Raising Money For Your Indie Music

Raising Money For Your Indie Music.

Each indie artist has encountered difficulties because of budget constraints. When your finances are limited or nil, every penny is important.

You’ve quite recently composed three tunes, but don’t have the money to mix and record them. Or you’ve spent your savings on the recording process and now you have no money to advertise or promote it. You’ve bagged a couple multi-city gig offers after a tedious and expensive release campaign –but have no money to afford it. Or, worst; you’re too broke to even start composing!

What do you do when you don’t have a label endorsing your music and you need to pick between paying your own bills and paying a studio, publisher or marketing expert?

You raise money!

I’m certain you’re saying, “I know I have to raise money, but it’s easier said than done!” And you’re right. It is difficult being an Indie. That is why there’s a term called “grind”. You must give more than 100% on everything just to move an inch ahead in your career. It is the same for raising money also.

To raise funds, the first thing is to chalk out a way. The ways you will use to raise funds, how much is required to get you going and how soon do you require it. Set a realistic goal over a realistic period of time. Know where you are probably going to face difficulties and plan a solution. For instance:

1. Do you have transportation? If not, then the majority of your raising money exercises should be led from home.
2. Do you have a full-time job, or are you in school? If yes, how much time can you set aside for this exercise every day?

Your honest answers to these questions will help you decide how to go about achieving your money raising goal, with least last-minute glitches.

There are infinite ways that you could use to finance your work, but majority of these options (at least the most practical ones) begin with a really strong development process. The idea here is to package your upcoming work in a way that will make it irresistible to investors, no matter which investor or platform you’re going to target. And the entire process really begins at the base – the talent.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to create music that is marketable to the general public, because if you don’t have something that interests the listeners on a basic level, it doesn’t matter how good your development process goes. No one will invest.

This may sound basic, but we’ve all fallen in love with an idea that isn’t marketable and realized only too late that we should have tested it at a much earlier stage. Not everything that appeals to an artist appeals to general So learn, and make sure you have something really amazing and original.

Once you have a solid song, you will of course need to test it with your group or friends. And just like when you were developing your song, you’ll want to test it thoroughly and get lots of feedback before you start contacting investors. Your friends and folks also form a part of the viewers and listeners. Take their feedback seriously and improvise.

While a lot of the other things you need to work on during the development phase will continue, it’s important that you get the song right before you move on. Don’t do anything but focus on getting your song and music to the best possible point, because without it you’re going to waste a lot of time in vain.

I have put together a list of thing you can try doing to raise funds for your music, in my next post. If I have missed on some points, I welcome you to share your ideas. Different tactics work for different people, so share what worked for you and what didn’t!

Read my blog about Impact of Indie Music, here:

http://www.theindiemusic.com/indiemusic/impact-of-indie-music/