On May 7, Kelli Richards, president and CEO of The All Access Group, presented the second of several local talks on digital distribution at the UTT Campus at NAPA.
Richards began working in digital distribution at Apple in 1987, back when all online distribution of music and video was illegal.
At Napa, speaking as a guest of Cott and hosted in T&T by the US Embassy of Trinidad and Tobago, her talk was focused on music but also covered film, e-books and, perhaps most usefully, the need for artistes to become far more engaged in online marketing as a critical component of their success strategy.
The digital distribution entrepreneur began with Patronet, an early experiment with the direct-to-Fan business model.
"You must see your creative work as a business," she warned the musicians at the Cott event, "and you must see yourself as a brand."
Crowdfunding, a growing source of capital, she noted, was just "one spoke in the direct-to-Fan wheel."
Artistes who chose crowdfunding to access capital for their projects should be careful to choose their outlets and to review their business arrangements.
Kickstarter, for instance, is all or nothing, and takes a two- to five-per-cent cut of the take. IndieGoGo allows artistes to keep all the money
that's pledged, but takes nine per cent of a missed goal and four per cent if you get all the money you've asked for.
But crowdfunding isn't just post it and hope; artistes need to be willing to keep pitching the project and keeping their marketing ongoing. One good example of a crowdfunding break out of perks is here: http://ow.ly/kWqyS.
For musicians, Richards suggests a regularly updated presence on Bandcamp, Soundcloud, MySpace, Twitter and Facebook.
"Post as much as music as you can," she advised.
"Post a video. Share and update as much as possible, as often as possible."
For musicians and audio recording artistes, her advice was quite specific. If you charge, make sure the product is of the highest possible quality. If it isn't, it might be better to just give it away.
Surprised at the hesitation to engage online in so many of the young artistes coming to the microphone at Napa, I followed up with Victoria Trestrail, a young folk rock singer who asked some particularly pointed questions at the talk.
Trestrail has a presence on Reverbnation where you can hear her work and view her videos (http://ow.ly/ kWr3q). She has placed three of her songs in five episodes of the quirky web comedy The Louise Log and joined the team to see the results of their nomination at The Shorty Awards in Manhattan in April.
Trestrail first tried working with local musicians, but she said, "It didn't work out. I went international, and I was appreciated."
In 2009, Trinidadian Rishi Ramlagan, aka "Snakeman," reached out to her on Facebook after hearing one of her songs and produced three of her more successful works, Johnny's Fool, Steady Now and The Essentials.
Steady Now earned an honourable mention in the 2010 Billboard World Song contest and has been featured in the Facebook app Hit or Not.
"I consider myself a songwriter that sings," Trestrail wrote in response to e-mailed questions. "but I write for other artistes as well."
Richards' advice
�2 Specific advice on engagement.
�2 Be available.
�2 Own your online presence.
�2 Know your audience and market.
�2 Gauge your expectations.
�2 Invest in the product, make it polished and professional
�2 Sometimes it's wiser to give it away for free.
�2 Connect with the world.
�2 Engage with your audience and produce work.
�2 Adapt and evolve. Keep yourself relevant.
�2 There's no right path to success.