Labels and promotion...

[setspeed]

depends on the label. unfortunately the plethora of new digital labels means they are two a penny being run by people in it for a quick buck.

a lot of them won't promote you, won't communicate with you professionally, won't master your tunes properly, will lie to you about how many units you've sold and then still not pay you the amount they lied to you that they owed.

its sad but true, and has happened to me personally and many of my peers.

my advice is work with labels you trust. dont sign to labels that you've never heard of before. integrity is key in any industry to guarantee longevity so make sure they're legit.

this is by no means limited to the new digital labels; some established labels are just as bad if not worse - they know they can rip off one artist because their brand is so strong there's gonna be a queue of other artists waiting to take their place

[jaydot]

I guess they give your music some "validation" in general.

Not saying there's not some top class unsigned artists but you know if you're signed especially to a good label then generally your music has a backing of the labels' name. But if you're shit hot you give the label a bigging up too so it's a two way thing. The better you are the more the label will promote and so on and so forth.

[Sharmaji]

any release i've ever been involved in, contractually the artist has the right (at their expense) to audit the label's handling of them once a year. standard business practices.

abz you split profits before recouping? unless i'm reading it wrong, that's not fair to you-- you should recoup yr costs before anyone splits a profit.

personally, i think artists shouldn't work with labels that haven't established themselves, or have the huge (and well-organized) desire to be in that echelon. The ease of digital distro is great for making music available, yes-- but i'd stay away from labels that are helping to make it a race to the bottom.

[FSTZ]

^^amen

[jaydot]

double amen. I don't reeeally know too much about the distribtuion//label thing having not been involved, but that sounds spot on.