Indie Music Project Interview: The Future of Ezines
Jason Evangelho over at the Indie Music Project is tirelessly working on some big initiatives for the indie music industry, so I asked him to give us some insight into his plans for iMP in 2008. It's a lengthy post, but well worth the read. Many thanks to Jason for taking the time to provide his detailed responses!
First, a little background info on iMP:
1) How and why did iMP get started?
The Indie Music Project actually started as a living breathing experiment, inside the Homefront Cafe in Maysville, KY. The original intent was to simply record local musicians in a relaxed environment and then release their set to fans via the Internet in an effort to give these artists exposure that, typically, they didn’t realize was possible. For some of them the Internet wasn’t even an option. Surprisingly, this concept started to build some local buzz.
2) How has iMP evolved?
The Indie Music Project eventually became the written arm of Insomnia Radio, a portal to all of our audio content, and a central submission site for artists. Through mid 2007 we experimented with various content like reviews, music news, and some humorous rants. It gained a lot of momentum, but it just wasn’t unique enough.
In June 2007 something clicked, one of those “A-Ha!” moments, and I realized that if could adopt the same model for iMP that we have with the Insomnia Radio regional podcasts, but through the written word, some powerful opportunities could spring up. So we spent the latter half of 2007 building the framework for a network of locally owned online music magazines, that would be internationally connected through our brands.
3) Generally speaking, how does iMP make money?
Haha, well this might require a long answer! Everyone dabbling in online media is hyper-focused on just making money through advertising. Where we try to excel is making money through opportunities and media partners. For example Insomnia Radio was hired by San Diego’s Convention and Visitor’s Bureau to produce a compilation of indie artists in their backyard, which they then included as part of their national tourism campaign. (It led to several artist success stories which rocks!) More recently we partnered with a cool company called Myxer (they offer bands a free solution for sharing or selling ringtones and other content) to help increase their artist base. None of which requires “blatant” advertising. It’s more peripheral and more creative. And we’re going to offer these same types of opportunities to our Associate Publishers.
With that said though, LOCAL advertisement is an integral part of any locally focused publication. And any local advertising dollars that Associate Publishers bring in is 100% theirs to keep.
4) How many people work at iMP?
Right now we have 8 Associate Publishers and 2 more coming on board before the end of the year. Collectively they’ll be covering Los Angeles, Auckland, Detroit, Lansing, Toronto, Tulsa, Birmingham, Anchorage, and San Francisco. Our goal for 2008, however, is hundreds more.
5) What challenges does your company face?
The single biggest obstacle for me is crystallizing to the public exactly what we’re trying to accomplish. Getting the message right. Finding committed music journalists around the world to make this happen. As you can tell it goes way beyond just writing a few articles and promoting your favorite local bands. On the flip side, the beauty of all this is that if an Associate Publisher chooses to JUST do that, it’s fine! If they want to actually build a business out of it, all of the ingredients are in place.
As a company we have to convince all the bloggers, journalists, music lovers, and independent artists out there of the value in what we’re building. Because as it grows bigger, so do all of the possibilities.
A secondary challenge is answering the question of “Why does this cost $$$?” Yes, it does cost an Associate Publisher $100 per year. I wanted to sneak that in this interview somewhere because I don’t want anyone to get blindsided. But in return, AP’s get a monthly newsletter with tips and advice on how to keep building the business side of their magazine, technical support, hosting, bandwidth, etc. 100% of any advertising they bring in. And the exclusive right to the city they’re covering. This means we’re not going to let anyone impede on their turf. It means they’re the first point of contact for anything happening in their backyard.
6) What is the goal of iMP and how can iMP help bands and musicians?
I’d say that we have two distinct goals:
1: To give bands and musicians who often aren’t known outside their local scene a platform on the world stage.
2: To give talented bloggers, publishers, and music fans the opportunity to run and monetize their very own local music magazine.
Let me point to an example of how this can be powerful for artists. And I’m gonna be bold and say that this kind of situation is very real across the globe. Recently I judged a BoDog Battle of the Bands in Cincinnati. 13 bands competed, and only 2 moved onto the next round. There was a band named Pushing Apollo who didn’t advance but who blew me away with their energy. Even though there were almost 500 people at this event, it appeared I was the only “member of the press” so to speak. I introduced myself to them and asked if they’d heard of podcasting. The answer was a unanimous “nope!”
Two days later I forwarded their music to two of our Insomnia Radio hosts and all of a sudden Pushing Apollo had an international audience. Let’s imagine if I had been there as someone writing for the Cincinnati Indie Music Project in the very near future. I pen a short article about them which gets posted for local Cincinnati iMP readers to check out. But that article is also distributed, automatically, in the “recent buzz” section of ALL our Insomnia Radio websites and ALL of the Indie Music Project websites. The article is then plucked for the front page of Indie Music Project, and chosen to be included in our print publication (which is currently in the works.) The track the blogger attaches to the article is automatically added to the iMP Cincinnati streaming radio station. Their music is automatically submitted for inclusion on Insomnia Radio. Now all of a sudden Pushing Apollo has gone from “the band that lost at BoDog” to a band that’s had near-instant international exposure across podcasts and 100’s of websites. (While “100’s” is an exaggeration now, it won’t be for much longer).
Here’s the amazing part: It took ONE PERSON to do that, because even though they’re an independent publisher, they are also part of an international media company which has some strong brand equity.
7) What obstacles do most artists face, and how can iMP help reduce those roadblocks?
Honestly, there are several. But in my mind the biggest one is crossing that bridge going from local awareness to national or global exposure. The example I gave about the BoDog concert is one way that iMP can really help bands get across that bridge.
8) What additional services do you plan to offer in the future?
We want to go well beyond just a network of local music zines. For each city, we plan to build a network of partner studios, venues, and photographers that are tied into each publication which can be utilized to offer even more opportunities for both the artists and the Associate Publishers. Some of our AP’s are also rattling some great ideas around, such as quarterly “Best Of” compilations that can be distributed across the entire iMP and Insomnia Radio networks - and hopefully in CD form.
9) What are the insomnia radio shows, and the benefit they have for indie bands?
Insomnia Radio started as a single podcast promoting independent artists, and it’s now grown into a network of Regional shows in places like San Francisco, Baltimore, The UK, and even Turkey! I still host the original Insomnia Radio and play global music there as well as music news segments that focus on the techie side of the industry and recent events from bands we’ve played around the network.
When I started the show there were literally only 50 podcasts in existence (there must be over 140,000 now), so I was fortunate enough to be caught in all the early mainstream buzz, which helped IR grow a large audience rather quickly.
The benefit to bands is that we’re picky. It may be a dirty word but we’re almost elitist. Since we only feature bands that that really strike a chord with us, our audience has grown to appreciate our taste, and they show overwhelming support for the musicians we spin.
Now by no means has Insomnia Radio been responsible for single handedly “breaking a band.” I think any DJ in any medium (with the exception of the late John Peel) that claims that is just plain deluded. But you know, it does open little doors, consistently, and those doors lead to bigger doors. We’ve had letters from bands that have sold out their CD Baby inventory after being featured, or have gone on to be featured on 100’s of other shows after being played on IR. One band from the UK (Kerbslider), who got their first exposure in the States via IR Orlando and later several other IR shows, was able to organize a short United States tour because of the initial exposure through Insomnia Radio.
Our audience is listening to find quality new indie bands, and when they find them, they support them. I firmly believe that the same mentality will carry over to the iMP Local Zines.
10) How many feeds does iMP have and how many people subscribe to them?
iMP is pretty new compared to Insomnia Radio, and our city-based online music magazines won’t launch until early 2008. But the main Indie Music Project site has roughly 10,000 page views per month. And Google is definitely being nice to us! A search for “indie music” puts iMP on the 2nd page of results, and that has started to help us build some great momentum. As far as RSS feeds go, every city zine will have them, but frankly we’re not going to promote them as heavily as we do with the Insomnia Radio podcasts, because we want to get away from the technology push and just focus on good written content and artist awareness.
But to give you some sort of REAL answer :-)
Insomnia Radio has about 15 feeds with 5,000 dedicated subscribers and about 80,000 downloads per month. I know, those numbers don’t match up! It’s because the majority of our audience still just listens online without relying on RSS, which is WHY we don’t feel RSS should be an integral part of the magazines.
Bonus Question: Are you a musician? If so, what instrument do you play?
I’ve always considered myself more of a person TRYING to be a musician! I play guitar, bass, and I sing. About 5 years ago I was in a short-lived band called Same Time Tomorrow. I also contributed lyrics and vocals to the now defunct My Virtual Band website. And there’s some demo tapes of acoustic material running around here somewhere. 4-track tapes actually. Ancient stuff, but I still enjoy picking up the guitar once in awhile. You know how they say “Those that can’t do, teach?” Well, those that can’t play, promote! Haha. I also confess to be being a total Guitar Hero addict.
Great responses Jason and thanks again for your time! As you can see, Jason has some big goals for iMP in 2008, so if you're in the indie music industry (musician, manager, agent, etc.) than you need to check out their site to learn how they can help you promote your music. If you would like to become an Associate Publisher for iMP and have your very own online music magazine in your local community with all the support and tools from iMP, than go here. This is a great opportunity for folks wanting to write about music in their local scene and make some money doing it; not to mention, as a writer for iMP, you will probably be able to see a ton of music for free. I'm considering becoming an AP for the Atlanta market, I just need to determine if I have the time to devote to it.
Best wishes for continued success in 2008!
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