ACman said:
Kwil said:
He actually made a million dollars in 27 years and one week. And in that 27 years he's been performing stand up
So the fact that he can do without publishers isn't significant? Surely that's gotta make them nervous. What if every name they have suddenly decides to go down this route? Doesn't that significantly reduce the publisher talent pool/revenue?
No one ever said publishers/agents are the only way to go, just that you either don't give them enough credit or think marketing/legal issues is a lot easier and less time and money consuming than it is.
Not everyone would go down the self-producing road because they realise how hard it is. If you want to get to the same place as Louis CK you have to work your ass off. As in we're talking drop everything and devote your life to this; You make no income as everything you earn goes towards promoting yourself. You have no time as you're constantly working to find gigs and preform them, you're constantly trying to make connections. You're constantly trying to find a way to live as you have no income. All the other time you have is going into refining your act, eating and sleeping (well maybe things are different in the stand up biz, but if we were to take this situation and put it instead into music production, this is true). Until you get big, you're stuck in this cycle with constant stress and worry.
ACman said:
Isn't the fact that you can go directly to the public bypassing the publishers significant? What if start selling one album or single to publishers and then go online with the rest of their music?
Isn't the fact that the lowered barriers
Quite often getting published is simply winning the lottery. The lowered bar of entry means that you can get yourself an audience through other means simply by releasing stuff on the when until someone, (anyone now it doesn't have to be a publisher) takes notice.
If you allow a recording company to produce your album than you're almost definitely in a contract. Record labels aren't stupid, they realise that bands might use them for one album and then drop them and they contract to combat this.
Sorry, but getting published is literally nothing like winning the lottery. For one the lottery is all chance and for two people who write great books/music will almost always get a publishing deal (assuming their great works gather them a fanbase). I agree with you that the lower bar is great but in a way it's a double edged sword. An easier way in leads to more crap, although more awesome as well in smaller doses: but that's me getting off-topic.
ACman said:
I'm not saying that there isn't a place for marketing but the old publisher model for music and books is done.
The old publisher model has it's merits but now days is completely done, which is why it's already been adapted to deal with the internet/today's market and has been for a long time. Also I'm completely guessing as to what the old publisher model is.
ACman said:
All you need to put music into the world is a room with decent accoutics and a computer, a youtube and a MySpace account. All you need to publish a novel is computer and an Amazon digital publishing account. Suddenly the actual service a "publishing company" is offering you isn't publish at all; it's marketing (A different business model).
And microphones. But that's if you want to get a crappy demo out that no one cares about. If you want to get a decent quality song you either need do pay someone to record and master you (roughly $1200 a song depending on where you go and what quality you're getting) or get your own stuff: A professionally built room that takes into account the correct acoustics (I swear there's either a word for it or a way to shorten it but I just can't think of it...), a solid mixer, about 10 different mics and decent music mixing and mastering programmes (A very rough estimate is $10,000, but to be honest I don't really know at all). A publisher will not only give you use of their studio/s but actually pay you to use it in a sense.
Now lets say I've written a book, there is really only one way I can go with this. Get like 10 copies using my own know how and money, seeking out somewhere that could print it, or get an agent which will find me a publisher which has the capacity to mass produce my book so I can actually get it into a decent book store where people will see it. I suppose I could always go to the internet but I don't know anyone who has paid for a book online that they haven't intended to download to their kindle or ipad. There is only a very small market of people that would prefer to read their screen than a tangible book. Point is book publishers are DAMN important. Well at least I'm pretty sure, I haven't done any first hand research into it so I could very well be wrong.
My last point is kind of an analogy. Lets take the Extra Credits shall we? Extra Credits started out on youtube, talking about games in depth and gaming as a culture. Literally nothing has changed. They started off small, growing a small but generally committed fanbase that would watch each video. They soon became popular enough to gain the attention of the escapist, -publisher-, where they would produce videos and in turn the escapist would pay them and give them more of an audience. From there they exploded and gained many more fans. And then a whole lot of crap happened that we like to repress (well I do anyway). That's one of the great benefits of a publisher, ONE. This isn't a perfect analogy, but I'm pretty happy with it.
Publishers do sometimes screw their clients though which is terribly terrible.
Also sorry for the butt-load of text, I tend to get carried away.