Gone For Now

I have received a few google alerts about my music being available for free download from various sites in the past, but this week I started getting lots of them. This is because someone thought that it was okay to upload one of my albums to Pirate Bay, which then took that album to many other torrent sites. I normally wouldn’t have been too bothered, but the person who uploaded my music had previously put up my bio and a video on his website, along with many other musicians. In fact, I was in quite good company.

(photo bought from istock.com)

This is why I was so confused as to why an apparent fan would then decide to make my music free to anyone. In his defence, he did reply to a post I put on his blog asking why he had put my music on Pirate Bay and, although he took my music down from Pirate Bay, he seemed to think that copyright was a matter of opinion and not law. This seems to be the big sticking point in this area.

Now back in the 90s when Napster first appeared, we were guilty of downloading albums (that are now lost on some old operating system somewhere). There was no itunes and we bought a lot of CDs so we didn’t see the harm. We were wrong. But now music is so easily available to download for a very reasonable price and there is no excuse to go to free sites. I used to spend my pocket money on singles and now my kids spend theirs on downloads. No Limewire allowed in this house and my kids appreciate the value of music.

Today music lovers are lucky that musicians are usually driven to make music for a reason that has nothing to do with money. If it was money based there wouldn’t be a lot of music out there, and certainly not quality, innovative stuff. And many musicians do give music away. I give away a song in exchange for signing up to my email list. I gave away all my music while writing my Song of the Week. Itunes has a free section.

If someone can’t afford to buy my music then I would rather they email me and ask for some mp3s rather than downloading and supporting these free sites, who are not only giving our music away, but they are also making money from us via advertising.

Ask me. It would just be more honest.

And it was time to get back to saying yes to things… I recently said yes to my publisher, pigFactory when asked to work exclusively with them, said yes to working with a producer on my new album and then yes to making a more serious album and moving away from my jolly songs.

When my publisher suggested getting a producer on my new album it was a no brainer. I was already feeling like I had reached my limit (or at least a plateau) on my producing skills and was thinking of maybe finding a producer, so it was great timing.

We looked at several producers who were all very skilled but one stood out and when I spoke to him I knew that he would be able to produce what I heard in my head… and then some. His name is Bleu and has a huge body of work both as a singer/songwriter and a producer. (click for discography) Luckily he had time available to start recording with me in early 2012.

Then it was time to start looking at songs. Everyone knows I have a lot of upbeat, jolly songs, but I had just started writing more serious stuff as a bit of a backlash to writing about sunshine and loveliness. My timing couldn’t have been better and it is time for a more grown-up album.

So I started writing (I never really stopped, but you know what I mean) and it was really great to be writing about deeper things. I obviously have a dark side

With everything in place I am off to LA in Feb to start recording this new album. I am so excited and am really looking forward to handing over some of the creative reigns to Bleu. After being a one stop shop for so long it’s really nice to have the company of a great producer and a fantastic publisher.

This isn’t the end of happy songs… I will also be putting out a kid’s album that will have no end of jolliness

Voices Three

It always gives me enormous pleasure to play music with quality people at a great venue while raising money for a very worthy cause. For me it’s the best win/win situation, so starting the year with that was very satisfying.

One Tree Hill

Having a new song placed on One Tree Hill was so exciting. I think it is the highest profile TV show I have been played on so far and I am very grateful to Crucial Music Publishing for getting me that placement.

Vancouver Island Music Awards

This was probably the biggest highlight for me. Not only did I get the award for Female Songwriter (which meant more than you can imagine), but I also took home the Artist of the Year which blew my mind!!! And even better, I had my family there to celebrate with me.

Vancouver Island Musicfest

This is always a highlight for me. Not only do I get to talk a lot of rubbish with the very funny Todd Butler, but I also get to introduce some really amazing musicians onto the main stage. Looking forward to it again next year!

Conferences

I love all the conferences I go to. I always get something out of each one but The OCFF stands out because I got to be a music licensing mentor and found that I really like imparting the knowledge I have, and the Taxi Road Rally, where I got to be on the Member success panel which was an honour.

Exclusive

I had a big decision to make this year. For a while my main publisher, pigFactory has been wanting to sign me exclusively but I was hesitant as it was a big step. Finally in November I decided to take the leap of faith and am now exclusively represented by them. It has certainly uncomplicated my musical life and they are wonderful!

New album

Through my new arrangement with my publisher, we are moving in a new direction and I will be recording a new album in the new year. In the past I have produced most of my music. This new album will have a fabulously cool producer working on it with me and I am so excited to get to work!

So those are my highlights on 2011. I still can’t believe that I get to do what I do. When I arrived in Canada I thought it would be cool to play some local venues. I never imagined any of this and I will always be grateful to everyone that helps to make it happen.

I hope 2012 will be a wonderful year for everyone

A terrible thing happened to my beloved Taylor guitar – a gift from all my friends on my 40th birthday a few years ago.

After checking in at the airport I took my guitar to the ‘special’ luggage area and was asked to place it on the conveyor belt. There was just a short section of belt before the guitar would disappear through a small archway.

While lifting the guitar (which was in a very sturdy case) onto the belt, the top caught on the archway while the bottom hit the belt and kept moving…. so fast that there was nothing I could do except shout “Nooooooooooo”. I think the whole airport heard me. The top section of the guitar bent right over. It was like watching a horror movie for stringed instruments.

When I opened the case this is what I found

I have to admit I cried.

Now everyone asks me “was it United?”…. and yes it was. But I put the guitar on the belt and it was just one of those freak things that I couldn’t have foreseen and it was not United’s fault, despite their terrible reputation. I can’t count the amount of people who have send me the ‘United Breaks Guitars‘ youtube link. In fact the lady at United was trying so hard to be helpful and felt awful for what had happened.

As sad as it was, it is just a thing and nothing bad happened to my kids so it’s all good. I have insurance, who have been very helpful and so now have a new Taylor. My wonderful husband suggested I upgrade to a better guitar, so I have gone from the 314CE to the 814CE and it plays like a dream. Look how happy it makes me.

For everyone who keeps asking… when I took the old one to a Luthier for an autopsy, the words out of their mouth was ‘Ooh, that’s bad… it’s good for kindling’. So I shall be framing the head as a memory of the wonderful generosity of my friends.

Gonna write some new tunes now…

I have seen the t shirts, cup holders, water bottles and other such fun items to take home as a reminder of your favorite band.

As I spend most of my time recording for the purposes of licensing I don’t do a lot of touring so have never seen the need for anything extra. However, this summer I spent a lot of time at festivals and conferences and I suddenly felt like I needed something more than just my CDs. Of course, I didn’t figure this out until my last festival of the season.

So I started thinking… Stickers? Key rings? But it was my teen who came up with buttons. She just loves buttons and has them all over her school bag.

But what should go on them? I didn’t want to just have my website on there, although the purpose was to advertise. I didn’t want my face and I don’t really have a logo.

Again it was my daughter that came up with the idea of the names of some of my songs. I can be a little quirky in my songwriting and some have fun names. After careful thought (about 15 minutes or so) we came up with the following…

Little Strange
Perfect Girl
When We Were Young
Happy
Ordinary Girl
Three’s Company
Love Is
Let The Sun Shine
La De Dah
Take Me Away
5 Little Things
… and the most popular – High Maintenance
My son, who the song was written about, wears his button with pride everyday.

I found a wonderful button making place call Crucial Pins and they had my buttons made and to me within 3 days…. just in time for to play and MC at the Sunshine Musicfest this last weekend, which, by the way, was the most awesome little festival ever.

I decided to make the buttons free giveaways… after all, people would be advertising me (my website is on the button too!)

When I took the buttons to the festival I thought that the odd person would take one, but they were a hit and a saw a very large percentage of festival goers wearing them. And my daughter was correct… the teens loved them!

I need to order more now and after going through the few that were left I have narrowed the song names down to the ones below. It seems that people want buttons that represent who they are… which is mostly a little strange, high maintenance and perfect!

These little buttons seem to have hit on something fun that makes people remember my music and are now available at my website on their own or you get a free one when you purchase a CD.

After being nominated in 5 categories I was really hoping to get one of the awards and the award that I most wanted to get was for songwriter. After all, that is what I do all day, every day.

The night of the awards came and after several outfit changes I was ready in my pretty skirt and big boots. I love my big boots. Not everybody does but I don’t care.

The evening had some wonderful performances, one of my favourite being from my friend Emily Spiller, who I fully expect to go on to do amazing things and forget who I am.

The award for Female Songwriter came up early-ish in the evening and I was absolutely delighted to receive it. I even gave a pretty coherent acceptance speech.

Emily, who was also nominated for 5 awards and fellow Courtenay dweller, was awarded Female Vocalist which she SO deserved!

So that was it. I was happy with my award, really enjoyed watching others receive theirs and had so much fun singing my song with my daughter on backing vocals and whistling.

An added bonus was getting to sing on Todd Butler’s Home song… a very moving song about making Vancouver Island home.

Then came the last award for Artist of the Year. There were 10 of us nominated for this so I just sat back expecting to clap for the winner. When they said my name I couldn’t believe it and this is where I got to fulfill my fantasy.

Whenever I watch awards shows I love it when the winner kisses their partner and then goes and thanks them in their speech. So when I heard my name I looked at my husband of 19 years, kissed him and then went up, received my award, mumbled some stuff that I can’t remember as I was in shock, and then thanked Trevor. What I said was true. I couldn’t do what I do without him.

I want to take this opportunity again to thank James Kasper and his team for making these awards happen and to all who ‘like’ me, follow me and listen to me. I am always grateful.

Sound Business Model?

Tunecore’s business model, which provides a service for a fixed (kind of) price where you get to keep all the royalties, sounds very compelling. And it is for larger artists. A few hundred dollars a year for a handful of albums is a drop in the ocean compared to their sales.

But I think there is a fundamental flaw in the Tunecore model. It is not tied in any way to the success of the artist. Their only revenue is new and existing fixed price subscriptions. So the only way for Tunecore to grow and satisfy it’s investors is to put up prices both retroactively and on new albums.

The big artists are not going to protest the price hike but the smaller ones are. But we are all worth the same in income to them. In fact it is probably the larger artists (and labels… they use Tunecore too) that take up most of the accounting and headache time for Tunecore.

And while the large artists don’t notice the price increase, the indie bedroom artists are really feeling it. I have to sell $555 worth of songs on each album each and every year to match the 9% that CD Baby charge. However if I become wildly successful, then CD Baby’s model will not be in my best interests financially.

I am sure if CD Baby suddenly put its percentage up to 22.5% then ALL their artists would be pretty vocal. The percentage protects those artists from wild 150% price increases.

As I don’t have a crystal ball and have no idea if I will become hugely successful, the choice seems to be coming down to this :

1. Do I want to pay a yearly subscription which, over time, eats up a greater percentage of the income and could go up dramatically again?

2. Do I want to pay a percentage which will cost me way more if I become really successful?

Getting Emotional

In examining this I have come to realize that this is an emotional issue. When I put my 2nd album, One Eye On The Door, with CD Baby I knew that it would cost me 9% of sales. So when one of my songs did really well after being on featured on the TV show ’90210′ I had no problem with paying the 9%. It is what I signed up for… practically and emotionally. I don’t get upset when I get a placement and my publisher takes their cut. It’s what I signed up for.

What I did not sign up for was a 150% price on old albums with Tunecore. Well, actually I did. The small print says that they can change their prices at anytime. But emotionally, I signed up for $19.99 per year.

I have had many CD Baby artists contact me to tell me how great CD Baby is. Not one Tunecore artist has come forward to defend the new features which apparently we have been ‘crying out for’.

If it wasn’t for the loss of my ratings and ‘those who bought this…’ on iTunes, then I would transfer today. But it just may be worth the loss of those to have a long term model that I am emotionally at peace with.

We all need to feel good about the services we are getting.

But Tunecore’s recent 150% price hike on all new and existing album distribution has got me looking around at what others have to offer.

A Little Background

I wrote, recorded and produced a song a week for a year. During that year I released some download-only EPs. The at the end of the year I released an album with 13 of the best songs of the week. I also got some songs placed on TV that were neither on EPs or the album so I released them as singles.

So now I have 3 EPs and 4 singles from that project. At $49.99 per album (even a 4 song EP) and $29.99 per single, that’s a lot of money to pay every year for just over an album’s worth of songs. So I had to have a think.

Then, after being asked about releasing more of the songs of the week, I decided to take the best songs from the EPs, the singles and some never released songs, remix, rerecord and master them for Song of the Week 2. So 7 releases become one.

So that is why I started examining where to go for my distribution.

Tunecore’s Price Hike

My problem with Tuncore isn’t that is costs $49.99 per year to put up an new album. I think the price is reasonable for a new album. My problem is the price hike on existing albums. Albums that, over time, are likely to get less sales as the years progress. Albums, where the work to put them up has already been done. Albums that cost around a just a couple of dollars a year to host. It’s not is if we are allowed to modify or upgrade anything about the albums, yet they are costing us more.

They added new features like trending and widgets and bundled them together with the distribution but it feels a bit like they are saying “here’s a bunch of stuff you didn’t ask for, now you owe us more money”.

So the quandary for indie artists is that to take our business elsewhere means losing those precious stars, comments and ‘others that bought this bought…’. We need all the attention we can get.

By all means put up your prices for new business but don’t penalize old customers for something they can’t do anything about.

Attitude problem

And then there’s the attitude to those who were not overjoyed at the price hikes. I think they took take offence to the statement by CEO Jeff Price – “So we just said screw it, simpler is better”…  ”Let’s give Tunecore customers all the things they asked for and not charge them for each and every new feature.” (from Digital Music News)

Simpler for Tunecore. I think customers would always prefer to chose what they are paying for. I have a feeling they paid for the development of these features and found that people weren’t as interested as they thought, so, as I said earlier, they have bundled them… for who’s convenience?

Distribution

But enough bitching. I still have the problem of who to distribute through. There seems to be 2 basic options. Pay a fee each year but pay no percentage of sales (Tunecore, Reverbnation) or pay a one time fee and pay a percentage of sales (around 10%) (CD Baby, Indie Pool). I did a little research and came up with this chart so I could see a comparison between many companies now offering music digital distribution. It’s not pretty but it’s as simple as I could make it. (click on the image to see in detail).

The Indie Artist Dilemma

Now if you’re a well known artist it’s a no brainer. Selling a lot means that you are way better off with paying the yearly fee and keeping all the sales. But for less well known indie artists then it’s a gamble. Especially if you have a lot of CDs out there. It adds up. But if I get a song on a TV show, which happens from time to time, then my potential sales make it worth paying the yearly fee. If not then which is my best bet.

What’s Next?

I totally get that it’s all business. I do. And if this was my first album I would most likely go with Tunecore. They have a great website, make it easy to get your albums on iTunes quickly and your money from sales is easy to withdraw. But I have a bad taste in my mouth and I think that there is one simple thing Tunecore could do to keep the indie artists happy, if they really want to… and Tunecore are all about keeping things simple, right?

Leave existing albums at the yearly price that they were originally signed up for. Simple and fair. Those albums require no more work, only the storage cost.

For this new album, Tunecore may still be my best option. I would be interested in other’s thought on this.

This is about releasing Song of the Week 2. I have been asked why specific songs weren’t on Song of the Week and, also, some of the songs that didn’t make the first CD have appeared on various TV shows and… well, I wrote a LOT of songs that year and I still really like some of them ( and some, I would glad never to hear again!)

So I am going to take down EPs Happy, When We Were Young and All The Letters from iTunes as some of those songs are on the first Song of the Week. I am also going to take down the singles. These are all songs of the week. Perfect Girl will stay as that was written and recorded before I started the madness.

I will take some of the songs from the EPs and singles and add to them a bunch of songs that I think warrant being released and make them into Song of the Week 2. And after that Song of the Week will be done. I will be taking down the original project from my website as it is time to move on.

The artwork took a while to figure out until it hit me yesterday that I should be using the photo I took of all my song sheets as I had written them. It just so happens that the song sheet sitting on top is one of the previously unreleased songs from this album. The picture sums up my brain!

So there you have it… I will be releasing Song of the Week 2 in June. I haven’t decided yet about getting physical copies done. Although I know there are die-hard CD purchasers (and I appreciate each one of you) it seems to be getting less and less relevant. Please tell me if you feel differently.

As some of you know, I have a looper – a Boss Loop Station RC50 for the more tech-minded of you out there.

I do love my looper but I am also scared of it… a little. It’s like learning a whole new instrument and then some. However, I do feel the need to master it!

My quandary is, do I use it at important gigs… like the showcase I am about to do at Pacific Contact or when I go the Knoxville for We R Indie, or NY? Does it add or take away from the performance?

I am really interested to hear from others that use a looper and from those who have an opinion my own looping abilities. When I play without it I can just relax and sing. But the looper does add texture and variety, however, is it too much of a distraction?

I have put together a looper video from a concert I did last night with the lovely Hayley Sales. I need to know, does it add enough to put the extra work in to really make it work?

The video is at this LINK.