'Plugging' and Sharing Your Favorites

One of the stand-out features of PLUGOLA is that artists can allow their fans to re-sell their music for a commission of the artists' choice. We call this, "Plugging". The concept behind this is to encourage fans to continue sharing the music they love by offering financial incentives, while in a controlled environment for the artist.

If you discover a great, new artist and you want to share a few of their tunes with your buddies; instead of just handing over their MP3s, why not ask those buddies to pitch-in and support the artist? Plus, you are to earn a commission, set by the artist, for every download you generate. If you buddies like those tunes, too, then they can turn around and share them the same way.


After you have downloaded your favorite track(s), you must login to your "Account". This is a double-login for security purposes. Not all artists allow their music to be plugged, but if they do you will see the "Plug" button in your downloads manager. By clicking on the "Plug" button, this will automatically send a "plug request" to the artist. In it's place it will say "Approval Pending". Once the artist approves this request, you will receive an approval message and it will automatically appear in your media player manager. If you decide you no longer want to plug a particular track, you can either click on 'disable' in your media player manager, or of course, you can always delete the track from your account completely. Just be sure to save the track to your computer before you delete it from your Account.

As an artist on PLUGOLA, you have the option to allow your music to be 'plugged' by your fans. If you decide to allow your fans as affiliates, all you must do is login to your 'Account' and select "Yes" next to each or any track you want to make available for plugging. Anytime one of your fans downloads those songs set to "yes", there will be an automatic option for them to choose or not. If a fan decides to plug any of your tracks, you will receive a request message to 'Approve' or 'Disapprove'. To a fan, a disapproval will result in their account saying the track(s) are "Not Available" for plugging.

By default, all affiliate commissions are set at %5 of artist earnings, per track. However, artists are free to change this percentage to whatever they would like at any time they want.

We believe this is a great interactive way for artists and fans to build relationships and work together with a common goal in mind, while everyone benefits.

Music Videos for the Indie Artist

These days it's becoming more and more important for independent artists to have their own music video(s). It wasn't until recent years that having a produced video to promote your music did indie artists much good, besides maybe for the late Sunday night cable access viewers; much less affordable without some sort of record label money behind you. As I'm sure you already know, all that has changed. Technology has allowed us to cheaply and easily(somewhat) shoot, produce and distribute your music videos to thousands of potential fans.

Over at KnowTheMusicBiz.com, Caroline Bottomley posted a good article on some good ways to get started putting together your own music video. Read her article HERE.

Offline Music Marketing (our coupon system)

When we began to develop PLUGO.LA, and after a number of live shows, we noticed the lack of offline promotional tools available for artists to promote their digital music. When bands/musicians would play live CD samplers were passed-out to the crowd, or they would repeat their MySpace/homepage URL over the mic, and most only provided the option to buy one of their full-length CDs. This was not an effective way for them to market their music, especially when they're usually playing to a drunken crowd that probably will not remember who they were the next morning. Not to mention that fact that CDs are a quickly dying technology. That's when we came up with our coupon system.

As a member of PLUGOLA and as an artist, you no longer have to distribute CDs at live events, or continually announce your MySpace/homepage URL to your drunken audience. Once your music is uploaded to your PLUGOLA media player widget, you may select any track(s) to be available for a free download to your fans. Once selected, you are given an option to print coupons and cheaply and easily distribute these coupons to fans.



Each PLUGOLA artist is given their own randomly generated code that is automatically added to the coupon. With this code, your fans can come to your profile and download your pre-selected tracks for free. Not only will this help potential fans remember who you are and where to find you (coupon also contains your direct URL), but this will lessen the commitment to invest in a full CD and also give them an incentive to purchase more of your music/mp3s. The only cost to you is the paper to print your coupons on and some time to distribute them to your fans.

Your coupon code may also be used to distribute elsewhere, such as; magazine ads, fliers, swag or anything else. Feel free to be creative!

How Much To Charge for Your Music

If you have already a member of PLUGOLA and uploaded your music or videos, you have noticed that we have allowed musicians to set their own prices for their music. We feel this feature will give musicians the option to market their music the way they see fit. We're not going to tell you how much you should be charging for your work; however, there are several factors you should figure in before settling on a price per download.

Most people are comfortable with, and accustomed to, the $.99 per track price. iTunes set the stage for this pricing, but there is nothing written in stone stating you must charge this price for your music. If you're cool with that price, that's fine; but you now have the freedom to charge more or less, according to what you and your fans' needs and demands may be.

Some things you should take into account (in no particular order):

• Are you distributing a high-quality recording? (we suggest at least 256kb bit rate)
• Does your work posses good production values? (pro or amateur)
• Is there currently a demand for your music?
• How much are your peers charging?
• What do your fans expect?
  
• Does it satisfy your own commitment and investment?
  

Also, please consider our cost structure when setting your own prices (You must charge a minimum of $.40 (forty cents) per track/video). %18 of sale is charged by Admin in order to cover our transaction fees and operating costs.

We are currently working on solutions to bring these annoying fees down, for it will benefit all of us. One of our goals as a community and a company is to keep costs our down in order to keep prices down for our members. But for now, please consider these circumstances and costs when setting your own prices. It may seem like your dealing with only pennies, but volume is the key.