Must Follow Guide: How To Start A Label With No Money

There are websites that offer you the ability to create your own record label without any startup costs or investments. These sites operate by taking a percentage off of any money that you earn from going through them to sell your artists’ music.

You do have the option to pay them money in order to keep whatever profits that you make. These websites allow you to sell music and other items digitally, allowing you to save money on paying a lease on a place to keep your office. This will help you establish yourself in the industry while also building up capital to purchase your spot.

Before you do anything else, you need to make a plan as you would for any business. You will want to focus on a particular genre, one that you are especially passionate about. This will also depend on how successful you want to be. Pop music is going to be the big money maker, so if earning the most income is your goal than this is the way to go. If you want to focus on alt-rock, this will require a different approach and outcome. If you are going the free route with your label to start with, from here you can move onto going to local shows to acquire talent for your label. Otherwise, you will need to create a business plan in order to get a loan to start your label.

There are things that you can do in order to minimize your costs, no matter which method you choose when starting your label. You can stick to just releasing digital music, not requiring you to make hard copies to sell.

You can do your own press releases, a task that is much easier if you have a talent for marketing. There is also the option of choosing web designers and graphic designers that are just starting out, who will work for free or minimal money just to get their work out there.

Another thing to consider is making a 50/50 split with your artists where they bring you a finished album that has already been recorded and mastered and you do an even split of profits. This means you will not have to spend anything to record the music.

With enough hard work, you can turn your free label into something much more profitable in the long run. If you are serious about making a substantial living from your label, you will need to invest in the business with real money to help it thrive. But you can definitely start off small for free to test the waters.