When I first heard of SellaBand, I thought it was an interesting service, helping bands raise money for projects. But the more I read about it the more I sense that SellaBand is likely to fail. Although some fans will be interested in buying shares in my band’s potential prosperity, the majority of my fans won’t. They don’t want to be bothered with the music industry’s financial issues or counting pennies from the royalties of the record label’s YouTube deal. Music is primarily a diversion or an escape for fans, as it is for me. Fans don’t really care about making money from a band, they just want the experience of great music, so It’s not a surprise that SellaBand’s poor execution has lead to bankruptcy. If you’re just looking for funding for creative projects, there are better alternatives to SellaBand for raising money. Here are three viable alternatives:
You probably heard of PayPal, the popular payment platform owned by eBay and used by millions worldwide to send and receive money. They have a convient tool in the form of a simple button that will allow you to accept donations on your Web site. PayPal’s donate button can be implemented on any site that accepts custom html. Therefore, you can use it on your Web site and sites such as MySpace, Tumblr, Wordpress, etc. Optionally you can hire a designer to build a donation meter that will show how much money has been donated and how much is needed for a project.
Kickstarter is another funding platform for musicians and other artist with an “all or nothing” approach to projects, meaning you set a target amount needed to fund a creative project (let’s say the cost of recording an album), and if you’re unable to raise the required funds then no money changes hand. If you do reach the target then all is well and Kickstarter collects its 5 percent fee from the project creator. I think this is an efficient way to test the viability of creative projects. Kickstarter is only a funding platform, not an investment service or loan. The artist keeps all rights and profits.
Although not specifically built for fundraising in the traditional sense, it can be use for just that. With BandCamp you can quickly set up a site for your demo music with no startup cost. And if you already have a site, BandCamp can be intergrated into your site with a design feature called iframe. BandCamp has a platform that allows fans to name their price for music downloads. You have the option of offering free and paid versions of your music, the paid version being at a higher bid rate, of course. Use the “name your price” feature to encourage fans to donate to your funding needs. People can donate as much as they want to the project with the name your price feature: It could be $10, $50, $100 or more.
Final Thoughts
Funding is only half the battle (really just a quarter); the other parts involve having an ingenious creative project and an engaged audience. At the very least, you should have a demo to showcase your talent and a large enough audience to support it. Your work must be good enough to motivate your audience to patronize you. This can be accomplished by offering them great music and performances even if it’s raw on YouTube and not professionally produced. If you can get people excited about your work leaving them wanting more than these tools discussed can help get funding for your project.
