In this instructional video, Wendy Day walks independent artists and label owners through the three primary categories of music industry contracts: the basic artist (often 360) deal, joint‑venture/label‑logo deals, and straight distribution agreements. She explains that a 360 deal is the default for artists with little leverage, outlines how joint ventures are negotiated with variable revenue splits (typically ranging from 18/72 to 50/50) based on the assets each party contributes, and describes distribution deals that usually follow an 80/20 split in favor of the artist or independent label. Day reviews major distribution platforms (TuneCore, CD Baby, DistroKid, OneRPM, Empire) and their flat‑fee, 100%‑of‑revenue models, emphasizing the need for consistent product pipelines and marketing budgets. She stresses that securing any deal requires sufficient funding for promotion, publicists, radio, video, and social media, and advises artists to assess whether they have the entrepreneurial resources or should seek a label with genre‑specific expertise and proven track records. The video concludes with practical guidance on evaluating deal options based on leverage, financial capacity, and the specific music market.
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Hi guys, how are you today? It's a little chilly here in the crib, but I think I'll survive. Um, there are many different types of deals that you can get. As a recording artist. And the most basic deal that you can get is an artist deal, which today are 360 deals. And I did an entire video on 360 deals, so I won't bore you with the details here because you can go back and watch that video and understand exactly what a 360 deal is. Um, but the basic deal that you're gonna get if you have no leverage in this industry is a a 360 deal. Um, the next better deal up from that is a joint venture, and that's going to be some sort of a label deal where maybe you have your own label or you have your own logo. They're called logo deals when you have a label. They're like, let's say I were to have Wendy Day Records and I wanted to do a deal with Def Jam, for example. Um, there's different ways that I could do that deal, but it would depend on how successful my artists were, and I would need to have more than just one artist for that to be attractive to Def Jam. So let's say I put out Artist A and did pretty well, and then I put out Artist B and did really, really well, and that caught the attention of the labels. When they stepped to me to do the Wendy Day Records deal, they would offer me anywhere from 18 points for each artist that I bring there, up to a certain amount of artists, or they might do a split with me that could be 25/75, meaning, um, they get 75, I get 25. It might be 50/50. It just depends on what I'm bringing to the table. In a joint venture, it's rarely more in my favor than a 50/50 deal, right? So it's usually a joint venture, and what that means is we determine in negotiating the contract what each person brings to the table. Like, maybe on my team I've got the street team covered, I've got the internet covered, you know, social media, I've got a video person that I utilize, and let's say I have a publicist. That's what I'm bringing to the table with the artists. What the label, like a Def Jam, would be bringing to the table is everything else. They would bring the funding, they would bring— well, I should say the rest of the funding, because I obviously had some funding to get to the level that I got the artist, right? So they would bring the rest of the funding, they would bring maybe the video promotion department, the radio department, the marketing team, everything that I'm lacking they would bring. And we would do a deal that was somewhere between, like I said, the 18/72 split— did I do the math right?— up to 50/50 split, right? That's how those types of deals work. And then I in turn would give Artist A or Artist B a deal for less money, and then I would keep the split. That's how I, as Wendy Day Independent Record Label, would make money. Okay, um, an independent artist can also do this type of deal, but it's very rare that an independent artist has the money to get to this level. Like, Chance the Rapper is amazing, but he's an anomaly. The fact that he had the funding to get himself to a level where he could remain independent and profitable is amazing. It's unheard of. So I'm really, really, really happy for him and really excited for him. Um, the best deal that I could do is a straight distribution deal, and that's an 80/20 split where I keep— I meaning I'm the artist or I'm the independent record label— I keep 80% of the income and the distributor gets 20%. And almost anyone that owns a real business and has some funding to market and promote the artists, including the artist, can do this type of deal. And you can do this deal through like a TuneCore— or actually, a TuneCore split is better, and I'll get into that in a minute— or OneRPM. Empire offers 80/20 splits. For their distribution deals. And of course, the majors, um, all have distribution companies that will offer an 80/20 split. You can't just wake up one day and say, oh, I think I'll go do a distribution deal for my artist. Or if you are an artist, you can't just say, oh, I think I'll go and get a distribution deal. Um, people call me all day, every day telling me that, but without leverage and a budget to actually market and promote to create success, it's going to be very difficult to get a distribution deal. Now, anybody can go through TuneCore, CD Baby, DistroKid, any of the, um, ancillary distributors that handle, um, one-offs. And I call them one-offs because with a distribution deal or even a record deal, you want to have a continuing product coming through the pipeline. And a lot of folks that go to the TuneCore and the DistroKid, they don't have a lot of product to come through the pipeline. They have maybe one release a year that they can afford to put out, or sometimes they don't even have money to market and promote, but they think that people will magically gravitate towards their music. So they go to one of these resources. And the great thing about these resources is that you pay a flat fee, like $39 a year, or $29 per single, or $49 per album, or whatever they charge. And you can go to their websites to find out what those charges are, and then they give you 100% of the income. And they do that because there are many, many, many artists who sign up to those services who will never sell enough music to make $49 or $29 or $39 or whatever the fee is. And they know this, so their business model is based around collecting the fees from all of the artists that won't succeed rather than having to pay out more than what they take in, in distribution, you know, in disbursements. So it's really up to you whether you want to sign an artist deal or some sort of a joint venture or do a straight distribution deal. But understand that in, in that decision comes some weight with that, right? Like, if you're going to get a distribution deal for your company, you're going to need to have the money to market and promote your product. You're gonna have to hire publicists, you're gonna have to hire marketing people, radio people, video people, um, social media people. You're gonna have to hire a team of people to help you get that artist to the next level. And how are you gonna fund that? So either you need to get a business plan put together and find an investor, or you need to be able to borrow money from family and friends so that you can afford to do this, or you need to have some sort of wealth already in place, um, in your, you know, in your bank account to be able to afford to do this. And for those of you artists who are looking to sign to a record label, you need to take all of this into consideration because I've seen many, many, many artists signed to labels that don't have funding and don't have a budget and can't afford to get the artist to the next level. I've seen artists signed to labels that have less money than the artist, and that's crazy to me because aside from know-how and money, you could be doing this yourself, right? Like, why, why sign to somebody else when you can raise the money yourself and do this yourself? That's just my opinion. Not every artist is entrepreneurial. Not every artist should be independent. There are many, many, many of you that need to sign to a label. You need the structure, you need the guidance, you need the funding. Um, but just make sure when you sign to somebody that they have all that and that they have a track record of success in the type of music that you make. And what I mean by that is if you're a rap artist and somebody has experience in putting out rock records or gospel records or whatever that, you know, not rap, then you should be very wary of signing to them because it's a completely different relationship. It's a completely different set of skills. It's similar in the fact that it's all music, but it's different in that the rock publicists don't have the right connections to work a rap record. And somebody that's coming in from another genre of music doesn't know who's who, they don't know who's legitimate, and there's a very good chance that they could waste a shit ton of money on people that say they can do the job but can't. So there's label deals, there are record deals, meaning as an artist you sign to a label, and there are distribution deals. And you need to take all of this into consideration once you get a buzz and once you get to the point where you're making a decision as to whether you want to keep building your buzz and your fan base on your own, or whether you want to sign to somebody that can help you get to that next level. And now you understand the different types of deals that are out there. Okay guys, thanks for tuning in.
