Band/Fan Synergy Sites - Sell a Band (Will Your Fans Give You $50,000?)

Continuing my search for band/fan synergy sites, I discovered one that is bizarre enough that it might actually work. It's called Sell-a-Band.

The general idea is that you're a band playing enough gigs to have built up quite a following at the clubs. You want to record your first CD and don't want it to be a half-assed effort coming out of your parents' basement. That means you'll have to pony up about US$50,000 to get a professional studio job done.

Seem impossible? Well, what if your fans each kick in $10? All you'd need is 5000 of them.

If you think there's a chance of that, http://www.sellaband.com has worked out all the details for you. Here's how it works...

You register your band with the site and get your fans to send in their $10. You can put up some demo tracks, so that visitors to Sellaband might take an interest and kick in $10, even if they haven't seen you live. Your job will be to promote the programme to your fans until you reach the $50,000 target.

If your fans don't think you have a hope in hell of making that target after a certain amount of time, they can ask for and get their $10 back and invest it in another band if they feel inclined to do so. It's only when the target is reached that "believer" money is locked in.

Then you're off to the studio for some professional recording. When you're done, the 5000 fans get a free copy of the CD and Sellaband gives your material away as free downloads from their site.

This is where you say, "What??? Are you crazy??????? Give it all away????"

But there's a method to their madness. First, your fans deserve a copy of the CD for the $10 they contributed, and that makes their donation feel more like an advance purchase for them.

The free downloads should win you more fans; and you earn a share of the advertising revenue that comes from those showing up to download your tunes and also click on some ads. Your fans/donors get a piece of those ad revenues too, so it's really like an investment for them and a motivation to drive more traffic to your page on the Sellaband site. They may well earn their $10 back and then some.

And, obviously, you can still sell copies of your professionally mastered (physical) CD with the artwork and liner notes at your gigs and through whatever distributors you can line up.

As I mentioned, it's a bizarre concept, but it just might work for some artists, before the big labels come knocking.