We've struck a chord (probably a made-up one knowing us)

Firstly, apologies for the lame title of this post, there are probably only 6 people that get the joke. Three of them are in the band with me and the other three have been in the band with me.

Thanks to a friend of a friend we've had a bit of coverage and some nice comments from people who don't even know us. Check Steve Clayton's Geek in Disguise blog. Thanks very much to Steve and the nice comments in response to his blog. This has generated some interest and we're now up to around 60 or so confirmed purchases (a few people still to pay in there so please get on to paypal or mail me for bank details, which is the preferred payment method).

I wanted to pick up on a point that someone made in response to Steve's blog post and was also made to me by a friend in the 'music industry'. Basically, there are a good handful of sites that offer very similar finance means. Slice the Pie is the one that was mentioned and the first one I was aware of a while back, but there are definitely others. As I understand it you sell yourself as a band and investors buy shares in you. I believe you have to get past a certain stage before you're actually considered for serious investment. The investment is also much more extensive than we are offering because it allows you return from (and presumably some say in, as a shareholder) the band's future.

I was initially very positive about this means of selling a band. I like the fact that there isn't a single person deciding who is most eligible for investment. I am sure it does have its flaws however. Presumably investment generates popularity in itself, so it almost becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Are people really going to trawl the site for bands with limited or no investment so far, or will they follow the 'smart money' so to speak? Anyway, a friend of mine's girlfriend secured significant finance for her album via this site with no label or media support, so it must be a good thing for some people.

The reasons I chose not to use a ready made site for this exercise are three-fold. Firstly, I am not entirely convinced how much effort it takes for a band to enter the site and put themselves on the market. Whilst this isn't (and shouldn't be) a criteria for it being a successful marketing tool, I like to think that if people see you putting in a bit of effort and ingenuity, then they are more likely to take you seriously and support you. I have thought this for the last 5 years I've been playing in FOTG, in terms of the gigs we play at, the ones we promote and the CDs we produce. If you put in some effort then people seem more prepared to invest some time listening to you.

The second reason is that we don't want immediate world domination so want to do things on a smaller, more personal 'DIY' scale. Yes, of course we want the album to sell well and, by proxy, our shareholders to do well from the investment. But we also want the people that invest in us and the people that buy our album to have a little sense that they were involved in something a bit special. Judging from the feedback we've received so far this seems to be the case. I mentioned to a friend the other day who asked how it was going that I was most surprised with the people that had bought more than one share. Hopefully this is because of the way we have pitched the idea and the fact that it has captured some imagination more so than if we had just used a conventional music investment site.

The third reason is that I once met an individual associated with one of these sites. I will give this person the benefit of the doubt, in that we were both relatively well oiled and I am sure, otherwise, he has a great personality. But we had quite a frustrating discussion about the music business and how it really wasn't anything to do with the quality of the music, it was down to one thing and that was marketability. Also, DIY record labels were dismissed as pointless. Whilst I am prepared to admit that there is a massive part of the music industry that is a cynical musical conveyor belt, I will not concede that "good music will out" and "if you want to do it right, do it yourself" are not good mantras to live by. Plus DIY record labels were the largest growth area of the industry this year. So yes, this little discussion rather soured what I thought, on the face of it, to be a good idea.

A quick note on the share certificates and MP3s. We are currently working on the certificates and would like to get these finished first so they can be sent with a link to the files in a nice email package. We should have them done in about a week or so but if you're really desperate to get your hands on the MP3s then please drop me a line and I will send them through.

Have a good week y'all and keep on doing it yourself (not like that though!).

Steve FOTG