I was just wondering the other day about this, but I'd like to hear your opinions. It's been done b4 and is possible yeah, but I'm not really sure its gonna happen in the near future. I would guess you would have to take in to account the total NW region population, the percentage of rap fans and the percentage of potential ran fans as well as the demographics of age and race. I'm talking about Indie sales only by the way. I see other regions like the Bay Area, Houston area, Atlanta do it, but can we. It would take someone with major hustle and promotion.
Is it Possible to Sell 100K+ in the NW?
- Thread starter thephantomblue0
- Start date
The point that I'm trying to make to you is that Nelly sold over 100k in one city in the NW. The NW is made up of OR, WA, ID, N. CA, and MT. It is possible for a NW artist to sell 100k units in the NW. It would take the support of the radio stations, the artist and label out promoting the album, and having a strong promotion campaign.
It's about having the resources, and the right song to actually make it happen. It will not happen by someone just press up some CD's and putting them in the stores. It would take an initial investment, and a real promotion plan that is actually carried out.
It's sad that everyone thinks that these things aren't possible. It's a fact of having the resources behing the project, and the right project that appeals to the consumer. When someone has $100,000 to invest in a quality NW project, and has the radio behind it, then you will see some amazing numbers moved. To this point knowone has had all of the pieces in place. And this is a fact.
You won't do it without radio support in Portland, Seattle, Spokane, Tri-Cities, Yakima, Medford, Eugene, Klamath Falls, Boise, Redding, and more. This is what it will take.
It's about having the resources, and the right song to actually make it happen. It will not happen by someone just press up some CD's and putting them in the stores. It would take an initial investment, and a real promotion plan that is actually carried out.
It's sad that everyone thinks that these things aren't possible. It's a fact of having the resources behing the project, and the right project that appeals to the consumer. When someone has $100,000 to invest in a quality NW project, and has the radio behind it, then you will see some amazing numbers moved. To this point knowone has had all of the pieces in place. And this is a fact.
You won't do it without radio support in Portland, Seattle, Spokane, Tri-Cities, Yakima, Medford, Eugene, Klamath Falls, Boise, Redding, and more. This is what it will take.
@ Cool Nutz
I still don't believe even with 100+ invested, decent/good radio support, and strong promotions an artist from the NW could sell 100K in the NW.
What City/Town's in N. Cali do you consider apart of the NW? I'm asking because you are the 1st person I've ever herd refer to any parts of CALI being part of the Pacific NW....
I still don't believe even with 100+ invested, decent/good radio support, and strong promotions an artist from the NW could sell 100K in the NW.
What City/Town's in N. Cali do you consider apart of the NW? I'm asking because you are the 1st person I've ever herd refer to any parts of CALI being part of the Pacific NW....
No disrespect Nutz...you been in this game a long minute and not even YOU have sold that much on one album(or maybe you have and i stand corrected)...my point is that the NW dont give 2 flyin fucks about its own....everyone in Seattle only listens to what everyone else in the country listens to....Seattle is made up of "the masses"....and they wanna all be followers...if it aint on KUBE 100 times a day...or playinthe club on REPEAT...no one cares...at ALL....
And further more..if Keak,Quinn or The Federation catn sell 100k in the BAY....where they support their own music WAAAAAAAAAAAY more than the NW does theres...what would possibly make you think someone can do it up this way???
And further more..if Keak,Quinn or The Federation catn sell 100k in the BAY....where they support their own music WAAAAAAAAAAAY more than the NW does theres...what would possibly make you think someone can do it up this way???
Yes, this is very true. It is extremely sad, and makes me wonder about the dedication of these people, if they don't see our region as anything more than the Bad News Bears of rap.
This thread reminds me of the "Who can sell 25K?" thread I made a while back, the negativity of which made me leave this Siccness website for a year. I almost made a repeat thread just a month or so ago, but decided against it.
Now that the topic is back up, Let's see what I can get out before some so-called Big Dog jumps up and runs their mouth about my lack of experience, naivete, and so on. Nevermind that my ideas will sound common sense, will be fairly inexpensive, will be easy to put in place, etc. The thinking generally goes like this: "If I been in da game for __ years and I haven't thought of it first, then it must not be possible!!"
Anyhow, I'll give it a try.
First we must understand that 100k is an extremely lofty goal. This will not happen for a few years, minimum, and will not happen without a distribution scheme that touches *EVERY* mom and pop in the region. The alternative figure, I'm still convinced, is my 25K figure. With this figure, one could sell 5K in the Seattle area, 5k in Portland, a 2-3K each in Spokane-Pullman, Yakima-Ellensburg, Medford-Eugene, and so on, until arriving to 25K.
Whenever an experienced rapper hears this, the first thing they are thinking is, "This is not possible with Soundscan". And i would submit, yes, back in the day it was not very possible. In these days, it is. We must first create an infrastructure of Internet-Enabled Laptops with POS systems and Soundscan access. These will mainly be placed in Venues, and available in artists' cars. This must also be coupled with 1-2 central NW websites, a la RapBay.com. This is not very difficult.
I have spoken with and researched Nielson before, and the selling price does not matter. You can sell an album for $20 or $2, and it will still count as a Scan, as long as certain conditions are met.
This method, combined with sharing activities--you sell my album while you're on a tour in Spokane, and i'll sell yours while I'm in Portland--could help us go over the edge, without having to deal with all these idiotic, lottery-ticket-minded Distribution companies that will give Distro to nobodies with `big' name features, yet, ignore artists who have actually been putting in the work. Enough of them.
As far as the REAL distro companies.....It is one thing to tell a major distributor that you've sold 25K, and only have 1-2K soundscans to show for it. Its another to tell them you have sold 25K, and have 15K scans to show for it.
Getting into so-called `marketing'...I have never in my life been into that shit. That shit is nothing more than trying to out-spend the next man and demand respect, rather than letting your talent speak for itself while maintaining a respectable (but not competitive) level of exposure.
In place of marketing dollars (and more useless studio equipment), we ought to come together and make certain projects happen, like the NW TV Show/DVD idea. One way this could be helped is by, instead of buying your label's 6th different hard drive machine, or some $800 condenser mic you use once a month, or some other insane nonsense, pick up a 3CCD MiniDV video camera instead. This is the best quality value you are going to find, and they run around $500.
With these videocameras flooding the region, we could begin compiling Best of tapes and circulating them. Anyone familiar with professional wrestling (especially ECW), knows that this is EXACTLY how they became the force they became: Tape Trading. With the amount of people we have in school that are available to us, many of them are willing to work for free or extremely reduced prices as far as the mixing/editing goes.
Cliff notes:
1. 100k = Too high a goal. 25K = Very reasonable.
2. Soundscan = not very hard to sign up for.
3. Soundscan albums at venues and on websites.
4. Artists should help sell each others' albums.
5. Marketing dollars are a waste; NW Projects are not.
6. Instead of your 5th keyboard, buy a videocam.
I'm not even close to over, but the non-motivated, simple-minded, "WAT'S UR FAV NW ARTIST?" people have short attention spans. More later.
This thread reminds me of the "Who can sell 25K?" thread I made a while back, the negativity of which made me leave this Siccness website for a year. I almost made a repeat thread just a month or so ago, but decided against it.
Now that the topic is back up, Let's see what I can get out before some so-called Big Dog jumps up and runs their mouth about my lack of experience, naivete, and so on. Nevermind that my ideas will sound common sense, will be fairly inexpensive, will be easy to put in place, etc. The thinking generally goes like this: "If I been in da game for __ years and I haven't thought of it first, then it must not be possible!!"
Anyhow, I'll give it a try.
First we must understand that 100k is an extremely lofty goal. This will not happen for a few years, minimum, and will not happen without a distribution scheme that touches *EVERY* mom and pop in the region. The alternative figure, I'm still convinced, is my 25K figure. With this figure, one could sell 5K in the Seattle area, 5k in Portland, a 2-3K each in Spokane-Pullman, Yakima-Ellensburg, Medford-Eugene, and so on, until arriving to 25K.
Whenever an experienced rapper hears this, the first thing they are thinking is, "This is not possible with Soundscan". And i would submit, yes, back in the day it was not very possible. In these days, it is. We must first create an infrastructure of Internet-Enabled Laptops with POS systems and Soundscan access. These will mainly be placed in Venues, and available in artists' cars. This must also be coupled with 1-2 central NW websites, a la RapBay.com. This is not very difficult.
I have spoken with and researched Nielson before, and the selling price does not matter. You can sell an album for $20 or $2, and it will still count as a Scan, as long as certain conditions are met.
This method, combined with sharing activities--you sell my album while you're on a tour in Spokane, and i'll sell yours while I'm in Portland--could help us go over the edge, without having to deal with all these idiotic, lottery-ticket-minded Distribution companies that will give Distro to nobodies with `big' name features, yet, ignore artists who have actually been putting in the work. Enough of them.
As far as the REAL distro companies.....It is one thing to tell a major distributor that you've sold 25K, and only have 1-2K soundscans to show for it. Its another to tell them you have sold 25K, and have 15K scans to show for it.
Getting into so-called `marketing'...I have never in my life been into that shit. That shit is nothing more than trying to out-spend the next man and demand respect, rather than letting your talent speak for itself while maintaining a respectable (but not competitive) level of exposure.
In place of marketing dollars (and more useless studio equipment), we ought to come together and make certain projects happen, like the NW TV Show/DVD idea. One way this could be helped is by, instead of buying your label's 6th different hard drive machine, or some $800 condenser mic you use once a month, or some other insane nonsense, pick up a 3CCD MiniDV video camera instead. This is the best quality value you are going to find, and they run around $500.
With these videocameras flooding the region, we could begin compiling Best of tapes and circulating them. Anyone familiar with professional wrestling (especially ECW), knows that this is EXACTLY how they became the force they became: Tape Trading. With the amount of people we have in school that are available to us, many of them are willing to work for free or extremely reduced prices as far as the mixing/editing goes.
Cliff notes:
1. 100k = Too high a goal. 25K = Very reasonable.
2. Soundscan = not very hard to sign up for.
3. Soundscan albums at venues and on websites.
4. Artists should help sell each others' albums.
5. Marketing dollars are a waste; NW Projects are not.
6. Instead of your 5th keyboard, buy a videocam.
I'm not even close to over, but the non-motivated, simple-minded, "WAT'S UR FAV NW ARTIST?" people have short attention spans. More later.
So Ashland which is S. Oregon, and Yreka, CA which is only 35 miles from that city is considered what? Just because it's CA doesn't make it not the Pac. NW. What would you classify it? N. CA? We do shows in Medford and Ashland, and plenty of people come up from Redding & Yreka. That part of N. CA to me is still the Pac. NW.
So wouldn't this give me more reason to say that it isn't possible? I have sold 1000's of records without the help of the big machine. I have sold over 15000 units in Portland alone. And this is without major distribution, without placement in Walgreens, Best Buy, Circuit City, and more, without heavy rotation on NW radio, and without having $100,000 liquid to push the record with.
I have faith not only in what I can do, but what some other artists in the NW are capable of doing with ALL the right resources. If Nelly and other artists can push 100k plus in my market, what would make me think that I couldn't do it in the entire NW with the right tools in place. Especially knowing what I have done without those tools? It's easier to sell those records if people know that you are from the region, and they also know that you have some hot shit.
It's more then the music, it about the business , finance, and marketing plan for the album. It can be done. Maybe I won't see it, but it is possible people.
I have faith not only in what I can do, but what some other artists in the NW are capable of doing with ALL the right resources. If Nelly and other artists can push 100k plus in my market, what would make me think that I couldn't do it in the entire NW with the right tools in place. Especially knowing what I have done without those tools? It's easier to sell those records if people know that you are from the region, and they also know that you have some hot shit.
It's more then the music, it about the business , finance, and marketing plan for the album. It can be done. Maybe I won't see it, but it is possible people.
It is very possible, but i also forgot to add, I do not see it happening whatsoever with a solo artist. The only real chance will need to be a group or 3-5, and at least one or two of those need to be producers/engineers, and be able to bring the budget WAY down by trading their services to help build up the album.
Case in point: Syko, Nonstop and Cool Nutz as a group would shit all over everyone. But because of so-and-so being from this turf, and such-and-such other reason, it would probably never happen. The NW is about the only region in the states where your Rep and your Affiliations are more important than making money. (And if this is wrong, I apologize. But i've named group ideas like this before, and they get shot down every single time, regardless of who i list, whether they're from the same city, or WHATEVER else.)
Case in point: Syko, Nonstop and Cool Nutz as a group would shit all over everyone. But because of so-and-so being from this turf, and such-and-such other reason, it would probably never happen. The NW is about the only region in the states where your Rep and your Affiliations are more important than making money. (And if this is wrong, I apologize. But i've named group ideas like this before, and they get shot down every single time, regardless of who i list, whether they're from the same city, or WHATEVER else.)
Me, Syko, and Nonstop are all cool, and don't have any turf problems. As a matter of fact niggaz turfs run together. It doesn't matter about a group or solo act, it matters about a good song or bad song. Hot music and good promotion sells records. Take the Firm for instance. Nas, Foxy Brown, and AZ, with Dr. Dre producing. It didn't outsell Nas's solo albums, but you would consider that a super group. People just felt like the music wasn't good enough. Even though I liked the album, the consensus was that the album wasn't good. Whether it's me or someone else, there are groups or solo acts out here that have the potential to sell 100k records in the region. I have faith in what we are doing, and eventually there will be another Mix A Lot, who did sell 100k records in the market, if not Seattle alone.
It sounds good, yet all 3 of you are already talking about project A, B and C that you're going to be doing on your labels X, Y and Z. This is another problem: Nobody signs anybody any more. Everybody wants to sign themselves by having their own labels, which makes it even HARDER for these group projects to get off the ground, and for people to get behind a group.
What we really need right now is a group that can be all affiliated with the same label (or at least, unifying principle-moniker), that don't use "full time jobs" and "kids" and all this other bullshit excuses people use to smoke weed and play video games instead of doing shows and putting in work in the studio. Ideally, an Established veteran, a Rookie (college-aged), and someone (or others) inbetween. [IMO- Crytical, Young Vicious and Sarkastik would make an incredible group and could run with the fact that they are all half-breeds.]
The problem with solo artists is that they are almost always stuck in a vacuum. They hoarde material and do all kinds of janky shit. We need a group of artists that understands what it means to keep your name hot by always performing and releasing material. These days, people are doing the mixtapes, and expecting to get Distro and have a budget and big name features on the shit, and it is amazing. Just go in the damn studio and get the shit done and stop acting Hollywood. Same with your album. Unless Yukmouth is going to invite you to perform with him at every show he does in the NW (including outside of your city), then don't bother paying him or anyone else money. I can't see it.
Cliffs:
1. Too many labels in the NW. Almost impossible to have more than one Star under the same roof.
2. Artists make too many excuses.
3. We need a solid NW group that we can all get behind.
4. This group needs to stay releasing material and doing shows.
5. Stop paying rappers for verses when they could give a fuck about you.
What we really need right now is a group that can be all affiliated with the same label (or at least, unifying principle-moniker), that don't use "full time jobs" and "kids" and all this other bullshit excuses people use to smoke weed and play video games instead of doing shows and putting in work in the studio. Ideally, an Established veteran, a Rookie (college-aged), and someone (or others) inbetween. [IMO- Crytical, Young Vicious and Sarkastik would make an incredible group and could run with the fact that they are all half-breeds.]
The problem with solo artists is that they are almost always stuck in a vacuum. They hoarde material and do all kinds of janky shit. We need a group of artists that understands what it means to keep your name hot by always performing and releasing material. These days, people are doing the mixtapes, and expecting to get Distro and have a budget and big name features on the shit, and it is amazing. Just go in the damn studio and get the shit done and stop acting Hollywood. Same with your album. Unless Yukmouth is going to invite you to perform with him at every show he does in the NW (including outside of your city), then don't bother paying him or anyone else money. I can't see it.
Cliffs:
1. Too many labels in the NW. Almost impossible to have more than one Star under the same roof.
2. Artists make too many excuses.
3. We need a solid NW group that we can all get behind.
4. This group needs to stay releasing material and doing shows.
5. Stop paying rappers for verses when they could give a fuck about you.
It COULD happen, like I said earlier though, nobody has the team to do it right now. People don't network together enough nor do we really have a strong fan base for rap in the NW (so far). People should be thinking about selling 10-20K in one album, then worry about 100K. Figure out promo and what you need, cause right now there's only 1-2 people who are really doing anything worth giving recognition.