Originally Posted by psycho_monkey ➡️

Well - firstly that's 3 different jobs. Whilst some producers dabble in management, and some managers have publishing companies and so on, they're not the same role and it'd be rare to find one person who does them all well.

But:

Producer - that's relatively easy. Find out who made your favourite records, research them, and where appropriate contact them. Few producers are so in demand they won't listen to pitches from independent artists; of course, it's a paid-for service. Don't be expecting anyone other than uni students looking to develop portfolios to be investing in your career.

(occasionally that happens - I have a couple of artists I have on development deals, where I charge them less but I keep a decent chunk of the master rights).

But everyone else needs to pay the bills!

Publishing - the easy way to get a publisher is to have a hit, they'll be clamouring to sign you! As an unsigned artist, a publisher isn't going to do much other than take 1/2 of your minimal publishing income - everyone wants to "have my song in a film" but that's a competitive business to say the least. I'd suggest if a publishing deal is your aim, you're looking at being a songwriter more than an artist - in which case try doing some writing sessions with others, if it goes well you get to the point where you're writing with artists who DO have publishing deals..and therefore you become more attractive yourself. It's not exclusive of course, many writers also have artist projects and many artists contribute to songs by others.

Manager - managers aren't holy grails to an upward path - a good one can open doors, but good managers only generally take on artists on the cusp of breaking through under their own efforts (a bit like labels these days - the data gathering is insane, it's not just a bit of potential anymore!). Again, a manager takes 20% of your income - that has to be 20% of something decent to make it worth their while.

The good news is that you can do just about all these things for yourself with a bit of work/research in the right areas. Look at blogs/artist sites like Indie Music Academy, or Two Story Melody...lots of great advice for indie artists out there. It's totally possible to self-fund releases, promote them and play shows to the point of making a living without any sort of "major" support or management or anything these days. Hard, but not impossible.