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Special Feature

Hints and Tips about starting a DIY music label - Part 2

Article written by Trevor M - Mar 13, 2010

DIY Records

This is part 2 of a 2 part article. Part 1 can be read here

The detail of releasing and promoting music

Getting down to the nitty gritty of the things you actually have to do to make a release and promote it there are a number of areas that need to be thought about. On the manufacturing side - Do you home print the sleeves? Do you get the sleeves professionally printed? Where do you get the vinyl pressed? Where do you get the CDs made? Do you home burn CDr releases? What mailers do you need to send out the records/CDs - whether that’s for promo purposes or to ship out the sales that have started to trickle in via your website?

Home printing sleeves? There is no right or wrong way about doing this. In my time I’ve used many different print shops and also done my fair share of home printing. The DIY element of home printing doesn’t always save you money. Ink/Toner isn’t cheap. I think I am on my 5th printer in a little over 3 years. I was lucky enough to pick up a cheap 2nd hand colour laser printer last year and even now I get through about a 1000 sheets for every £100 of toner that I buy. Sometimes, it’s easier to get the larger runs (over 300) done via the place you are getting the CDs/Vinyl manufactured.

I have also found that printing off small run releases (I currently do CD EPs in runs of 120) is where home printing the sleeves comes into its own. It does take time. You do need to invest in a decent paper trimmer. I settled on a Dahle 550 (http://www.dahle.com/products/trimmers/rolling_trimmers/professional.htm). This makes the job of trimming the sleeves down to size a lot easier and I wasted plenty of time and effort with cheaper trimmers before realising that spending a little up front does actually pay dividends further on down the line.

As for paper, ink/toner, mailers etc. It pays to shop around. eBay is a great resource and I source my mailers from there 90% of the time. It makes sense to think about the type of printer you are going to use before buying one. Look at the cost of ink and what thickness of paper the printer can handle. Don’t be afraid to order from small online suppliers. They can give you good deals on recycled ink cartridges. I’ve found this site useful for consumables: http://www.consumablecafe.co.uk. Although I’ve not used them every time - they’ve been very helpful down the years when I’ve run into ink/toner issues. As for my paper supplies I have tended to buy in bulk to get the price down and I have used http://purelypaper.co.uk/ for all my paper needs to date.

In the past few years I’ve settled on two suppliers for making the records and CDs that Odd Box release – one for CDs (http://www.gilliesaudio.co.uk/) and one for vinyl (http://www.noisebox.co.uk/). There are plenty of others out there and nearly all vinyl manufactures in the UK use a pressing plant, GZ, in the Czech Republic (http://www.gzcd.cz/vinyl-2/). You can deal direct with them – but I decided against it as I was inexperienced and I wanted to be able to easily call someone in the UK when I was unsure of what needed to be done to get the release looking and sounding how I want. In the past I have home burnt CDrs for releases. I found this to be a right pain in the backside (failed copies and time consuming being my main two gripes) and it’s something I try and avoid these days. Why? Getting 100 CDrs from a place like Gillies Audio is actually a lot cheaper than I’d imagined (£69 for 100) and I think there are places out there that are even cheaper.

After you’ve looked at manufacturing you then need to think about promoting your release. If you are a small DIY label you are not going to be able to afford to advertise in magazines like NME, Stool Pigeon, The Fly etc. So you have to use the tools available to you. Namely – the Internet. Sites like Facebook and myspace are invaluable tools for reaching fans of bands you are releasing. Set up pages for your label and over time people join and come to your little corner of the internet because they like what they have heard by a band on your label. I’d also say build your own label website. In 2010 it easy enough to set up a blog and use this as a template for your label’s site. You don’t need masses of technical knowledge and you can learn about sites like Blogger and Wordpress as you go. There is a wealth of information out there on the internet on how to build blogs and an afternoon’s research should yield enough information for you to make the right choice for your site.

The other area that you should consider is mailing lists. I know they’re a dirty word and you can be seen as a spammer. I’ve taken the approach of giving away free download only releases in exchange for an email addresses and also asking people to sign up at gigs that I put on. People can easily unsubscribe if they don’t want to know about your label’s latest wonder release. I’ve toyed with self hosting my mailing list and in the end it got to the point where it was more trouble than it was worth so I moved my mailing to an online provider - http://www.yourmailinglistprovider.com/ - it’s free to use for small volumes and if you find you have grown above the free limit there are cheap price plans for moderate use.

The final piece of the Internet promotional jigsaw is message boards. Remember to target boards that broadly fit with the type of music you are releasing. It would be pointless engaging on a board about death metal when you have some gentle indiepop to promote. Also – I’d stress that this type of promotion is fraught with danger. If you only turn up on the board whoring your wares – the local community is likely to take a dim view of this. So I don’t post to masses of places – I target ones where I can stop and interact with the folks that use the board. These places are also a great way to find out about new bands, shows etc. So it is worth investing a little time to become part of the community. This probably sounds more cynical than it actually is – the bottom line is to remember to treat the boards with a little respect and join in with other discussions where you can.

You can also send physical/digital promos to relevant magazines, blogs and online music webzines. For this you need to decide which approach is right for you. I have just enough technical know how to upload the releases to my website and password protect the folder that holds the release. This is great for sending out digital promos. Blogs tend to like this approach whereas magazines and DJs less so. So it really is horses for courses. On smaller releases I tend to stick exclusively to digital promos – but on a 7” singles of 300 or more copies I tend to send out a select number of physical promos to relevant Radio DJs, magazines etc. It really does pay to be selective and to work out who is likely to be interested in your release. There is no point sending out over 100 promos if most of them are going to end up in the bin, on eBay or unheard. Building up this knowledge takes time. And it’s over time that you will come to learn which magazines, DJs or blogs are worth approaching.

For all forms of promotion you will need to write a press release. Sounds daunting. It’s not. I’ve found the best press releases are short, snappy and they give a pointer to what the band sounds like. A brief bio on the band never hurts – but don’t write pages and pages as it puts people off reading. Keep it brief, try and avoid clichés and if the band have had good press previously a few choice quotes from a Radio DJ, respected blog/magazine does more for a release than all the prose you could ever come up with. See http://www.shutupbands.com/ for examples of what not to do.

Finally – the best source of advice is usually from fellow DIY labels. Darren at Squirrel Records, Sean at Fortuna Pop, Ian Watson at How Does It Feel To Be Loved? And Robin Allport at Club AC30 have all been a great source of advice early on and continue to be so to this day. It was this sharing of information that helped make the step from dreaming about being a record label, to actually starting a label a reality. With that in mind I set up a small resource for other people in the same boat. The DIY Music Resource (http://diyrecordlabels.ning.com/) – it isn’t as active as I’d like it to be - but it has started to grow and I hope it’s a place where like minded people might be able to find information they need to help them on their way to running their own label, gig night etc.

Right, I’ve got to go and bag up another 100 7” singles and I’ve got to make another call to Cargo. And I’ve got 15 demos that need listening too. The work of DIY label is never done…

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About the author: Trevor McCabe runs Oddbox Records and is a fixture on the London indiepop and noisepop live scenes. He recently appeared on Tom Robinson’s BBC Radio 6 show to talk about DIY music releases.

Links:
http://oddboxrecords.com
http://diyrecordlabels.ning.com/