This episode about music release was previously published on the Profitable Musician Show.

We’re here today with Darryl Hurs who works with CD Baby and Indie Week and a ton of other places. He also consults with a lot of other companies.

He started way back as a guitarist in a band. He went through all the progressions of being the one in the band booking promotions and eventually it led to him managing artists. He started Indie Week out of frustration about emerging artists needing to be discovered.

He’s been with CD Baby for many years, doing market development. He’s done everything from management, promotion, booking, and even graphic design and web design. He also worked with Live Nation for eight years, rebranded it and did the first version of VIPNation.com for them.

Indie Week was originally a hobby where it was meant to be a place for indie bands to play. International artists started coming and he started managing artists in Ireland. Darryl did Indie Week in Ireland, then UK then Brexit. Then they focused on Canada. It’s grown to be a full-time thing and they now do mentorships, online community building, and a podcast. They also do a free session talking industry called Indie Weekly.

When they were doing Indie101 conference in person, they’d take over a hotel and there will be many events happening in different rooms at the same time. This cannot be done online. Last February, they had a ScreenxScreen conference about music and tech. In May, they focus on AI, VR, blockchain and metaverse.

Darryl says that doing the conferences online as of now is expected to augment the connections made with artists before they go to a country to attend international conferences and festivals.

If you’d like to get involved with Indie101, you can go to IndieWeek.com.

With CD Baby, in general, tech keeps moving and changing. CD Baby Pro it allows an artist to be confident that the royalties are being collected and as new things open up, it’s going to also be collected and distributed. There is less work for the artist. Let them focus on creating the music and we collect the money and a big bonus. They got a lot of positive feedback through COVID because if money comes in, it’s paid the very next week. There are no waiting six months. That’s been helpful for a lot of artists, knowing that if anything comes in, they’re getting a check right away and that’s been big during COVID.

If an artist signs up, they are not giving away their publishing. CD Baby is collecting it. Their song is their song 100%. They can do whatever they want with it. W. There is no exclusivity on trying to sync or get a place in TV or film.

Darryl has this particular advise for artists, “I believe this is the best time to be a creator. I wish I had the tools when I was playing in bands. When I played in bands, we had to rent a studio and it was up to $100 plus an hour and then you’d have to master the songs, which was up to about $1,000 per track. A ten-song CD was immediately $10,000 in mastering. You had to get artwork. You had to get printed and copies. We were $25,000, $35,000 in the hole when we got that CD in our hand. Radio stations wouldn’t play Indie. A lot of the record stores wouldn’t carry Indie. You had to go out and flog it playing shows. That was the only way.

Now having access to getting onto a playlist and getting streaming means you have an international audience being able to produce yourself and release as a DIY artist. It is the best time. There are so many more places to collect royalties from as well. Be excited to be a creator and an artist. Get your music out there and make sure you’re promoting it properly.”

Find them on IndieWeek.com or Instagram @IndieWeek.

Links mentioned in this episode: