As I sit and think about all of the mundane-ish things artists need to do in order to cultivate an actual fan base I stumbled on Muckwork, the new musician focused project of Derek Sivers, founder of CDBaby. Muckwork hasn't been released yet, but the idea is to provide a service that does all the things that artists A.) don't have time to do, B.) don't want to do, C.) don't have the know-how to do and/or D.) all of the above.
Unfortunately, my only personal assistant is my virtual assistant, aka BlackBerry and it doesn't do a very good job of writing blogs, tweets or sending out CDs. Luckily, I rather revel in my position as Head Muckworker of To The Fallen Records. Besides, would some other muckworker do as muckier of a job as me when they weren't in this up to their muckneck? I think not.
What do artists want to outsource related to their music? Give me some ideas, so that maybe some day TTFR can hire a Junior McMuckmurkerworker. Say that three times fast.
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I have been muckworking for our guy for several years. I got mucking down pat. We are full of mucking ideas that other mothermuckers mess up.
ReplyDeleteWe do all the muckwork ourselves. I emailed Derek the same week he first posted about developing MuckWork. It sounded fabulous. :)
ReplyDeleteThe biggest struggle is keeping all our music sites synced - ReverbNation has become one our favorite sites for that. It can be synced with Twitter, MySpace, your Facebook page, and facilitates an email list with exclusive fan downloads. ArtistData is great for status updates and posting blogs to MySpace, Livejournal, etc. But it's all definitely a second full-time job for each of us.
www.taxi.com is another site that offers a ton of services for the budding musician.
ReplyDeleteI think one area that TTFR artists would do great is song placement in movies, tv, and commercials. For the guys who record but don't tour because of other commitments, this is a great way to make some money and get exposure.
I think artists just want to play and write music. They themselves are the brand and the manager should be managing all of the outsourcing, incorporating rabid, but intelligent fans to work as the grassroots promotion/marketing team.
ReplyDeleteThe more I work in this industry the more I realize that paying someone to do all of this shit is worthless. Unless they are truly passionate (read: big fan) about you and your music, they won't do a good job and won't care IF they do a good job. The key is being able to find the right personnel for the right job.
I'm not saying that a paid employee can't become a fan...that can happen too...and in that case, you luck out because not only do you have the passionate, but the knowledge as well.
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