Sellaband.com & the Grooveduke Project

I've spent the last two weeks figuring the process out on Sellaband.com. It is an idea that will work if implemented right. The concept is simple. Sell 5000 copies of your CD in advance for 10 apiece. Sellaband is the escrow company that holds the cash until you reach the target. When you reach the target, sellaband hooks you up with a producer & studio; advances you a little of the money for whatever, uses a good portion of the money for their own promotion (which will still be promoting you), holds back some of the money for manufacture of the CDs and the rest goes to the actual recording.

Buying a part not only gets you a copy of the album, but also a piece of the pie. If you want to really help an artist, you can inest more heavily in the project by buying more parts. Each part gets you a bigger piece of the pie (for a time period of 5 years after the release) including eventually publishing (where the real money is). You also get a store online to sell the album to your friends which generates profit on every sale. and many other perks.

RISK?
Not much. If the artist gives up, or doesn't make it to their goal as fast as you'd like. You can take your money back. What other investment lets you do that? I am a total believer that this basic model will be the future of independent music and perhaps the music business itself. Figure production costs, divide into equal shares and pre-sell those parts to a loyal fan base, thus running the entire operation in the black from the beginning. It's so logical it will only fail if they make it difficult to buy parts.

Now, I need you to buy parts. Go to http://www.sellaband.com/grooveduke/ listen to my demos (which are pretty cheap, I'll admit) then click on the "finance album" button. They'll ask for an email address, user name & password. It'll be $10 for each part you buy plus the transaction fee (about $1). I'd like to ask each of you to buy 10 parts.

10 parts? that's 100 dollars. Yes, that's right, but if each of my friends here on face book bought that many parts, I'd have all 5000 parts sold very quickly, Setting a new record for how fast the the goal had been reached. wouldn’t that be something! and you folks would have been a part of it.

Alternately, each of you could find 10 friends to buy a single part and then I'd have the record for most believers and the fastest growth. wouldn't that be awesome. I go to Houston in 2 weeks. In 3 weeks I'll know if I will have the next three months without chemo. So I have these little windows to accomplish the things I need to accomplish.

Help me do this.