Tony van Veen

We caught up with the CEO of Disc Makers, BookBaby and Merchly, Mr. Tony van Veen during some of his away time form work.

How long have you been in the business of music?

I’ve been gainfully employed in the music business for 33 years as of August 10, 2020 (but who’s counting?).

What made you decide to get in the business?

When I was in college I played drums in several punk rock bands. The whole punk rock scene in the mid 80’s was at the vanguard of the huge DIY music scene we know today… We did everything ourselves – write songs, book gigs and tours, promote concerts, build mailing lists (old school snail mail!), record, press records, you name it. I loved the energy, the entrepreneurial spirit, and the fact that if you had an idea, you could just try it. Punk rock kept me sane and helped me graduate business school. It also inspired me to pursue a career in music. Ideally, my music career would have been as a songwriter and performer. But… I figured that it would be hard to make a living as a punk rock drummer, and so I ended up taking a job at Disc Makers instead. Disc Makers at the time was a small regional vinyl pressing plant located in Philadelphia, and I did whatever needed to be done – answer phones, take care of client projects, sales, marketing… Perhaps what’s most amazing is that today, 33 years later, it is the only employer I’ve ever had.

Describe some of the things your business does?

We help artists get their content out to market and monetize it. What does that mean in real life? We focus mostly on helping artists get physical media produced: we manufacture CDs, vinyl records, USBs, posters, T-shirts. However, we also get artists onto streaming platforms through our partnership with CD Baby.

How does your business help indie and major artists?

Streaming has been great for music fans, but it’s been difficult for artists to make money from their music through streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and YouTube. 1,000 streams on Spotify pay just $4. 1,000 YouTube views pay $1!!! Think about that. You need to get 250 people to watch one of your songs four times each, and all you’ll make is a buck!!! As an add on to streaming, the physical media we produce provides a more viable revenue stream for artists. We give our artists the tools to make more money from their music by selling CDs, vinyl, and T-shirts at their concerts and online (including at the Bandcamp site). Besides manufacturing services we offer.

award-winning graphic design to make it easy to get a great-looking cover design, and our mastering studio (The SoundLab) makes our clients’ music sound amazing.

What kind of mistakes have you seen artists make?

As you can probably imagine, I have seen so many over the years. But probably the most common mistake is that artists spend thousands of dollars on recording their album, designing artwork, mastering, and manufacturing the product, and then they just release it without giving much thought to promotion, and (tragically) without having a promo budget! Conventional wisdom is that you should spend as much on promotion as you spend on recording and producing your album. If you spend, say, $5,000 on recording, $1,000 on design and mastering, and another $1,000 to manufacture your CDs, you should also be prepared to spend close to $7,000 on promotion. Most artists don’t think about this until it’s too late, haven’t budgeted for it, and will end up with disappointing sales and streams for their new album as a result.

What are some of the dos and don’ts for artists when it comes to their career?

Remember, there is no blueprint for success, no silver bullet. But here are the main things I advise artists when I’m asked how they should maximize their career opportunities: • Learn to write great songs. Every songwriter is in love with their songs, but are they truly good enough to break through and capture the listener’s attention – Bob Marley good, Michael Jackson good, Bruce Springsteen good? A great song doesn’t guarantee success, but a mediocre song guarantees failure.

• Give great performances. If you’re the opening act you’ll be playing in front of lots of fans who don’t know you. Make sure your performance is so passionate, personal, and/or entertaining that you turn them into believers.

• Focus on marketing. Be prepared to pay. Make sure you budget funds to pay for social and display marketing. Engage with fans on social media. Constantly be posting. Build that email list – that’s where your buyers will come from.

• Constantly be releasing product. The flood of new releases in today’s streaming world makes it easy for fans forget about you, unless you put out new music every few months.

• Remember that success takes time. Many artists early on in their careers want overnight success when instead sustainable fanbases take years to build. Your progress may seem slow, but if you keep focusing on slowly adding fans over a period of years, one day you’ll realize you have a fanbase that can sustain a music career!

How important is it to have merchandise when it comes to performances?

Critical! Today’s artist makes most of their money from live performances. Having merch for sale – shirts, hats, CDs, vinyl, stickers, hoodies, USBs, whatever – adds very valuable revenue to every concert you play. For every CD you sell at a concert you’d need 3,000 streams to make the same profit. Which do you think is easier?

What is the difference between a musician and an artist?

Nothing, or everything. Artists are musicians, but many musicians don’t think of themselves as artists. As an artist you want to develop your career and your brand, and you’ll take charge to do it.

Over the years what changes have you seen take place, good or bad?

Wow… over a span of 30+ years? I have personally witnessed technology and product changes from vinyl to cassette to CD to downloads to streaming… I’ve seen distribution going from being almost inaccessible to indie artists (in the old days of physical media, distributors, and one stops) to it being ubiquitous and almost free (with digital distributors like CD Baby and DistroKid). I’ve seen it go from artists be able to pay bills from selling product to a limited regional market when everything was physical, to artists being able to instantly reach a global audience of hundreds of millions of listeners, but not be able to pay bills because the payments are a fraction of a penny per stream. So many changes… many are positive, some are negative.

What can you tell an artist who is just starting out in the music industry?

The music industry is a tough business. It’s hard to make money from recorded music. There’s lots of competition for fans’ attention from other artists. You will run into hustlers and con artists trying to take you for a ride or ride on your coattails. Most of all, it’s difficult to break through. But it’s not all negative. Let your passion feed you. Focus on being the best songwriter you can be. And most importantly, don’t give up. I have seen many an artist with a positive career trajectory, where they were adding fans and selling/streaming more with every release, but they gave up because the progress wasn’t fast enough for their liking. And they may have given up right before their big breakthrough! You’ll have to invest in your career – both time, and money. And it’ll take more of each than you think. But if you keep going and don’t give up, you have a real shot at success.

How do you feel about this pandemic when it comes to music – do you feel it is hurting us or making us stronger?

This is such a crazy time. The fact that there are no concerts going on right now is a huge punch in the throat to performing artists. It severely limits their ability to drive income from their music, and it also slows down building a fanbase. So yes, artists are getting hurt. The real question is “what are artists doing during the pandemic to help their careers progress?” Sure, you can’t gig right now. But there IS a lot you CAN do. Compose, record, release product digitally, build out your social following and engage with them, update your website, collaborate with other artists… If you just give up and stop working on music during the pandemic you will be worse off at the end of the pandemic than at the start, because the fans you had at the start of the pandemic will have forgotten about you.

Do you feel it’s crippling the music industry and the way we do business in the future?

I don’t feel it’s crippling the music industry, but right now it’s certainly severely impacting it. Live Nation recently reported that their quarterly revenues were down a whopping 98% compared to the same quarter last year! I’m concerned that many independent venues won’t be able to survive the pandemic and will have to close for good, with a huge ripple effect to the artist community. These are scary times. That said, there is a silver lining. There has always been a music industry, and there always will be one. If you think this is bad, the music industry has survived a 75% decrease in income in the decade after Napster was launched – much of it because of piracy. If it was able to survive that, it will survive COVID-19. Piracy is way down thanks to streaming. Fans are easier to reach than ever before. Musicians are resilient. The industry will recover. Guaranteed.

Website For CDs, vinyl, and USBs, www.discmakers.com For T-shirts, hats, hoodies, and other merch, www.merchly.com

Any final advice to artists?

Don’t give up. Keep working on your craft, keep building your fanbase. Success might be right around the corner.