We posted last December about Corey Smith, a clever artist who is blazing a new trail through the music business using entirely new ways of thinking. Corey’s whole business model is based on giving away lots of music for free and building relationships with his fans. e does it primarily through touring and developing seriously close relationship with his fans. And it was this giving away of the music that was Corey Smith’s tour support. They didn’t have any label support, but grew their fan base. Because once people heard Corey’s music, they had to see him live. Which they did. In 2007, Corey Smith grossed $1.7 million. Last year Corey’s gross $4 million. Free music built the base.
Corey Smith made headlines when his independent music career slowly grew into a multi-million dollar business, selling out large venues normally reserved for those with chart topping hits. Corey toured diligently and worked hard to make honest connections with his audience. As his fan base grew, he stayed focused on building that connection and being intentional with his business decisions.
Corey Smith recently did a fantastic podcast with CDBaby where he details how he went about building up a fan base and building up support, with good music, developing relationships with his fans, touring his ass off and careful planning. Corey netted over $2 million last year. He notes, of course, that there are still expenses on top of that, including staff (manager, accountant, full-time salaried musicians who play with him, recording expenses and touring expenses -- especially in support of new markets, where the return isn't guaranteed). But, even with all that, bringing in over $2 million in topline revenue is really impressive for a musician without any additional outside backing.
Tech Dirt reports now:
One of the things that he discusses in the podcast is that what really got him started down this road was realizing that it could be done. He read Dave Kusek and Gerd Leonhard's excellent The Future of Music, and it made him realize "hey, this is possible." And that, alone, made a huge difference. It's amazing what you can do once you realize that something is possible -- and one of the great things we've seen in writing about Corey and numerous other musicians and their success stories is that they, in turn, inspire many other musicians who realize that it really is possible to do quite well despite the naysayers and the doom and gloom.
The podcast also has an interesting section where Corey discusses the various major labels who have approached him, and how it's even tempting at times to go that route, since it could lead to more people hearing his music (especially by getting radio play, of which he doesn't get very much). But, so far, he's realized that it just isn't right -- and that everything that's made this model work for him probably would work against him at a major label (for example, they would try to polish up his sound and clean up his lyrics, which would actually make his music sound less authentic to his biggest fans who have supported him all along). They have been trying to build a business model for the long term, rather than the typical music industry "flash in the pan" model, whereby a label tries to make a musician huge and then squeeze as much money out of them, as quickly as possible, before that artist dries up. Instead, Corey has shown what's possible by focusing on what makes the most sense for building a long term, sustainable, and quite successful music career.
Check out Corey's Website here.
CDBaby Podcast here.
More from Tech Dirt here.
Watch Corey at UGA last year talking to a music business class.
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