This Business of Music Marketing and Promotion (This Business of Music: Marketing & Promotion) [Hardcover]

Tad Lathrop (Author)

Book Description

Series: This Business of Music: Marketing & Promotion | Publication Date: March 1, 1999

The maxim in the music industry has always been “You can’t make it on talent alone,” and with This Business of Music Marketing & Promotion, you don’t have to.

In language that is simple and direct, author Tad Lathrop details promotional skills, publicity plans, royalty guidelines, and more, all supported by real-life examples. He shows how the Web and other technological developments have revolutionized not only how music is made, but how it is marketed and promoted. The old rules still apply—create a marketing plan, know your copyrights, be familiar with the laws of commerce—but there are a host of new ones as well, along with new strategies on how to give your recording the exposure it deserves.

This streamlined, reorganized, and updated edition features an all-new chapter (“Twenty-Five Profile-Building Ideas to Use Right Now”), which will help readers get a running start in the recording business. They’ll also find completely updated material about Internet sales and promotion techniques, the latest information available on integrated marketing and e-marketing strategies, and brand-new listings of information resources.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Thorough, well-written, logically presented, useful, insightful ... the definitive career guide and teaching aid for anyone interested in building an effective presence in the music industry. -- Roy Gattinella, Vice-President, Marketing and Sales, EMI-Capitol Entertainment

About the Author

Tad Lathrop has written and edited music and marketing materials for a host of companies and publishers, including SonicNet and Launch. He lives in Oakland, CA.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Billboard Books; 2nd edition (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082307711X
• ISBN-13: 978-0823077113
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #445,141 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tad Lathrop's newest title, "Discover Jazz," coedited with Smithsonian Curator of American Music John Edward Hasse, takes an expansive look at this music. "Discover Jazz" explores not only jazz evolution but also its fascinating connections to other aspects of modern life: the arts, social trends and historic events, technological developments, and more. This panoramic view is achieved through the written contributions of distinguished scholars from across the musical and cultural spectrum, hundreds of photographs and images that bring the history to vivid life, a set of CDs compiling some of the very best jazz recordings of the past century, insightful listening guides to many of those recordings, plus supplemental multimedia materials online, including documentaries, filmed performances, streaming audio, and study guides.

Tad's book on the music business, "This Business of Music Marketing and Promotion," has been widely read and taught since its first publication in 1999. He expanded one of that book's chapters, on marketing and promoting music in foreign countries, to the full-length volume "This Business of Global Music Marketing," published in 2007. This was one of the first books to chronicle the complexities of digital music distribution worldwide.

For more information on Tad's projects, visit www.tadlathrop.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Adequate, but not intended for musicians, January 9, 2002

By 

"czinto" (Toronto) - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Business of Music Marketing and Promotion (This Business of Music: Marketing & Promotion) (Hardcover)

It seems that most reviewers are quite split on whether this is a "good" book or a "lousy" one. First off, reading the book I got a distinct impression that this book is not intended for musicians, it seems to be targeted more towards those in marketing who are familiar with marketing basics, but not about how they apply to the music industry.

There are much better books about the inner workings of the music industry (see books by Donald S. Passman and Moses Avalon.) There are much better books on marketing (see the "Guerrilla" series by Levinson and Godin). This book is adequate at introducing the music biz to marketing juniors, but not marketing to musicians.

One review wrote: "...dizzying amount of extremely useful information, all within an engrossing and enjoyable text" -- I find this review extremely suspect. I've read many books on both the music biz and marketing -- but this one is so mind-crushingly boring it's difficult to read and useful info is easily forgotten.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars YOU CAN BUY BETTER BOOKS THAN THIS ONE, March 28, 2001

By 

Fred Decker (Wauwatosa, Wisconsin United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Business of Music Marketing and Promotion (This Business of Music: Marketing & Promotion) (Hardcover)

This book is similar to KASHIF's book, EVERYTHING YOU'D BETTER KNOW ABOUT THE RECORD INDUSTRY. Both books are thorough and provide a good general overview, but Pettigrew and Lathrop are so dry and boring that they will put you to sleep, while Kashif is personable and tries to be interesting. (He doesn't always succeed). If you are in a band and you want specific, practical ideas that you can use, then Tim Sweeney may be a better choice for you.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First-rate Guide to Survival in the Music Business, December 3, 1999

By 

Stanley Booth (Brunswick, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: This Business of Music Marketing and Promotion (This Business of Music: Marketing & Promotion) (Hardcover)

This excellent book is worth many times the purchase price. The average would-be professional musician, songwriter, or recording entrepreneur will require several lifetimes to use all the information it contains. "You don't get what you deserve," the great jazz drummer Roy Haynes once said. "You get what you negotiate." Knowing what this book teaches, you are armed with the facts concerning every conceivable aspect of surviving in the labyrinthine -- and sometimes treacherous -- world of music. Lathrop and Pettigrew are both seasoned music-business professionals whose credits range from the World Wide Web to various colleges and universities, as well as advertising and marketing companies and publicity campaigns for such spectacularly successful acts as ZZ Top and the Allman Brothers Band. Among the topics they cover are song writing, recording, publishing, promotion, advertising, and many different approaches to marketing, including sheet music, radio, film, television, and live performance. They even tell you in detail how to set up and use a Web Site. An additional lagniappe is the book's section of interviews with such veterans as Bruce Iglauer of Alligator Records, a leading blues label. Highly recommended.