Fan Funding?

I recently recieved an email from a struggling band due to the economy according to them and this led me on a search to help them find ways to still do what they love to do in these tough economic times. The number one thing a band can do is continue knocking on doors finding places to play live and the number two thing is get creative. There are numerous creative possiblities as to how you can still earn money as an indie, you just have to think outside of the box. The Guerilla Marketing Handbook by Bob Baker is a great source for creative marketing ideas for bands that you might want to check out to get those creative juices flowing. Anyway, on to today’s topic. Fan Funding. What is it? It is just as it sounds, a person’s fans funding them to do music. In the most specific case it is being done to help indie bands create new CDs. There are several services out right now that are doing this: SliceThePie.Com CashMusic.Org Bandstocks.Com are just a few of these services. They all have a similar idea but work differently. Some bands have recieved thousands of dollars for their projects by doing this and in some instances they only had to credit the donors in their CD booklets. IndieMusicLounge.Com in the future will be offering a service like this for musicians and even one for producers looking to get studio equipment. The model seems to be working so I figure why not give it a try and help out some more financially struggling indies. This form of cyber-begging as it has been coined it turns out has even been successfully used for other things like MyFreeImplants.Com. A site where guys go and donate money to help women from across the world purchase breast implants at no expense to the women. This cyber begging phenomenon is in its infancy but expect many other sites to start to cash in on this interesting business model as years go on. Checkout the fan funding sites and if you’re interested in them sign up and let me know how it goes.

~ by bmarcel on March 26, 2009.