TABLE OF CONTENTS

TUNECORE MUSIC INDUSTRY SURVIVAL MANUAL

INTRODUCTION...................................................3
by Jeff Price, founder of TuneCore

TIPS TO SELL MORE MUSIC ONLINE.......................8

• Covering Popular Songs
• Recording Holiday Themed Music
• Searchability
• iTunes Tips & Tricks
• Videos
• Blogs

THE DO-IT-YOURSELF RECORD COMPANY............19

by Donald S. Passman, author of All You Need to
Know About the Music Business

TUNECORE FACTOIDS..........................................23

MORE RESOURCES..............................................25

ALL TEXT COPYRIGHT 2010 TUNECORE

FREE FOR USE — SPREAD IT AROUND
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TUNECORE AD

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 INTRODUCTION BY JEFF PRICE, FOUNDER, TUNECORE

album sales are down...

and the music industry is
thriving
In all the doom and gloom discussion of de-
clining CD album sales, the upside has been
completely missed. The majority of music
now being created, distributed, shared,
bought and discovered is happening outside
the traditional music industry. Even better,
more revenue is being made by artists and business via the fame
of musicians than ever before. A band “breaking” is no longer
singularly based on the Herculean task of selling albums.

This was not always the case. In 1991, the Neilsen-owned Sound-
scan launched and shook up the music industry by electronically
tracking and reporting weekly albums sales
based on information reported to
it from music retail stores across
the country.

The once a week Soundscan

sales reports measured what
bands were “breaking” by report-
ing how an album sold the previ-
ous week. These reports were

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so accurate in reflecting who was popular that labels, managers
and artists used the data to leverage MTV, commercial radio, retail
stores and to justify additional marketing. Alternatively, they would
use this information to determine that a record, and by extension
the artist, was “dead.”

But technology and the Internet

changed the model. With unlimited
shelf space, unlimited on-demand
self-replicating inventory and access to
self-distribution, everything can be in
stock at no detriment to anything else.
In 2009 alone, self-distributing bands
via TuneCore sold and got paid from
streams from over 61 million songs and
albums earning over $32 million in music sales revenue from iTunes
and other digital download stores. Unsigned artists like Nevershout-
never, Boyce Avenue and Kelly sold over 1,250,000 songs each
across their catalogs of releases. Secondhand Serenade, Nickasaur,
Harry & The Potters, Jesus Culture, Colt Ford, Josh Kelley and
thousands more sold hundreds of thousands of songs from multiple
EPs, full length albums and singles - none of which
is picked up and/or accurately reported on by
Soundscan or other music reporting mechanism.
These “unsigned” artists now represent one of the
most valuable music catalogs in the world.

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 And creative bands continue to change the paradigm. At Hot Topic
stores artists include their music for free with purchase of a t-shirt.
Other bands sell hundreds of thousand of copies of their music as
game files to download and play on Rock Band. Fame from social
networking outlets allow some artists to sell large amounts of cell
phone wallpaper, get endorsement deals, appear on TV and garner
advertising offers and licensing opportunities. Still others are
“breaking” in other parts of the world and get flown in, all expenses
paid, to play festivals to tens of thousands of people.

Record labels have picked up on this trend and now do deals that
treat the artist as brand and looking to participate in all the revenue
streams tied into fame, not just from owning masters and only mak-
ing money when the music sells.

Despite the apparent bad news about

the decline in album and CD sales,
the truth is the music industry as we
have known it is in transition, and the
emerging model is incredibly excit-
ing, larger and far more profitable
than it has ever been. Technology has
changed the way people can interact,
discover and listen to music. It used
to be just commercial radio, MTV, buying a CD and getting a mix
tape. Now music has been unleashed from the 5” circular disc and
is everywhere to buy, stream, discover share and listen to. With
these changes more people are listening, discovering, and consum-
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ing music. More music is actually be-
ing bought then ever before. With this
change, more artist service industries are
emerging and more fame and money are
being generated in more ways and going
to more musicians and businesses than
ever before.

The topic of conversation should not be

about declining album sales but about the new model. The rally cry
of the RIAA should be “make more music” as every artist can now
choose to get signed or be their own label and “sign themselves”.
The music industry is finally growing to its full potential – and this
should be music to all of our ears.

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 TIPS TO SELL MORE MUSIC ONLINE
You’re an artist, composer, performer, you make music: you used
TuneCore to distribute your music into iTunes and other stores.
Here are some easy ways to get discovered and sell more music.

Cover Popular Songs

Cover versions of songs
sell well. Known songs
have a built-in audience
already. People looking
for “Let It Be” or “Amer-
ica the Beautiful” know
what they want. If you
“cover” (record your own original version) of these songs you cre-
ate a way to get discovered and make money. And once someone
buys a song of yours they are more inclined to listen to and buy
other songs you have recorded.

Also, naming your song the same name as a more popular song
allows it to surface when people search.  With one click to listen
to a 30 second stream within the digital stores, you can increase
getting heard.  However, you do want to be careful as to not make a
potential fan angry at you for tricking them into listening.

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Record Holiday-Themed Music
Music tied into or about a holiday sells well. For example, “spooky”
Halloween sound effects or “scary” themed music (i.e. “Tubular
Bells”, the theme song to the movie the The Exorcist) sells enor-
mously around Halloween. Christmas music sells really well around
the Christmas season. This ties back to covers: a cover of “White
Christmas” or “Jingle Bell Rock” can fund
you through the rest of the year. Don’t
forget other, perhaps neglected holidays
throughout the calendar–there is no
doubt the world needs a great Ground-
hog Day or Columbus Day anthem. Be
sure to name your songs with easily
searchable words.

Searchability
Stores like eMusic, iTunes and AmazonMP3
have millions upon millions of songs in their
stores. Most customers use the “search” func-
tion in the store to find music, so take advan-
tage of it: put words in your album, artist/band
and song titles that will help you show up when people search. Are
you a mariachi band? Put the word “mariachi” in your name. Is your
album a collection of nature sounds? Consider words like “forest”
and “natural,” and so on. This is a gray area: if your music sounds like
Bob Dylan, don’t necessarily use his name, but you could use words

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 with association, like “folk.” It’s your music, but ask yourself, what
words can I use in my band name, album name and/or song name
that will cause my music to appear when people search?

iTunes
iTunes is the largest seller of music in the world and sells more
music than any other music store (physical or digital) in the world.
Here are some tips on how to get discovered in iTunes.

Create an iMix
An iMix is a playlist that you’ve chosen to publish and make avail-
able to others in the
iTunes Music Store.
To get your music
to surface and be
discovered more, cre-
ate an iMix (or many
many iMixes) with
a few of your own
songs (say three or so) and other songs (we suggest 9 or so) by
more popular artists in the same genre. These iMixes will surface
at the other artist’s album iTunes pages as well your own, allowing
a fan of the other band to discover you.

In addition, give your iMix an interesting name (as opposed to

“Cool Songs I Like”), name it something like, “Music to Break Up

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To,” or “Songs that Morrisey Wishes He Could Write.” Clever titles
catch peoples’ attention.

The more iMixes you seed into iTunes, the higher the probability you
will be discovered.

Rate Your iMix

iTunes allows anyone to rate an iMix with between zero and five
stars. Have as many people as you can rate your iMix with five stars.
High-rated iMixes get more attention and end up on album pages.
Check out the “iMix Notes” field. Take
a few moments to write something
and talk about your play list. A great
description combined with a high rating
will increase the odds someone will
discover and check our your play list.

Album Reviews & Ratings

STATISTIC: Albums in iTunes with
customer reviews sell 33% more than
albums without them. Be sure to rate your own album 5 stars, and
when you review it: that’s a great place to describe the album and
the sound. If you happen to have reviews about your music (from
blogs or magazines), you can re-type them here.

In addition, ask your fans and friends to write reviews—the more

reviews the better! Reviews add legitimacy and influence purchases.

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 In your review, think about what might make someone curious
aboutyour music. For example, posting a review that says, “Dude,
this rocks” will have little impact. A review that says, “ This reminds
me of The Beatles if they had Jimmy Page as their lead guitar and
Chris Martin backing up John Lennon,” will cause a lot more inter-
est.

Get creative and thoughtful with what you write. Consider what
would cause you to listen to a song. Also note, iTunes lets its user
decide if a review was “Useful.” If you write an interesting review
and then have your friends, fans and family indicate the review
was useful, the review has a better chance of being the first one
people see when they reach your page in iTunes.

An Eye Catching Art Design

The finishing touch on your music is the visual design of its pack-
age, whether you’re going to be selling online or in physical stores.
A great album cover can catch someone’s eye and get them to
listen. If you can’t create your own
design, hire a designer to give your mu-
sic more than just a pretty cover; they
can give your music the visual image
that completes your project and draws
people in to listen.

Collaborating with a graphic designer

is as easy as talking to them about what

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kind of image or feeling you want people to have when they listen
to your music. Working with original artwork or photos you supply,
they’ll give you different options to choose from, and you can work
with them to come up with final art that you’re happy with.

Tell a Friend
You can send album
reviews or playlists or
iMixes to anyone from
within iTunes via the iTunes “Tell A Friend” option. Just click on the
“Tell A Friend” link in the iTunes store (located next to the album
art), enter an email address and iTunes does the rest. This is a great
way to communicate with fans that signed up for your email list that
you have a new album or song out. It’s also a great way to get more
people to rate your review and/or iMix and help these to surface
more.

iTunes Affiliate Program

With the free iTunes Affiliate Program, you can link and sell your
own music (or anyone’s else in the iTunes store) via any Web page or
email. With each sale from iTunes that originates from your affiliate
link, you will earn a 5% commission on all qualifying revenue gener-
ated (IMPORTANT: terms apply, so be sure to check them out). This
means that off of each qualifying sale, you will get paid a percentage
of the money paid to iTunes by an iTunes customer, if that customer
came from your affiliate link.

In addition, the iTunes “buy” button next to your song on your own
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 website, blog, etc is recognizable and might add further legitimiza-
tion to you as an important artist.

The affiliate program auto-generates links for you. All you have to do
is place them on any Web page or within an email(s). It’s a simple and
very effective way to sell your music. After all, most people going to
your home page or receiving your emails are already interested in
your music and band.

To get started, visit this page:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/itmsLink-
Maker.

For more information on how to become an iTunes affiliate for free

and how to use the program, visit http://www.apple.com/itunes/af-
filiates.

Make Easy Weblinks to Your Music

Tunes has recently added a feature that makes it easier for you to
easily create web links directly to your content in the iTunes Store.
You can link directly to any artist/band page using the convention:
http://itunes.com/artistname

and you can also link directly to albums/singles using the convention:
http://itunes.com/artistname/album
Here are a couple examples:
http://itunes.com/rollingstones
http://itunes.com/nineinchnails/theslip
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Video
Make a Video
You, your friend or a relative have
an old video camera, probably even
a digital video camera. You can
even rent one for a few dollars a
day in most areas. Heck, use your
cell phone, but MAKE A VIDEO!
This can be almost anything, and
the look and feel of it can be as
professional or as amateur as you
can afford or want. Use your imagi-
nation to find clever ways to let a
minimum budget and tools work to
your advantage. Turn off the video camera’s mike and let your music
be the soundtrack. Use free tools on your computer do the editing
and synching. Use what you have, at all stages.

Most importantly, get CREATIVE. Make something that others want

to see – think of videos like the Treadmill Dance by OK GO, or Star
Wars kid, Mentos and Coke guys, Kelly’s “Shoes” video, Chocolate
Rain, Sick Puppies “Free Hugs” video, Boyce Avenue’s live acoustic
performances of popular songs, and more (if you don’t know these
videos, just do a quick Google search to see them).

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 Post Your Video
Put it on YouTube, use TuneCore to put it on iTunes, put it on every
free streaming video or torrent site that will take it. Post the links
on a blog, tell your friends, put it on MySpace, and spread the word.
Make sure you have a link to your music on iTunes on your YouTube
page, so people can buy the music after they watch the video!

Blog
MP3 blogs can cause significant music and
gig ticket sales. There are currently tens of
thousands of MP3 blogs with more spring-
ing up each day. If the MP3 blog community
embraces your band, you could potentially
have thousands of them talking about you and providing MP3s of
your songs to hundreds of thousands of music fans. What better way
to get the word out than by a real grass roots campaign of music fans
talking about you because they love what you do? With the Internet,
they have a vehicle to communicate with the world.

Only you can determine which blogging communities speak best

to your fanbase, but remember that no music exists in a vacuum:
all music has a community of artists, supporters, fans, performers,
composers, historians, enthusiasts and more, all of whom by now
have a Web presence no matter what corner of the world they hail
from. Use Google to search for MP3 blogs around your music (i.e.
indie rock MP3 blog etc) then go to their webpage, find the person
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to email and email them.

The best way to reach blogs is to go to their websites and follow

their submission policies. In many cases, contacting a blog is as
simple as sending an email.

There are literally tens of thousands of music blogs – here’s a short

list of places it might be worth your time visiting and contacting (or
just visit the blog Gorilla vs. Bear and scroll down to the bottom to
see the list with links: http://gorillavsbear.net)

A Partial List of Music Blogs

Gorilla vs. Bear Sex on Fire Tunes Consumed
My Old Kentucky Blog Underrated We Shot J.R.
You Ain’t No Picasso Undomondo Central Booking
Aquarium Drunkard Music For Robots Halz Haz a Say
Nothing But Kitsune Noir Get Weird Turn Pro
Green Lights Attorney Street Sasha Frere-Jones
So Much Silence Largehearted Boy Philip Sherburne
Transmission Circa 45 Cannibal Cheerleader
Hipster Runoff SIRIUS Blog Radio A Walking Disaster
Pinglewood Brooklyn Vegan The Grizzly LifeT-Sides
Motel de Moka Stereogum Disco Dust
Yeezy Chromewaves IHEARTCOMIX
Skatterbrain Big Stereo La Maladie Tropicale
Said the Gramophone Arawa Blogs are for Dogs
20 Jazz Funk Greats Bibabidi Discobelle
Marathon Packs Cause=Time Analog Giant
Muzzle of Bees Sucka Pants Good Weather For
NEON GOLD Fluxblog Airstrikes
Raven Sings the Blues The Rising Storm Funeral Pudding
Laundromatinee Awesome Tapes I Guess I’m Floating
Mystics not Wastrels from Africa Music for Kids Who
Abeano Discoteca Oceano Can’t Read Good
Cheap Fast Times Brazilian Nuggets Ultra8201
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 Panda Toes Filter Magazine FoeWeel
Disco Delicious Moistworks Where Is Helsinki?
Indie Interviews I am Fuel, sixeyes
The Passion of the Weiss You Are Friends Gulf Coast Bands
Elitaste Naturalismo Muzak for Cybernetics
The Anchor Center Mars Needs Guitars Veritas Lux Mea
The Sound of The 3rd Base Line Can You See The Sunset...
Marching Feet Scenestars Some Velvet Blog
Pasta Primavera Rachel and the CityTorr Thoracic Fax Machine
Lullabyes Cable and Tweed 15 Minutes To Live
Idolator I Heart Music I Rock I Roll
Rock Insider etheriousity The Armchair Novelist
Sonic Itch Badical Beats The Torture Garden
Spinner Palms Out What We All Want
Cultura Fina What Noisy Cats Think Tank
Big D little d Are We Banana Nutrament
Pampelmoose Who Needs Radio? The Perm & The Skullet
Missing Toof Spacelab Between Thought and
The Futurist Information Leafblower Expression
Nerd Litter Brooklyn Ski Club Catchdubs
The Hood Internet Take Your Medicine Houston So Real
The Pharmacy Rx Indoor Fireworks Call Me MickeyTofu Hut
Art Decade Audio Deficit Disorder Plague of Angels
Deaf Indie Elephants Theme Park Experience los amigos de durutti
1.618 The Rich Girls Berkeley Place
SixEyes Are Weeping Regnyouth
Acid Girls (Sm)all Ages Work For It
Rock & Roll Daily Out the Other Pimps of Gore
The Rock Snob Music For Listeners Hey Mercedes
Dreams Of Horses The Test Pilot Each Note Secure
Shake Your Fist Womenfolk The Big Ticket
Scissorkick Earvolution Copy, Right? (cover songs)
Suspect Drawings Exitfare Beware Of The Blog
Sonic Itch More Cowbell Pitchfork
Bows + Arrows The Camera As Pen Prefixmag
The Rawking Refuses The Listen Insound
to Stop Yeti Don’t Dance
Product Shop NYC songs:illinois ...and many more!
Rockouts Swedes Please
Done Waiting All Things Go
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 the do it yourself record company
(And if you act right now, we’ll throw in a knife that slices
tomatoes paper thin).
by Donald S. Passman, author of All You Need to
Know About the Music Business

Historically, record companies held the keys to the kingdom. It

took a large organization to manufacture and ship records to
stores, meaning things like manufacturing plants, warehouses,
sales forces, shipping people, financial controls, etc. Also, in order
to really sell records, you had to get your music on the radio and
MTV, which took a promotion
staff and a lot of money.

In those days, the record

retailers were so big that they
wouldn’t bother with small
players. That meant it was
hard to get your product on
their shelves if you didn’t come
through a record company.
Also, frankly, the big record
companies paid retailers a
lot of money to position their
product prominently in the
stores. So even if an artist
managed to get their records
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into the retail bins, they’d likely get buried in the back. If, some-
how, the records started selling anyway, the retailers would pay
the artist late (if at all), since one little player didn’t matter to
them. On top of all this, the artist had to put up the money to
manufacture the records. If the
stores didn’t sell them, they’d be
returned to the artist, who’d lose
the manufacturing costs, plus the
freight costs in both directions.
So it took a big player to absorb
those kind of risks.

Today, things have really changed:

• While it’s still difficult to get your product into stores (now
it’s because they carry so few titles), physical retailers are
becoming less significant as CD sales decline. Conversely,
digital is on the rise, and anyone can get their music distrib-
uted digitally.
• Radio is still very important for mainstream artists, but it’s
become a very narrow channel, meaning it plays only a
limited range of music genres, and not a lot of different titles.
Because of this, alternative ways for people to discover
music are becoming more important, and the Internet (which
anyone can access) is one of the keys.
• A direct relationship with fans is the next generation of mar-
keting, and young artists are proving more saavy in this area
than a lot of established companies.

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 On top of all that, when you make a deal with a record company,
you give up control of your recordings (as well as other aspects
of your life, such as the ability to do music for films, commer-
cials, concert videos, etc.), and you also give up a chunk of your
income from both record and non-record areas.

So, why would you want a record com-

pany? Well, if you’re a niche artist (for
example, a jam band, backpacker, or indie
rock band), and you’re happy staying in
your niche and selling to a small group
of fans, you may not need or want a record deal. It’s possible
(through outfits like TuneCore) to get your music to iTunes, Ama-
zon, and other digital retailers, and you can make a living doing
gigs, promoting yourself directly to your fans, and selling your
tracks. Because your genre limits your potential audience, you’ll
often make more money by doing it yourself than you will with a
record company. For a record deal to make sense, the company
has to generate more money for you (after they take their piece)
than you would get by selling less product on your own. With
niche artists, that’s often questionable.

If you’re more mainstream, such as pop, rock, or country, this is a

much tougher question. You can of course set up a killer
MySpace page, build a fanbase, and sell directly to them. Since
your music has a wide appeal, if you break through, you’ll make
far more money by keeping the record company’s share of the

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pie, not to mention keeping all of your non-record income. But
here’s the problem: The same way that it’s easy for you to set all
this up, it’s easy for everybody to set this up. There are over four
million bands on MySpace, and that number is growing. How’s
anyone going to find your music?

There are some “virtual” record companies who can help. These
companies, who were started by talented people who lost record
company jobs when the industry melted down, will do everything
from sales, marketing, promotion, etc., yet let you keep control
of your destiny. However, they charge pretty heavily for these
services, which most new artists can’t afford. Thus, they’ve
mostly been successful with artists who’ve already released a few
albums (and therefore have a fan base), but are out of their re-
cord deals. For this reason, a lot (maybe even most) mainstream
artists are still looking for record deals.

Having said all that, young artists

today are working the Internet and
new media far better than the es-
tablished record industry. The future
of music marketing is to know who
your fans are and to contact them
directly. In the past, no one had any
idea who went into record stores
and bought the multi-million sellers,
or who was listening to the radio
when they were played millions of
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 times. Today, between the Internet and cellphones, it’s possible
to know exactly who likes your music.

Young artists have gotten very sophisticated about building a

database of their fans. For example, at their shows, many artists
give away something (pins, stickers, hundred dollar bills, etc) to
everyone who signs their mailing list. The artists then promote
their shows, recordings, and merchandise through email and
mobile phone text messaging. Some artists even do lifecasting,
where they’re communicating with fans a number of times each
day. For example, they might iChat on the way to a gig; blast out
backstage updates through Twitter or Kyte; send pictures of
themselves on stage; forward videos of themselves in the bath-
tub with rubber duckies; etc. Even if they only build their fan list
with a few more people at each gig, if they keep at it, they can get
enough to generate a buzz on MySpace and similar sites.

So these days, more than ever before, it’s possible to build a

career on your own. Or if not a career, at least a solid base from
which to launch yourself and get the attention of a record com-
pany, if you decide to go with a record company.

Now get out there and do it!

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TUNECORE FACTOIDS
• In 2009 TuneCore artists sold or got paid for streams of over
61,000,000 albums and songs earning them over
$32,000,000

• 12% of all iTunes users buy music from TuneCore

Artists

• More than one song a second sells by a TuneCore

Artist on iTunes

• TuneCore Artists’ music represents one of the Top

10 revenue generating digital music catalogs in the world

• The first TuneCore Artist was Frank Black

• The best selling TuneCore Artist of all time is Kelly, selling over
2,500,000 copies of his music

• Over 1,000 TuneCore Artists have been featured on iTunes,

AmazonMP3, Rhapsody, MySpace Music and more

• 26 TuneCore Artists have been featured as the iTunes

free Single Of The Week

• More music is released via TuneCore in one day than via

a major record label over two years

• The best selling single by an unsigned artist was TuneCore Artist Drake,
selling over 300,000 copies of one song in 11 days

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 For More Ideas...
Get other free TuneCore Music Industry Survival Manuals at
http://www.tunecore.com/guides
Volume 1.0
How To Market, Promote and Make Money From
Your Music While Keeping Your Rights
Volume 1.1
Music Publishing and Copyright: Cover Songs
Volume 1.2
Mastering
Volume 1.3
Vinyl 101
Volume 1.4
Mixing
Volume 1.5
Copyright

Volume 1.7
Information on Healthcare for Musicians: Band Aid

25
JAKE JUST VISITED
GUITARCENTER.COM/EMAIL

THIS MAKES JAKE HAPPY.

NOW JAKE’S THE FIRST ONE TO HEAR ABOUT:
SMOKIN’ DEALS SPECIAL EVENTS AND CONTESTS
NEW GEAR MONEY-SAVING COUPONS
TIPS AND TRICKS TO HELP HIM MAKE MUSIC
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS AND VIDEOS.
BE HAPPY, LIKE JAKE!