring more artists in. And what happened was the artists all wanted to work with me, and they were coming to the company because they wanted to work with me. But because there were more artists, I was spending less time with each artist, and it didn't work so well. Not because they didn't have the success, but because they saw it like, oh, I want to work with Wendy Day, and they didn't feel like my team was giving them the attention that, say, I could have. And the reality is, of course, my team was, but it just didn't work very well. So, um, that lasted about a year, and I went back to consulting individually. Also, very few people can afford to hire me. It's— this is very expensive. It's, it's a very— the music industry is extremely costly. And very few people can afford to do this properly. So for me to incur the expense of having an entire staff devoted to this, what if there's one year where there's only one client? My overhead is going to be higher than the income we make from that client. Then on the flip side, there may be a year where there's 7 or 8 clients and, and, you know, it's a banner year. But it's, you know, it's, it's a very— the service that I offer is extremely high-end, and it's a little bit harder to find clients than somebody that works with artists to help them do, you know, one part of their, um, of their promotional campaign, and they get charged, you know, $5,000 a month or $3,000 a month. That's not what I do. I, I build the entire career, um, so it's, it's just a little bit harder for me to scale. Denise is saying Facebook ads really work to build traction. They absolutely do. I already am a quarterback, Todd. So yes, even if I oversee everything, if I've got 4 clients and I'm focused on one and my team is focused on the other 3, those other 3 are like, where's Wendy Day? It's, it's always been a problem. I don't, I don't know why. Thank you, Mike Woods. And I'm sure that Denise is gonna post the SoundCloud for Briggs's music. Actually, I think she posted it earlier, guys. Scroll back up because I think she did post Briggs. Denise, if you're still there, would you post Briggs, SoundCloud page, please. Thank you, Todd. Thank you, Mike. Oh, Todd said the magic word: residual income. My God, yes. Like, you want to You guys, when you, when you work for your money, you max out at 24 hours a day. Even if you could stay awake 24 hours a day and work 24 hours a day, there's only 24 hours in a day. So you need to be building systems so that while you're sleeping, your money is coming in. Whether it's a Shopify portal for your merchandise so that somebody can go online and buy a t-shirt You know, or, um, putting your music up on any of the platforms like Spotify is residual income. It's— it's— you've already done the work and put your music there so that you can keep making money and you don't have to be there overseeing it in order to, um, profit, right? So when you monetize, you got to make sure that you've got a plan in place so that your work— you do the work once, but the money just keeps coming in, right? Um, Cursor TV is asking, will the Tupac estate release any new music? I don't know the answer to that. Um, Cursor saw me on the Oxygen show. Cursor, I'm the only one that didn't cry on the show. I'm so proud of myself because it, you know, it wasn't easy. Have you guys been watching the Who Killed Tupac show that's on, um, A&E? I've been watching that. It's interesting. It's a little sensationalized, but it's interesting. Mike Woods, I do the same thing. Like, there are times where, you know, I'll stay up like a day and a half, but I get sloppy after about hour 16, 17, 18, somewhere in there. I start to get a little cranky and I start to slow down a little bit. It's better for me to sleep, um, in like 4-hour intervals and work in between. Um, for the past, I'd say, decade of my life, I've been sleeping 8 hours a night, and that's really working well for me because I'm very well rested, I'm really sharp, I can go longer and harder during the day. But when I was coming up and I was building my companies, um, I would sleep only 4 hours. I agree, Mike, you need a plan, um, and without a plan you're destined to fail. And I think that's one of the things— and you said it earlier too— that's one of the things that I think has attributed to my success is that I know what works and what doesn't work. So I put together a plan of all the stuff that I know is going to work for the type of music an artist has, and then I break it down into small steps like step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, and then we just go through and we, we, we nail it, you know. And I'm right there in the trenches with the artist, so it forces the artist to do what they're supposed to do and to be productive. Cursed TV says, I don't watch TV, but I saw a video on YouTube and I was like, hey, that's Wendy Day. Awesome, I love it. Yes, Mike Woods, there's actually people that can get 8 hours of sleep. I have finally— and guys, I can't tell you how many years it took me to learn balance in my life. Jeez, it took forever. But yes, you can actually prioritize and learn time management skills, and you can delegate— this is the key— you can delegate to others things that you know that they can do for you. They may not be as good as you, they may not accomplish it as quickly or as thoroughly, but it's good enough. It doesn't have to be perfect, right? You can delegate, um, tasks to other people so that you can spend your time doing what you're really good at and doing the things that bring money in. You know what the hardest thing for me to learn was? And this is so crazy because it's so basic, right? The hardest thing for me to learn was to spend my time doing the things that bring revenue into my company. I used to do the things that I like to do. Like, for me, it was fun to go hang out at Lyricist Lounge when I lived in New York. And go see the showcases and talk to artists and learn what was hard for them and educate them. And that's great, but it doesn't bring money into the company. Like, I can't do this— like what I'm doing right now— I can't do this all day every day. I will be homeless. So it, it really took me years and years and years to learn not to do what I love, but to do what brings money into the company.. And then once the money comes into the company, then I can spend my time doing what I love, and I can find others to work with me and pay them a salary so that they can do what they're really good at. You know, that way I don't have to do the stuff that I suck at or the stuff that I don't like doing. Todd said he flew to A3C to meet me and listen to my panels as I was teaching. Todd, I was sick as a dog during A3C. That was me with the flu. That was me sicker than I have been in a very long time. One of— after one of those panels, the last panel I did, I don't remember what the topic was— making money, the topic— no, the topic was funding your career. I was so sick that I went down the street and I, I rented a hotel room and laid down and fell asleep and then woke up at like 3 o'clock in the morning and Ubered home. I was too sick to get in the Uber to go home. I was just like, I was sick as a dog. So thank you for coming to A3C. Thank you for listening to me speak. I was probably at 50% capacity. Hopefully you didn't notice that. Hopefully you didn't notice that. But man, I was sick as a dog. I was so sick that I remember how sick I was. Travis, the genres of music that I promote are rap and pop. I don't— that's what I'm good at. I don't really go outside of rap and pop. Tony just texted me. I thought he was telling me to mention something, but it's a group text with DJ Slim. DJ Slim! Um, Telling Brian, I can't answer that question, how much does it cost to start a tour, because it depends on the markets. Um, if you want to tour, figure out what it's going to cost in transportation, figure out, um, you know, the gas, tolls, everything that it's going to cost you to move around. Find hotels, figure out what's the cost to stay in the hotels. Um, and then that's going to give you an idea about starting it. I'm assuming you mean starting a tour for yourself. Since this is for artists, I don't know that you mean that, but I'm answering it as if you're an artist. And make sure you have a buzz so that when you perform, people actually pay to come see you. Odd Man Music is giving you a great answer. It's a beat-up van, a bunch of garbage food, a little sleep, and a bunch of bullcrap, but it's all worth it. There you go. You guys should check out Kosha Dillz. If you don't know who that is, Google him. He has— that's all he does is he just tours and makes money. And a lot of people don't know who he is, but he's doing it big. And he writes about it on his blog. He spells it K-O-S-H-A space D-I-L-L-Z. So go check out his blog and Read his articles about his tours. He does it extremely cost-efficiently. He does it overseas. He does it in the US. He does it during festival season. He goes from festival to festival to festival, and he actually makes money doing this. Mike Woods, you ain't lying. Time management is so important when you're in a relationship. It balances everything. Todd, you are, um, I had to, like, like when you commit to something, I could have been dying and I would have propped myself up and, um, and talked. You have to, when you give your word, you gotta, you gotta come through. Good. Todd said he didn't notice because he was taking notes. Oh good, talent wraps. Okay, good. So I was answering the, the question. Um, Mike Woods is saying negotiation is important when on tour, and Todd's saying so much materials dispersed at A3C panels and I wanted to retain as much as I could. Absolutely. Antoine is asking, um, when looking to construct a producer-for-hire contract, where should I look? I'm in the Charlotte area. I found some general templates but nothing specific when I'm in the studio with acts. It's because attorneys usually put those together. Um, so you'd want to have an entertainment attorney put together your first producer deck and then use that as a blank going forward. There's an attorney called Matt Busser, B-U-S-S-E-R. Um, he's on Instagram and he's on Twitter. If you Google him, you'll find him. It's Matt Buser, B-U-S-E-R, and I have found him extremely affordable. That's who is putting together the producer agreements for one of my clients right now. Mike Booker, how are you? And thank you, thanks for the kind words. Okay, Kosha Dills was— you know what, um, I did see Kosha Dills this year when I was getting my badge. I was coming out of the area where you get your, um, credentials and he was coming in, so I did see him. I saw him this year and last year, both in the same place. I wondered if he just stayed there for a whole year and didn't move. Um, Benny's saying, should I put out a full project or push single after single? I do both. I drop songs and I put out full projects because I want to reach the people that are just looking for singles, and I want to reach the people, um, that want full projects. I'm— full projects are very important on like DatPiff, Live Mixtape, My Mixtape, Spinrilla, um, and then of course the songs are important on the streaming platforms because people usually listen to playlists. Some people will listen to your whole album all the way through, but most people listen to music based on a mood. You know, music that you listen to when you're getting ready to go to the club, music that you listen to when you're studying, music that you listen to when you're working out. Most people group their songs based on a feeling. Guys, I think we're good. We've made it to a little bit over an hour. I want to thank you for tuning in. Everybody have a great holiday. Get some, get some rest, relax, rejuvenate, put together some great ideas for 2018, and I'll be back in the new year. And let's take no prisoners. Thanks for tuning in. I appreciate you guys so much, and happy new year. Okay, bye.