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About the Author
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Dan McAvinchey is a composer/guitarist living in Raleigh, NC.
He believes every musician or composer has the power to release their own record.
His latest CD release on Guitar Nine Records is entitled "Guitar Haus".
Please direct all comments and suggestions for future columns to Dan McAvinchey.
© Dan McAvinchey
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Help For Your Independent Label or Release
Many of you, at some time or another, will be exploring the possibility of releasing your own independently produced record, tape, or CD. You may even want to start your own record label. The benefits of doing so are numerous:
- Earnings from sales of a smaller number of independently released recordings can be more profitable than large sales on a major label
- You can start your label and release a record today; you do not have to wait for a label to contact you
- Your future is in your own hands, not in the hands of hardened bureaucrats
- You retain complete creative control over your music
- Releasing your own record is a relatively inexpensive option, and it's a way to get heard
With that in mind, you may need some help in completing a recording project for the first time. Following are reviews of several excellent books on everything from making your record and setting up a label to publishing and legal concerns. Good luck!
Note: All books reviewed may be purchased through our association with Amazon.com Books -- simply click on the book cover to order.
Producing Jazz : The Experience of an Independent Record Company
By: Herman Gray
Producing Jazz is a portrait of Theresa Records, a small but nationally known independent record label in San Francisco. The book focuses on the way in which a hobby grows into a business, and highlights the conflicting goals of staying small and staying solvent. Written at a fairly high level (i.e. it reads like a college textbook), Gray spends as much time on his theories of organizational behavior and work structure as he does detailing the motivation, commitment and goals of the owners of the home-based Theresa Records. Nevertheless, it's always interesting to see how some idealists go about creating adventurous jazz outside the mainstream.Temple University Press, ©1988, 171 pp.
Hit Men : Power Brokers & Fast Money Inside the Music Business
By: Fredric Dannen
Hey, sometimes you can learn more about the music industry by learning what not to do. A self-described, "highly controversial portrait of the pop music industry", Hit Men details the greed and struggle for profits by record labels from the early days of the business, right through until 1991. After reading this book, you will be 100% convinced the record business belongs in the hands of musicians like yourself (and not hustlers, egomaniacs and kingpins). An incredibly interesting and eye-opening account of all that independent label owners are working hard to avoid. Vintage Books, ©1991, 410 pp.
The Artist's Way
By: Julia Cameron & Mark Bryan
While not a book about starting a record label or releasing a record, The Artist's Way is one of the most valuable books I own, because it deals with getting in touch with your creativity and lays out a path towards artistic confidence and productivity. Even if you're not a musician, running a successful record label requires every creative idea you can dream up. Screenwriter Julia Cameron believes creative expression is the natural direction of life, and her book presents a great method for all artists (musicians, poets, painters, sculptors, arrangers, etc.) to recover their creativity from limiting beliefs, self-sabotage, inattention, fear, jealousy, addictions etc. An excellent book for all individuals doing creative work or responsible for new, creative ideas.G. P. Putnam's Sons, ©1992, 224 pp.
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