Customer Reviews

Ultimate Survival Guide for the New Music Industry: A Handbook for Hell

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

There are a lot of music biz books out there. The problem with my old favorites is the basics are there, but they are really outdated with the current changes in the music industry. Less than two weeks ago, I read this new release "The Ultimate Survival Guide to the New Music Industry: Handbook for Hell" written by Justin Goldberg. The writer has 15+ years under his belt and first hand experience with what new artists and other music biz wannabes face today. In my opinion, it is a crucial . .let me repeat crucial . . information guide that anyone genuinely interested in the music business should sit down and read. Unless you know the basics about copyrights and royalty distribution, you will be led around by your nose. This book covers TV, film, albums, copyright, record deals, lawyers, managers, indie labels and paints the big picture clearly. It also comes with a CD (not audio) that has numerous business forms that you need to be familiar with and a whole list of contacts for record companies, radio, managemnt, etc. It is the best music biz book I have read in a very long time. It is now the first book I recommend to anyone for this new age of music business that we find ourselves in. A Must Read for anyone who is seriously interested in pursuing a career in today's music field, where I myself have logged twenty+ years.

I am truly puzzled by the other reviews of this book. I'm wondering if maybe I bought a different edition or something, because the book I read had none of the things others are describing, and none of the things promised in the promo copy.

I bought this book based on the reviews. My goal was to learn how to release independent music (my own). For example, the promo copy for the book specifically says that readers will learn "how to effectively release independent albums". Yet on reading the book, the guide to releasing an independent album was nowhere to be found. Reading the book, the only things I found that even remotely resembled advice on how to release an independent album were anecdotal comments from a few industry executives along the lines of "it is different now than it was back in the day, now you just have to be ready to do whatever you need to do, and remember to follow up." Absolutely no help at all.

The book consists entirely of anecdotal interviews with various music industry executives. There are no step by step guides. There are no checklists, there are no plans. Just the author interviewing industry execs. These execs in turn ramble and reminisce about things that happened in the distant past, how they got their start, who they worked with, etc. No concrete information whatsoever.

The book NEVER mentions the CD-ROM that was included. The CD-ROM is not covered in the table of contents, nor is it addressed in the book itself. You would think that an author might write something like "the first thing you need is a contract (see the file named contract.doc in the FILES directory on the CD)". If you read this book, you will see nothing of the sort.

In short, this book DOES NOT do the following: specifically explain how to release an independent album, explain how to create revenue through licensing and other opportunities, explain how to get your music into major retail outlets, how to gain radio airplay, or how to setup songwriting copyrights and music publishing companies.

For example, in the section dealing with getting your music into major retail outlets, the author simply interviews an industry exec, and asks questions like "how do you get your music into retail outlets". The answer is typically "it is really difficult to do so, you just have to keep trying and keep sending promo copies and keep following up until you get a break". This is nonsense, and absolutely no help. Who should we call? Who should we send promo copies to? How about suggestions for cover letters? Preferred distribution formats? Minimum quantities? Pricing structures?

I specifically wanted information on how to setup a licensing company or other business structure for my music, and a guide for setting up an independent label to release the same music. I found none of this in this book, though judging from the book's description, this information is exactly what I should find. By "guide" I mean specific suggestions and advice, not interviews with random people telling me it is hard work and to just keep trying.

All in all, an extremely unsatisfying book. If there was a "no star" rating I would have chosen it. I should point out that I have co-authored two books myself (both available here on Amazon) so I know what it takes to deliver a "how-to" book. I gave this book more than a few chances to give me the information I was looking for, because returning it or selling it used is a hassle. In the end, after the book consistently failed to provide specific info, I returned it.

Disclaimer: I did not open the CD-ROM. I never do until I am certain that I will be keeping the book, because I want to preserve my option to return the book if needed. Some of the things promised for the book may or may not be on the CD-ROM.

This is not a "How-To" book, so much as a collection of interviews with diverse people in the industry. While the interviews were interesting and had some relevant information, and the author has obviously spent alot of time in the business, the CD-Rom was a complete disappointment. First, it's Windows only which it doesn't say anywhere that I could see. So I spent time trying to open it on my Mac, before realizing this. Second, once I did get it onto a windows machine, it didn't auto-launch. Once it did launch, there was a nicely done intro piece that lead to... a very unprofessional and hard-to-use user interface. To add insult to injury, the items I wanted most were apparently not available without some sort of membership; so I felt I was being given a "Hard-sell", on a product I had already purchased.

I tried to get to the "sample pages" and documents that sounded interesting and useful to me, but the CD kept looping me back to promote a particular band, and to "sign up for this website", which I did not want to do. It began to look like the whole reason the CD-Rom was created, was to get people to sign up - to what seems to be a very poorly structured, unprofessional website that I frankly couldn't find when I tried to, by URL! To give credit where it's due, the CD-Rom does seem to be somewhat useful as a reference tool for non-commercial radio stations and the like, but I didn't feel it was exclusive info not available elsewhere.

I have a band and my own indie label. The books I have found to be MOST helpful so far in getting off the ground are:

Label Launch: A Guide to Independent Record Recording, Promotion, and Distribution by Veronika Kalmar - covers all the basics. This is a great book to start with & get a feel for the whole process, especially the business paperwork & such.

Start and Run Your Own Record Label, Revised and Expanded Edition by Daylle Deanna Schwartz - this one is short and sweet, covering a little bit about alot of topics. It doesn't go in depth into anything, but the bits & pieces can be extremely useful!

and a book I downloaded in PDF format called, "How to Promote your Music on the Internet" (also available in bound edition)- I have just begun this book, and it seems to be a real treasure trove of information! With a bit of creativity, a positive outlook and some hard work, I believe I will get farther with this book than with any other I've found yet!

Hope this is helpful...

Finally an honest book about today's music industry! After buying and reading too many other books promising the "secrets" to success in the music industry, I decided to take a chance and read this one mainly due to the frankness of the title "handbook for hell" which many bands playing original music can testify is the appropriate title for finding success in music. The greatest strengths of this book are the directness and honesty with which Justin points out the unfortunate truths about the industry - while providing an outline for success - even if you aren't an "American Idol". It's also easy to read and entertaining while quite instructive. This book brought new life to my band and should be required reading for any original band.
A great side benefit is the accompanying disc for PC that is packed full of crucial contact info.
If you wanna be a sucessful musician playing original music - get this book!

Finished absorbing the book just last week and I've got to say it's some of the *best* money I've ever spent in this industry! Gave me great perspective and I particularly liked all the insider interviews! Nicely done!

What's so unbelievable? Well, two things. First it's unbelievable how anyone could describe this book as "All in all, an extremely unsatisfying book. If there was a "no star" rating I would have chosen it." The second thing that is unbelievable is how great of a read this book truly is. This is a down to earth, easy to read, easy to relate to guide to the music industry, which is EXACTLY what it claims to be! Goldberg's style is very conversational, tapping into the many years of experience that he and others in the music industry bring to the table to give those of us who aren't "insiders" a very real look into this hard to break into scene. There's nothing technical, boring, or elitist about this book, it really is the "ultimate" survival guide. And I had absolutely no problem understanding the MANY references made in the book to the attached cdrom and how to access that information. I guess some people just don't pay attention to what they're reading!

I really wanted to put together a band that was open minded to my ideas, and wanted to attack the music industry in a very "UNTRADITIONAL" way. I am a computer nerd from way back, and I could see that over the years to come... this could be my big chance to accomplish my dream if the cards were played right. So, I put out an ad on 2 musicians classified sections (via the internet) seeking the like minded band mates I had always dreamed of meeting. Well, I met them all within a couple weeks thanks to the ads. We spoke on the phone, and through emails. Joe (guitarist) tells me on the phone that he has a few songs he could send me in mp3 format over the internet that he recorded at home. I set up an ftp server, and had the songs that same night. I wrote the vocals on the fly for the most part while recording them, and sent them back within hours of getting the music from Joe. He freaked out, and loved the vocals. He then sent me 2 more songs. They were completely finished over the next 2 days. He heard them, and freaked out again lol. Well, after feeling such strong chemistry, we knew we needed to meet in person, and we had to find a drummer ASAP. I happened to know of one that I met online as well. And he is our drummer still today. Our other guitarist is Joe's best friend (for over 10 years), and our bassist we met online several months later after the album was already complete. In 3 months time, we had written a full album, recorded it's demo, built a website,.... And were playing gigs. We were headlining by our 3rd show. A couple months later we recorded the ACTUAL album on our home computer, filmed the entire process, edited down the footage, turned it into an enhanced CD, sent it off to be mass produced, and are currently getting it to radio stations, labels, managers, publications, etc... all thanks to the internet. Although we had done all of this before I had even read "THE ULTIMATE SURVIVAL GUIDE to the NEW MUSIC INDUSTRY", in reading this book.... I feel more confident that our band is doing the correct steps that will give us the edge in this rapidly evolving "NEW MUSIC INDUSTRY". And I've learned plenty of new tricks that had not even crossed my mind. The wisdom in these pages is invaluable.

If you want to see some of the ideas from this book at work, you may visit www.zenm.com/e-card . This is a web address of my band TELEMETRIC. It is an E-CARD sent to music industry contacts.

Use this book by Justin Goldberg to enrich your life. The price of the book will pay for itself 1000 fold!

I just received my copy of Justin Goldberg's book and have not been able to put it down. We are in the process of self releasing our CD and since things happen so quickly these days we wanted to get some advice that was written for today's music market, unlike some of the other music guides we have on our shelves.

This book has already proved itself to be an excellent resource guide--written by an insider for those of us on the outside. There are great tips on the proper way to promote your music (just in time for us to rework our packages!) as well as basic info about things like royalties, label hierarchy and the like.

Written in an easy to understand, conversational manner, the author's work is top notch. Also invaluable are the interviews with all sorts of folks in the biz. They give their 2 cents worth on a wide range of music business topics and share their pet peeves about the whole music industry.

This has been a great read, not only for practical reasons but entertaining and informative as well - Can't wait to delve into the stuff on the CD-ROM!

This book by Justin Goldberg is one of the best books on the independent music and the music industry out there. This book is head and shoulders above the competition. What makes this book so great is that is broken down into chapters of important aspects of the industry and most importantly each chapter contains numerous interviews from industry executives about their thoughts and experiences on the subject. Only aperson as well connected as Goldberg could have gathered and harnessed this much knowledge in one book. Just when you think this book can't get any better it has a CD Rom included with it. The CD ROM is a database of music contacts that is unparalleled. Any contact you need in the music industry is on that CD Rom. The CD ROM itself is worth $15.00. To me it was like buying the database and getting the book for free. If you can just afford to buy one book on this subject, this should be the one!

Why is it that the music industry is called the businessman's hell? Well read this book and you might find out, it contains the history of the independent record label and also lots of examples of people that made it big using minimal resources. It will teach you about the dangers evolved in fighting big companies and the "how to"'s of the business. A good book with easy structure and an accessible language that truly deserves to be called "the handbook for hell"