Hello! Sam Russell - heavy metal guitarist

[StrikingViper69]

Hey everyone,

first off - thanks for making the forums and writing the books MJ.

I read Fastlane a few years ago (I think it is time for a re-read).

I'm a musician, and more specifically, an electric guitarist playing heavy metal and classical crossover.

I've released a heavy metal album. It was made using session musicians. I made some pretty bad decisions when making it, and have a tonne of debt from it.

On the plus side, I own 100% of the rights to everything on the album, it was done professionally, and it has had reviews that are better than major label releases.

Business wise, I'm trying to figure out how to sell my album online. I've taken courses by nearly every "music business marketer" online... and I don't think they have any idea what they are talking about. Strangely... when I ask them if any of them can tell me the net income they or any of their students make from music (not selling "how to sell music" courses), none of them have a straight answer.

I'm not looking to make a million dollars tomorrow, but if I can make $3000/mo profit from it, I can travel around the world, write music, and I'll be profitable enough to justify self funding future releases with a bank loan, if I can't raise the money upfront from existing customers... which would be awesome. I have an MP3 download available for £5 - £7 depending on the offer, which means that my goal income level requires 423 - 600 sales/mo

Market wise, heavy metal fans still spend a lot of money on music and the culture in general.

What I'm working on at the moment:
1. Building a blog related to heavy metal music and lifestyle. Build a mailing list and use it as an online magazine to advertise my album. Also keeps my mailing list engaged.
2. Building a profitable sales funnel using facebook ads. I've made a few sales doing this, but haven't broken even. This week I'm changing the funnel to:
FB ad > opt in page > offer > emails for blog

Why I'm here
I'm here so I can learn from people building real businesses, rather than people whose business is to teach people how to build a business.

Scalabilty
In terms of how I can scale, I think I have this sorted. Before I released the record, I assumed I wouldn't need to market it (... yeah). So I figured out how to ship 1000 physical units a month, found a supplier and a distributor.

Thanks for reading - I'm probably going to keep a low profile while I read up on old posts for a few months.

My work ethic is pretty solid.

 

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[njord]

Can you tell us what your band is called?

If you want to travel the world why dont you fomulate a band and just go touring?
I have no experince but i know if done right it should pay for it self, you get tons of new fans and exposure what will lead to extra sales.

PS im a metal fan i would love to hear your work

 

[StrikingViper69]

Can you tell us what your band is called?

If you want to travel the world why dont you fomulate a band and just go touring?
I have no experince but i know if done right it should pay for it self, you get tons of new fans and exposure what will lead to extra sales.

PS im a metal fan i would love to hear your work

thanks for the reply!

The music was released under my own name, "Sam Russell". You can check out a couple of songs on YouTube here:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQPUwRvcTCY

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5t91KDuMA


That would be cool, but doing it right and making the numbers fall out would be pretty hard. The music needs 5 people, including myself, to perform, and those players need to be at a pretty high level - people that can play at that level don't want to work for free.

I've contact booking agents and management companies and they want bands that have exposure - either social media followings, shows, or bands doing a lot of live shows.

And as a lifestyle, I'm not sure I want to play a different city every night.

The ideal for me, would be to

1. Make a lot of sales online.
2. Live in a different city every 2-3 months.
3. Play at metal festivals in the summer

If I can get IM figured out, I can scale record sales pretty reliably, and getting festival shows will be pretty easy.