Money After the Deal

As an artist manager it is important to keep your income after your management deal in mind when negotiating, to compensate for having no job security after your term. This is called Earnings After the Term. Every manager contract says what the manager gets paid on earnings after the term. If you are not aware of what you are entitled to the artist will try not to pay you. This negotiating point can make all the difference, helping you survive when you are out of work until you find your next gig or band. As long as those earnings are generated under ‘‘contracts entered into or substantially negotiated during the term.’’ The statement above means two things. As to records made during the term of the management deal, the manager gets a commission from sales of these records occurring after the end of the manger deal; and the manager is paid on records made after the term of your management deal, if the records are recorded under a contract signed during the term. Some strategies that the artist may use to prevent Earnings after the term are Sunset Clauses. These are clauses you want to watch out for because they end the day for commission. It’s great for an artist but not so great for the artist manager. Another important aspect of you management deal is called a key man clause. It’s more helpful to the artists but can be beneficial for a manager also. Although you may have a good relationship with an artist, the artist contract might be with a corporation or partnership if you work for one. You can be fired or leave the company and not be obligated to adhere to those terms. Leaving the artist to the next manager on the company roster. The key man clause protects the artists and says the person with whom you have a relationship must personally act as your manager, and if not, you can terminate the deal. The reason why it is beneficial to the manager is because if you do work for a corporation or partnership and have a great artist with a good relationship you would want that clause inserted into the artist’s contracts to keep representing your artist.

Source:

Passman, D., (2009). All you need to know about the music business. New York: Free Press.

Artist Management Income

You get what you pay for. The role of a personal manager can make or break an artist career. The most important aspects of a manager’s job are helping artists with major business decisions, helping the artist with the creative process, promoting the artist career by hyping them to everyone the manager meets, coordinating the artist concert tours by working with their agent to make the best deals promoters, pounding the artist record company to maximize the advertising, marketing campaigns for the artist record and generally being a buffer between them and the outside world. The income for personal managers is really arbitrary. The financial aspect depends on the deal negotiated with the artist he or she plans to represent. Commission for managers are typically from 15% to 20% of an artist earnings, with the majority getting 15%. These percentages are generally applied to the artist gross earnings, before deducting any expenses. For compensation managers that represent a new band or an unknown artist should aim and negotiate for 20%. The leverage in that negotiation or argument is that the risk is greater and it may be years-if-ever-before the manager gets paid. If the manager and artist cant come to an agreement on the 20%. It can be implemented in the deal that the manager gets 15% but it escalates to 20% when the artist earns a certain dollar amount. The term is another key element of a manager’s income. It simply means the management agreement and the period of time that a manager will work for an artist. Typically a management agreement is three to five years. It’s in the manager’s best interest to have the agreement as long as possible for job security reasons. If you are a manager your worst nightmare and the last thing you want to happen is work for an artist three years and get dropped because of the length of your term while the artist is about to finally see success.    

Source:

Passman, D., (2009). All you need to know about the music business. New York: Free Press.