How to Be an Independent Artist in the Music Industry

Hey There!

Imagine working for 10+ years creating music from your heart and personal experiences and not actually OWNING a single song. Then one day those songs are magically sold overnight to someone else and you have no legal ground to buy them back.

Unfortunately this is what happened recently with Taylor Swift and it's a sad reality for many artists in the music industry as a whole.

You see, many people don't understand that when you get signed to a label -that's a loan you have to pay back before you ever start seeing money.

In Taylor's example, she got advances from her ex-label Big Machine, to record and produce 6 albums and after a certain amount of time she'd be able to buy them back. Unfortunately that time wasn't up when Taylor left Big Machine so they were able to sell the licensing rights to her music without her consent as she TECHNICALLY didn't own them.

A similar experience happened to R&B-Pop singer JoJo who was in a long-running legal battle with her ex-record label, Blackground after they kept her in "music limbo" for over 10 years leaving her unable to release new music. (This was just after her song, "Too Little, Too Late" when #1 in 2006.) She won her case, however in the fight she lost her ownership of her entire first two albums! 

Luckily, she surprise re-recorded them both and released them at the end of the last year and now she's INDEPENDENT and doing very well!

Being an Independent Artist in the Music Industry is TOUGH.
But being signed to a record label is TOUGHER.

There is so much you have to do for yourself and manage. From big things like where you're touring, ticket prices, etc to smaller things like website design and social media management. 

However, being independent means you have TOTAL CONTROL and TOTAL CREATIVE FREEDOM to do what you want and how you want it. You also maximize your profits because you OWN EVERYTHING!

I made a video for my YouTube Channel discussing this further so be sure to check it out, but moral of the story - OWN YOUR MASTERS!

xo,
JONATHAN MILLER🌙
www.patreon.com/jonathanmiller