Brian Mazzaferri, lead singer of independent rock back I Fight Dragons, has made a post on We Are Listening about how he and his band made $10,000 in 48 hours by selling ‘Lifetime Membership USB Drives’.

The band, which is only 9 months old, has focused on building a fanbase and giving their fans lots of free music through their mailing list. When they reached the point where they were starting to think how they could monetize off their music, instead of going the traditional (and outdated) route of recording an album and selling it, they came up with an idea that would not only give their fans a lot more, but them also.

The idea they came up with was to sell ‘Lifetime Membership USB Drives’ which were basically USB drives preloaded with all of the music they’ve ever released and they guarantee the owner a free digital copy of anything they ever release, as well as free admission to any live show of ours now and forever. And there were only 100 made.

Needless to say, they all went quickly, but the question is; why?

Brian puts it down to 3 reasons:

We gave a lot of free stuff away. A LOT.

The upside is infinite.

We’re selling Memberships, not Products.

These are all things we’ve discussed before and Brian’s story, once again, proves that you can build a successful business model around free content.

My point is this:  we started our relationship with our fans by giving.  And then giving more.  Then more.  This is the first time we’ve really tried to sell anything to our mailing list, and it’s been 9 months!  Fans jumped at the chance to support us, and many many more were disappointed that we sold out so quickly, because they didn’t get a chance to buy.  We’ve shown our fans that we respect them and support them, and now they want to do the same for us.

This quote from Brian is almost identical to something Amanda Palmer said a few months ago. If you show your fans that you care, they will want to support you in any way possible. Brian even goes on to say that many of their fans felt guilty as they know they are getting way more than $100’s worth of value from the Membership, and they will continue to purchase any future releases, even though they have free access!

Yet another example of Mr. Masnick’s CwF + RtB business model in full effect.

To kick off our “re-launch”, here’s a humorous (but very true) article from Bob Baker in which he gives musicians a 7 step plan to ruin their music career. I’ve written out the 7 steps below, but head over to Music Think Tank to read the full article.

1. Give away your personal power.
2. Turn marketing, promotion and sales into a huge burden.
3. Be fearful of being perceived as a greedy, capitalist pig.
4. Use a lack of time, money and connections as your biggest excuse.
5. Market yourself to the faceless masses using traditional big media.
6. Promote yourself sporadically and only when it’s urgent.
7. Know that everyone owes you something simply because you exist.

You’ve probably noticed some strange activity here at GrindEFX over the past few weeks, this was due to an attack on our server. It has taken a while, but we are back up and running now and ready to pick up where we left off. If you received any warnings about malware or viruses on the site, don’t worry, we have given it a thorough check and it is now clean as a whistle.

Apologies for the lack of communication throughout all of this, we’ve now moved the site to a new server and are hopeful this will not happen again. Thanks for your patience!

A few months ago Spotify introduced the ability to purchase songs and albums directly from them, though it was a little long-winded and hard to find. Users had to right-click on songs to see the “Buy” option before being directed to partner 7digital’s site to complete the purchase.

There is now a clear “Buy” button next to all songs and albums available to purchase and the transaction process is pretty much the same as iTunes.

Check out the demo:

Despite the lack of success music subscription services have had, entrepreneurs seem to be lining up to have shot at it. We’re hearing about new subscription services every week, and none of them have a USP. They all seem to have the same business model – pay a high monthly fee for a very limited access to music.

The latest company to try their hand at it is satellite television company Sky. Sky’s plan is to charge £7.99 a month for unlimited streaming and 1 album download (or 10 songs) – downloading more songs will cost extra.

Details on the new service are sketchy, some sources say they have partnered with Universal, while others say they have struck deals with all the majors and a number of indie labels.

The problem with subscription services such as this is that consumers don’t like being restricted. £7.99 a month for one album makes little sense to me, why would one choose to be restricted to one album a month when they can go to iTunes or Amazon for the same price. And the unlimited streaming doesn’t really add any value since there are services like Spotify and we7 out there that offer that for free.

The fact that over 9 million UK households have Sky as their digital TV provider will certainly work in its favour, but in reality I think Sky’s business model is flimsy and won’t attract much attention from music lovers.

This is just brilliant!

If you don’t know the background, basically over the past week Lily Allen has publicly expressed her distain for file-sharers. Following a huge backlash from her initial blog post, she went back and forth with commenters and pretty much ended up making a fool of herself and deleting her blog all together (if you want more info head over to TechDirt, Mike Masnick made a number of posts picking apart Lily’s arguments).

And of course, you can download this song free here.

I often get asked what websites and blogs I recommend for music business topics. We don’t have a blogroll on the site so I thought I’d make a post with a list of my favourite sites. Check them out and bookmark them!

TechDirt
Lefsetz Letter
New Music Strategies
New Rockstar Philosophy
The Indie Digest
TechCrunch
Hypebot

Jacque added:

Inside Music Media
Future of Music
Seth Godin
Musicians Cooler
Bob Baker
Artist House Music
Music Marketing [dot] com

Drop links to your favourite sites in the comments!

It’s always nice to hear success stories from artists who put out their own indie releases, but this year I was able to witness first hand, and be a part of, such a project. I want to share with you how hip hop artist Cambatta and DJ Nice released and promoted ‘The Visionary’.

In 2008 Cambatta was an unsigned artist who was was trying to get his name out there, particularly on the mixtape circuit. With the help of old school friend DJ Nice, he decided to start work on his debut release, titled ‘The Visionary’.

DJ Nice was already an established name on the mixtape scene as both a DJ and producer, and with his experience and contacts Cambatta was granted access to many talented producers and artists to work with.

Before the album was released, Cambatta and DJ Nice did a number of things to create a buzz. They released a few collaborations with more well-known artists for free in order to raise Cambatta’s profile. These songs made appearances on many top hip hop websites, enabling Cambatta to reach a wide audience.

One of those songs was ‘True Magic’, featuring signed artist Skyzoo. This track did a great job exposing hip hop fans to Cambatta’s music, Skyzoo was already an established artist with a big following, so his name garnered a lot of attention for the song. In order to capitalize off this attention, DJ Nice decided to run a remix competition. Producers were given access to the acapella of the song and were asked to come up with their own remix, the winning remix was to be featured on the album. They received a huge amount of submissions for the contest, and as a result, created a lot of buzz for the album.

They also shot a couple of music videos and released them online.

During the recording of the album DJ Nice remained very active in certain online communities, he updated people on the progress of the album as well as getting them involved.

So when the album was released in January of this year, for free, Cambatta and DJ Nice had already built up a lot of hype, gotten various hip hop publications’ support and connected with their fans. In no time at all, ‘The Visionary’ had spread all over the net and, with the help of some viral marketing, the album has racked up over 8000 downloads (and that only includes downloads that were tracked).

A few months after the release they decided to re-launch the album on CD and digital download services so that fans could have the option of paying for album. For this they hooked up with clothing company Narcocorrido Brand and arranged a cross-promotion deal, in which a free t-shirt was bundled with every album sale, and a free copy of ‘The Visionary’ came with every t-shirt sale.

The reason that this project succeeded is one which we talk about here all the time. They connected with their fans, and gave them a reason to buy. Their presence on online communities during the recording and release of the album made people feel like they were a part of it, so of course when it was eventually released they were excited to hear the final product. The album was released for free, this was important because it was Cambatta’s debut effort. Had they released it initially as paid only, they wouldn’t have seen the success they did. Not because the music wasn’t good enough, but simply because it wouldn’t have spread as it did.

For a debut album I don’t think the two could have done much better. They handled everything themselves, from the recording and the album artwork to the marketing and the sponsorship deals. It’s great to see that new artists are coming out with a clear understanding of the current music business and what the future holds.

“We are currently looking to do more promotion deals with sponsors in the coming months such as; cross promotion with another clothing sponsor in a to-be-filmed professional music video, branding/merchandise from a sponsor to be given to fans via contests and giveaways etc.” DJ Nice told me. “Overall we are looking to give people a chance to interact, support, and most importantly feel they are supporting an artist who they can see growing and succeeding.”

‘The Visionary’ is available to buy now from iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody and CD Baby.