How to start your own label
How to Start your own Record Label
These are the things you must do in order to start one:
1.choose a name
2.establish an official address
3.file a ficticous name (DBA) statement with the county.
4.get a business license from the city.
5.get a resellers license from the state board of equalization
6.get a maufactuers ID number from the Uniform Code Council
7.Design your logo
8.Print bussiness cards,mailin labels,and stationary.
9.Open a seperate bank account for your new label.
10.Set up your new home office.
Pickin a name:
The name of your label should be short,sweet and memorable without being obscene.(For some reason,it's generally veiwed as unporfessional to have a label name that can't be repeated in mixed company.)If you happen to pick a name that's already bein used by another label,you mgiht very well find a notice in your mailbox one day threatning you with a lawsuit unless you change it. Establish your official address: After you've chosen a name,the next step is to establish an official address for your business.I recommend that you establish a bussiness address that is seperate from your residential address for a couple of reasons.First,if your bussiness address is seperate from your residental address ,you won't have to change it everytime you have to move and this can save you time and money.the second reason is that you will be sending records all over the country ,if not the world.It's a retty good bet that some of these recods might end up in the hands of someone who wishes to do you harm.And take it from me,you'd rather they did not know where you lived.To establish a seperate address for your bussiness,you've got two options:you can either rent a P.O Box from the US Postal Service or a bussiness mailbox from one of the commericial vendors like Mailboxes Ect. As a rule,PO Boxes are signifangantly cheaper.And I can tell you Prioirty and Deathrow both use them so if you are worried do they look professional well yes,actually they do.The only downside is that if you get a PO Box there will be no one to pick your packges up.But then you can give the Record Company you are under your residential address if you feel comfortable with them.Otherwise the commercial idea is good.
file a ficitcious name(DBA) Statement
Once you 've got a name and an address for your new label,you need to file a "fictioucuos business name statement"(also called a "doing bussiness as" or a DBA statement)with the count clerk's office.The DBA is a breif form that announces to the county and everyone in it that you intend to do bussiness under a name different from the one your parents gave you at birth.In other words,this statement establishes in legal terms that you and your record label are one and the same.The benefit of the DBA to you is that it allows you to deposit checks that are made out to your record label.In addition to filling out the DBA form,you'll need to publish several reguarly appearing notices in a local paper recognized to have signifagant distirubtion in the county. (The county clerk can provide you with a list of acceptable publications)You can expect to be deluged with offers from smaller papers,which usally make most of their income from running DBA announcements.Just pick the cheapest one and get it over with,but be sure to clip out the copy of the announcement the first time it runs,along with the masthead(the title) of the paper,including the date.This will make a great start to your career scrapbook (if you haven't already started one) and will definetly come in handy if yoiu ever need to defend the use of your label name against someone who tries to infringe upon it.
Get a business liscence(if you need one)
After you've filed your DBA,you should make a call to the "bussiness permits"division of your local city hall to find out whether you need to apply for a bussiness lisenceand /or a home business permit.If you are required to get a lisence,it should cost somewhere between $25-$100.
Get a resellers lisence
The next thing you need to do is apply for a resellers lisence from your state board of Equalization.For those of you who weren't aware equalization means tax,in this case sales tax.The resellers lisence allows you to buy goods as a reseller rather then a end-cutomer.Transalation:with a resellers lisence, you won't have to pay sales tax on items like records that you plan to seel to a distributor. This can save you thousnad of dollars,and if you get one of these you will be gald you did. register with the uniform code council For your next beaucrectic trick,you will apply for and recive a maufactuers ID number from the folks at Uniform Code Council.This Id number is what you will use to create the bar codes that will allow retail stores to identify you as the maufactuer of your CD's.This process will take about three weeks and will cost about $300.I know that this is a lot of money,but if you want to get your CD's into major retail stores you've got to have bar codes and in order to make bar codes,you've got to have a manufactuer's ID number.The phone number is (513)435-3870.
Designing your logo
Now is a good time to start thinking about designing your logo for your new label.The logo will play a very important role in establishing the image of your label (and your band) in the minds of people who have never met or heard of you,so it's important that it look professional.The ideal logo will effectively communicate the image you are trying to project,and will reproduse well at a variety of sizes. Print business cards and mailin labels Call several local pronters to find out the best price for this,(500 is probally a reasonable quality)You might want to consider printing in two colors not just one,but anything more extravegant then that is probally not worth the additional expence.You'll have to provide the printer camera ready artwork of your logo.NOTE:If you generate your logo on a computer,don't use laser printed output for your camera ready art the resolution isn't high enough and you'll get an image that looks unprofessional. Open a company bank account
Techinally the IRS does not require you to maintain a seperate bank account in order to to take tax deductions for your music-related expenidtures.However to reduce the likelihood of a audit it's probally a good idea to open one anyway. Your new office
I'd like to suggest that you set a portion of your residence for your new business "office" While you are in your new office and after gettin set up of course I recommend several things to you:
1.fond yourself a good accountant
2.Save your receipts
3.get yourself a filing cabinet
4.a computer
5.and a printer
6.and a fax machine or a fax/modem
7.and an extra phone line
8.and a low cost long distance carrier
9.and maybe a scanner
10.and some software

no thats good info,,,,,,it will help ya if u u r sellin tapes out of your trunk

UHHHH I dont' know where your getting your information...

First of..
A record label DOES NOT RESELL =)
that's straight off..
NO label MANIFACTURERS unless they are their own manifacturing company.
..
That's why there's companies called... distributors..
who buy the rights to manifacture the product..
and sell etc.. in simple terms..

Don't get no home license.. If your going to run your label big enough, spend a few hundred and get an incorporation license.. probably of the LLC or S corporation licenses..

Usually..

How I know?

Well lets just say .. nothing for right now.. I ain't through playing with these WC cats on this board just yet..

OH And to clarify.. Just because you have a UPC barcode, does not guarantee you spot in a retail store.. Maybe an independent store. But to get into stores like Best Buy etc.. WHICH are franchises, you need to make deals.. It costs MINIMUM $250,000 to HAVE A NATIONWIDE RELEASE.. That number is so old it'll cost 350,000 these days.. WHY? You can't simply walk up to one store at a time.. You need to fly down to best buy.. talk to their rep's and they'll turn you down.. Unless your known enough to make mass profit from you..

And if your just a beginner, your chance of actually making that win at Best Buy or any other major retailer, is about 5% of a hundred.. Literally..

Other stores are even harder..

There's something in business he did not mention.. Free promotions.. Meaning, if you wanna win best buy over to sell your shit.. you would have to pre-manifacturer say a thousand copies and give it to them for free, or you could had cut them a major deal where you would get less percentage, and they get a shit load of money..

Radio stations, unless you know the people, or you win from a contest, or wuteva, normal stations, will MAKE YOU PAY From $100-5000+ In dallas, Texas a major player in the music industry in area of listeners, which are about 7 million all together in this area, not including a few cities, it costs 3 thousand dollars to be on 97.9 The Beat.. Don't tell me that starting a label is cheap.. Maybe starting it.. But having the cash to run a label.. You would have failed without proper income of at least $5 thousand a week.. which in your own city, you will not have. You might sell few hundred CD's etc.. but then everyone who was willing to buy, has your CD.. who you distribute to now without the income to expand to a different CD? You would be fucked without another product.. It isn't a simple business... Everyone should know that, don't brainwash these kids' minds into thinking they don't need to go to college and then try and start their own labels.. The business taxes.. let me tell you ONE thing about business taxes.. THEY TAX YOU TWICE ON INCORPORATIONS   How I know? I got an LLC business license.. I don't do my own manifacturing, I have my own distrubtors, the label pulls in millions a year.. Or next year it will, this year hitting 350 thousand. Next year will be the start of world wide distrubtion both on the internet, and on retail stores. Currently we do already sell world wide through business partners, SO I DON'T NEED TO SPEND MONEY TO MANIFACTURE.. We ship on buy. Saves money, don't go and buy bulk CD's of your copy.. Don't go and buy a whole bunch of CD burners..That's not commercially a good idea..

Find real sources of income.. You wonder why most of these labels would have went bankrupted, then were bought over by a giant.. ahem like aol/time warner.. Everyone should know, NO Limit talkin' bout they independent when they parent company is part aol/warner.. so they ain't independent..

IF YOU WILL BE An independent you most likely won't survive.. but in these days, you most likely will because mainstream sucks these days..

MUSIC VIDEOS HOW MUCH? FROM AS LOW AS>>>>
$15,000

now that's a cheap ass video.. made by professionals who do music videos world wide for independent recording labels...

Have a nice day =)

http://www.shotup-records.cominfo@shotup-records.comDallas, Texas
972-641-9955
Please do not send demos, tapes, or other media types to Shotup Records without proper presentation.

the above information was copied out of a really old book,,,,,,,,,,,yes I know it costs more,I just wanted the guys in here to understand what it is they are talking about,..........see it is one thing to be a fan and quite another to have an idea of what those stars go through,.........they read the info I out up,they change immedaitely,......info once gotten doesn't die but grows into something.It might not always be thought about but they will not be the same fans...........also............I have my own record label.......and it really I am telling you is not that hard to set up,but maybe it is because I have freinds in Ruthless,Aftermath,Priority and Cubevision that it was easier for me then others........who knows?

well the book is from 92 or 93 and to tell you the truth I am glad you said something cuz I was thinking that I should put up something a little more recent...... oh you know like something from this century.......... geez anyway........You said you knew of a book that would give me something more recent to show them?Have you ever read "confessions of a record producer?"oh my god is it good it was written by Moses Avelon........I have never laughed or felt as good as when I read that book........when I emailed him I told him he should write books like Stephen King writes em........I mean he is that good,,,,,,anyway I think I will recommend a few books to these guys............

and I am not worried about competition.....

ahhh thats smart..........now check this out........I thought ascap and bmi was all good til I heard about their lil scam at the checkout counter.....so I ama school all ya all............when they run ya cd so many times over the laser thing it ain't cuz the laser ain't pickin it up,it is because this is yet another way for the industry to cheat the artist and at the same time cheat on that billboard thang.......man the more times they scan it the more times billboard thinks it was sold..........but check this out,how the hell do you really know how well anyone did if they gonna do all this man?And ya know this(my favorite line from that friday movie)that and you got knocked the fuck out..........ahahaha..

hehe, get a bunch of people on here to donate money and let's make us a crappy record label

You said you knew of a book that would give me something more recent to show them?

What book was he speakin about? I'm going to buy that "Confessions of a record producer " ....if I can find it. I always find every book in the world except the one I'm lookin for. There's a book that JT the Bigga Figga wrote...cost $100 dollars. Has anyone read this?   Yeah and that movie "Friday" is of da chain. DJ. Pooh is hilarious!