{"id":593,"date":"2013-01-04T17:34:11","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T17:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/?p=593"},"modified":"2013-01-04T17:44:25","modified_gmt":"2013-01-04T17:44:25","slug":"why_you_should_never_give_out_your_music_for_free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/why_you_should_never_give_out_your_music_for_free\/","title":{"rendered":"Why You Should Never Give Out Your Music For Free"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Giving out you music for free is a\u00a0<strong>waste of time<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Yes I know, this goes against everything you\u2019ve been taught so far. We all know how hard it is to sell your music to new fans, so the obvious step seems to be giving out loads of freebies until people are ready to buy your music right? Ummm, wrong!<\/p>\n<p>The thing is, giving your music out for free can actually be doing more harm then good. By doing this, musicians are reinforcing the view that music should be free for listeners. In actual fact, musicians have as much right to make money by benefiting other people\u2019s lives as anyone else does. Would someone makes board games just to give them out for free? Would a cleaner clean a hotel if they weren\u2019t getting paid? Would a bus driver allow free passengers just because they enjoy driving? No, no, and NO!<\/p>\n<p>In this article, I will show you exactly why giving your music out for free is a bad idea.\u00a0<strong>I will also show you what you should be doing instead<\/strong>, and help you get your music distribution tactics back on track.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Note:<\/strong>\u00a0If you find this article useful and want to stop other musicians making these common mistakes, please share it around as much as possible.<\/p>\n<h2>What I Define As \u2018Free\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>Before I go any further, I\u2019d like to define what I mean when I say \u2018free\u2019.<\/p>\n<p><em>Giving your music out for free is giving your songs out\u00a0<\/em><em><strong>without you gaining anything tangible in return<\/strong><\/em><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Yes you may get a few more people learning about you and becoming fans, but these results can be few and fan between. On top of that, a lot of these new fans will forget about you as time goes on. As they download more and more free music, your song will probably get lost somewhere on their hard drive.<\/p>\n<h2>What You Need To Remember<\/h2>\n<p>When you make your music, you need to ask yourself: Who do you\u00a0<strong>really<\/strong>\u00a0make it for? A lot of people claim they make music just for the love of it. If that\u2019s the case, you don\u2019t need to be reading this article. Independent Music Advice is a website aiming to help you learn the business side of the music industry, and therefore gain more fans and money. If you\u2019re making music\u00a0<strong>just<\/strong>\u00a0for you, carry on singing in your bedroom.<\/p>\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"people-listen-to-your-music\" alt=\"People listening to your music\" src=\"http:\/\/www.independentmusicadvice.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/people-listen-to-your-music.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" \/><\/div>\n<p>If however it\u2019s your aim to gain fans and make money, you need to remember one thing:\u00a0<strong>People will only become a fan of you and your music if it benefits their lives<\/strong>. In other words, you\u2019re offering them a service.<\/p>\n<p>Now ask yourself this: Why are you paying to make other people happy? It costs you\u00a0<strong>time and money<\/strong>to make music, so if you\u2019re giving all this music out for free, you aren\u2019t really getting anything from the deal. The people who download your music however are getting exactly what they want. Does this seem fair to you? Because it doesn\u2019t to me\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Giving people an unlimited amount of your music for free is a big problem, and something that needs to stop.<\/p>\n<h2>The Problem With Giving Out Too Much Free Music<\/h2>\n<p>OK, so now\u00a0<strong>why<\/strong>\u00a0is giving out your music at no cost a bad thing? Well:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>It Doesn\u2019t Make People Want To Listen To You Any More.<\/strong><br \/>\nJust because you give out your audio as a free download, it doesn\u2019t mean that you will get a lot of people downloading it. Even if you hand someone out a free CD, there\u2019s no guarantee that person will go on to listen to it. Many times people have given me free CDs at events and shows. Do I go on to listen to all of them? No. And I know a lot of people are the same.<br \/>\nIt takes more then just giving someone your music for them to listen, you have to give them a\u00a0<strong>reason<\/strong>\u00a0to want to listen. If you don\u2019t do that, your CD will end up at the bottom of a pile and never get played.<br \/>\nNow the interesting thing; If you can give people a reason to want to listen to your music, you won\u2019t have to give your music out for free! You will be able to ask for something in exchange, and they will be willing as they already have it in their mind they want to hear your music. This largely makes giving your music out for free obsolete.<\/li>\n<li><strong>People Start To Expect It.<\/strong><br \/>\nIf you always give your music out for free, people will come to expect it. So when you start to make more of a name and you decide you want to start charging for your music, you will have a hard time selling it. After all, the majority of your fan base is made up of people who are in it for the freebies. As soon as they see they have to start paying now, many of your fans will disappear. They already have a load of your music, so what\u2019s pushing them to get any more?<br \/>\nWhile you may get some that stay and don\u2019t mind paying for your music, you will look back and realise you spent a lot of time and effort making people happy who didn\u2019t benefit your career in any way. Not a good feeling at all.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Your Music Will Have A Lower Perceived Value.<\/strong><br \/>\nPerceived value is what people think your product is worth. If something is widely available for free, people will naturally feel like it\u2019s not worth as much as it\u2019s easy to obtain. This is how a lot of people think about music right now.<br \/>\nIf however something is harder to obtain or it\u2019s a higher price, people naturally think it\u2019s of a better quality. Because of this, it\u2019s sometimes possible to raise the price of your product and make more sales then if you set a lower price point.<br \/>\nYou of course don\u2019t want to charge so much that it\u2019s not worth buying your music, but giving it all away for free will definitely make people perceive your music to have less value.<\/li>\n<li><strong>You\u2019ll Lose Money.<\/strong><br \/>\nMaking good quality music isn\u2019t free. You have to pay to use the recording studio, for the cost of pressing up products, for marketing and promotion expenses, and for anything else that needs to be done. If you do all of this only to give your music out for free, you are losing out on money. And where does that money come from? My guess is your own pocket.<br \/>\nYou shouldn\u2019t be paying to make other people happy, it should be a two way thing. You should benefit from people hearing your music, and you shouldn\u2019t be afraid to ask for something in exchange for your songs.<\/li>\n<li><strong>You Will Lose Motivation.<\/strong><br \/>\nIf you keep spending money on creating music that people don\u2019t end up downloading, you will eventually lose motivation. If you lose motivation, what\u2019s to keep you making music any more?<br \/>\nWe get into music for the love of it, but there are things along that way that have many a musician giving up on the industry. If you don\u2019t want to become one of these people, you will need to start seeing some tangible results. Giving out your music free of charge doesn\u2019t often give tangible results, so isn\u2019t really worth you doing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What You Should Be Doing Instead<\/h2>\n<p>So, now we know you shouldn\u2019t be giving your music out for free, what should you be doing instead? Well:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>You should be selling it. And,<\/li>\n<li>You should have some songs available to download as part of an exchange process.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The selling your music part it pretty obvious. You should have your music on a shop page of your website where people can buy it in exchange for money.<\/p>\n<p>The exchange process on the other hand is something quite different.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of letting people download your music for nothing in return, you should only allow people to download some of your songs if they help you out in some way. This could be them giving you their contact details, or by them promoting your music in some way. This is a win win situation for everyone. They get to download your music and learn about you, and you get to keep in contact with them or have them promote you to all their friends.<\/p>\n<p>We call the songs we use in this exchange process \u2018promotional songs\u2019, and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imamusicbusinessacademy.com\/selling-your-music-and-giving-it-out\" target=\"_blank\">cover this strategy in a lot more detail here<\/a>. In that article we look at how to give out your promotional songs (And the best way to maximise their effect), the single to promotional songs ratio, how to encourage more people to download your promotional songs, how you can use your promotional songs to encourage people to buy your paid releases, and much more.<\/p>\n<h2>Should You Give Your Music Away For Free Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Giving your music out for free is a huge mistake, and one that many musicians unfortunately make. When you know how however, it\u2019s possible to let people hear a few of your songs without paying any money, but also benefit from the deal yourself. It also gives your music a higher perceived value, and makes you appear to be a cut above the rest.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t give out all of your music for free and expect to get loads of fans overnight, most people will still largely overlook your music as there\u2019s so much free songs floating around anyway. By putting a small barrier in the way of obtaining your music, you may get a few less downloads, but anyone that does download will be more of a quality fan.<\/p>\n<p>If this article has been an eye opener to you (And I hope it has), please share it round on your favourite sites. Thanks as always for your support, and I hope to see your views in the comments.<\/p>\n<p>Via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independentmusicadvice.com\/2012\/01\/why-you-should-never-give-out-your-music-for-free\/\" target=\"_blank\">IMA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Giving out you music for free is a\u00a0waste of time. Yes I know, this goes against everything you\u2019ve been taught so far. We all know how hard it is to sell your music to new fans, so the obvious step seems to be giving out loads of freebies until people are ready to buy your music right? Ummm, wrong! The thing is, giving your music out for free can actually [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[14,153],"class_list":["post-593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-tips","tag-music-business","tag-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":595,"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions\/595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vakseen.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}