Q & A
Each month, MusicBizAdvice.com answers your questions about the music industry.
How to Find a
Manager, and What You Need to Know Before Contacting Management
Q.
Can you give me a list of personal managers that I can contact? Can you
give me their email addresses? Thanks--C.
A. Although we understand you feel it's what you need to meet your
goals, blindly giving you a list of managers would be a disservice to
you and your career because we don't know what your musical genre is or know
anything about you as an artist. That you didn't know this shows you're not quite ready
for management, and makes you potential prey for unscrupulous ripoff
artists.
After you have a solid demo package, photos, and live experience in your
musical genre, you can think about contacting management. But since strategy is as important as talent to get in the door, before you
contact potential managers, it's important to research which management
companies you should target. Very few firms work in all musical genres, and
the best usually specialize in just one or two.
First, you must know what musical genre your music best fits, whether it's
marketable, and which managers work in your genre. You must also know who
the top artists are in your genre, and which managers represent those top
artists. Which labels are those top artists with, and how many artists on
that label are in your genre? How many of them are similar to your type in
gender, age, and look?
Let's say, for example, there's a musical genre called Rugfry. If you're an
18 year-old female Rugfry singer and Label X already has two other young
female Rugfry singers, there probably isn't a spot for your music on that
label. (Or, if they do sign you, there will be intense competition for
marketing dollars and resources between the three of you, and the label is
likely to drop at least one of you.) If Manager A's label contacts happen to
mainly be with that already crowded label, your chances of being signed go
down dramatically...so contacting Manager A might not be the most productive
way to go.
Meanwhile, Label Y doesn't have a young female Rugfry singer on their
roster but wants to get in on the Rugfry music craze, so there may be room
for you. Your best shot at being signed to fill that spot would be with
Manager B, who has contacts at Label Y. To have the best shot, you must know
who that manager is and try to get signed with him or her.
How do you know where a manager's contacts are? Look at the manager's roster
of artists, and note which labels his clients are with. Unless there's been
a dramatic personnel change at the label within the past year and a half,
looking at their clients' most recent projects is usually a good indicator.
Where do you get information about artist managers? Taking a look at the CD
booklets of artists in your genre is a great way to start your research. If
you can't afford to buy the CD you can look online, but getting the CD
booklet in your hands and getting familiar with liner note language and
names is really the best way. Many public libraries have excellent CD
sections full of stuff for you to check out, for free. Take a notepad and
pen with you, stake out a table, and take lots of notes.
After you finish in the CD section, head over to the magazine section and
jot down names from Billboard as well. (The small print on the Billboard
charts contains much of the information you need.) Also thumb through and
make note of any new signings, as well as what new artists are getting a lot
of attention in the articles and in large, colorful ads. (The online version
won't give you as clear a picture of where labels are spending their
promotional dollars as looking through a hard copy of the magazine will.) Using
all this information, compile your own "A list" and "B list" of managers to
contact.
Before you leave the library, ask the librarian where the music business how
to books are; even tiny, small town libraries have a shelf or two of them
and can order other books from other libraries around the country. Check a
few out, and read the chapters on Artist Management.
The more you know, the better shot you have at making your dreams come true.
Good luck!
Randi Reed
Editor-in-Chief / Founder
MusicBizAdvice.com
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