Alms? Alms for the poor?
Here’s an interesting article I stumbled upon.
(Source: http://antistress.ro/2007/12/04/dodge-logo/)
Never have a limit on your income
A wise man said, “Never have a limit on your income.”
Example he gave:
If you sell pens for a living and someone orders a million pens, no problem! You just place an order with your manufacturer for a million pens, get them to the customer, and celebrate.
But if you do hands-on massage for a living and a recent spot on Oprah gets you a waiting list of 10,000 people, “you’ll wish you were in the pen business.”
Point being : if you make a living only providing an in-person (hands-on) service, you are limiting your income. If you were in a “while you sleep” business, there is no limit to how much you can make.
So… what about musicians?
For the last few years, many people have suggested that the products (CDs, even downloads) are now just the free giveaways to get people to go to the show - that musicians are only in a hands-on service-provider business now.
Of course I disagree because I watch CD Baby pay more and more to musicians every month (while they sleep).
Musicians MUST NOT buy into that “only earn by performing” belief because it limits your income.
I spend a LOT of money on music, but haven’t been to a live concert in years. The recorded music has great value to me, whether MP3s, CDs, or even subscription services.
What other ways can music be a “while you sleep” income-earner for musicians? (STUPID BRAINSTORM WARNING
- write songs for others to perform
- creating commercial-use music (that businesses will use in advertising, for example)
- getting your music into film/tv
- paid-area access to your web-archive with all your music, even works-in-progress
- make it easy for fans to donate
- create a recognizable brand once, then license the name or model to others (like “Chicken Soup for the Soul”)
- franchise your band: train multiple bands how to sound just like you, then all can go tour, while you get royalty when they do
- creating music-education programs used by many schools
- release your unmixed tracks for fans to remix, letting them sell the remixes on a 50/50 split
WHAT ELSE?
Derek SiversOkay, so that got me thinking. According to those categories, theatre is a “hands-on” industry while other disciplines like film and TV are “while you sleep” industries. You can’t really do live theatre while you sleep (unless you’re Marvin from Marvin’s Room). On the other hand, once a film is made, all it takes to sell more is calling up the distributor and having them rush out more copies.
In short, this is mostly why two or three commercials in sizable markets can pay enough to last you a year while you pursue theatrical endeavors.
Theatre artists, like musicians, could benefit financially from “while you sleep” things. Notice musicians still tour; theatre artists should still produce live theatre. But musicians can also sell CDs and merchandise and music videos. How can we theatre artists do more “while you sleep” things to help us out financially?
Here’s a few ideas I thought of.
1) Custom T-shirts for Theatres and Plays. It’s relatively cheap to make custom T-shirts and you can do a 10% mark-up to cover costs and bring in a little extra income. You could do custom shirts for each play or do one for an entire season. The sky’s the limit!
2) uh… uh… I’m out of ideas.
Help? Any ideas out there?
May 12th, 2008 at 5:38 am
You need to bring this post to Theatre Tribe as a new discussion forum, because this is part of the conversation about this business model.
Some thoughts: why don’t theatre people take control of the obvious “while you sleep” businesses? For instance, I don’t care what the size of the town, there are radio stations that play commercials. Why not include a recording studio in the theatre and have the ensemble serve as an advertising firm, writing and producing radio commercials?
Why not steal a page from NPR’s “Selected Shorts” and record stories to sell to your patrons and anyone else who wants to order them on the web? Want to avoid copyright issues? Record OLD stories, plays, etc. And don’t skip things like essays — there are many, many colleges and universities whose students take Western Civ classes that read materials from the past — Plato, Aristotle, the Consitution and Declaration of Independence, and so on. Make recordings, contact the university, and see whether they would let their students listen to the material rather than only read it.
If you ensemble does new plays by a company playwright, make arrangements to either film or record a performance and make the DVD available for sale. Also, use print-on-demand to make the script available yourself. In England, scripts are sold in the lobby.
May 12th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Cross-marketing is extremely important skill. One warning: tee shirts don’t do well unless there’s a hook. Get creative. There’s a book called “Don’t Just Applaud — Send Money” available through Amazon. Mostly geared toward the non-profit theater, but it might spark something.
June 19th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
[...] is a great example of what he’s talking about. Recently, I wrote a post regarding “While You Sleep” activities that theatres can do to boost revenue. What Devilvet is doing with The Mammals is the [...]