In a recent Time Magazine article two brothers who front the indie rock band Two Lights tell how they have been doing some cool things over the past year but have spent a $100,000 doing it.

It's not often that I review and endorse a music business book. Most are just a way to get $15 off of you. But I had the inspiring pleasure of catching Martin Atkin's talk at SXSW and, he is fucking awesome! His book, a somewhat irreverent review of what artists should and shouldn't be doing to mind their music business, is brilliant.

I don't get it. Not a day goes by that I don't get 5, 6, 7, or more calls or emails asking me to shop an artist's demo to record labels. My response? What fucking planet have you been living on for the past two years?

The First Step In Setting Up Your Band For Business: Choose The Name.

How do musicians make money from their music? Money comes primarily from three sources: * Artist Royalties (for recordings) * Publishing or "Mechanical" Royalties (for song-writers only) * Merchandise

The musicians and artists that are successful today in the music business have entrepreneurial minds and take a very business-like approach to their music. They think about their music - in fact themselves - as a business and they take direct control of their careers and constantly look for new opportunities.

For all the years I’ve known the band, I have always been very impressed with how the guys in the band have been able to stay together and continue to earn more than adequate livings for themselves all these years. We got a chance to catch up with the band’s leader, singer, guitarist, and song writer, Scotty Morris along with original members, Glen, Andy, Kurt and Dirk after the show. And, although I wasn’t surprised to hear it, Scotty reminded me of the most fundamental thing that leads to success in the music business: just do what you do, and do it well.

A couple of videos by David Ellefson, bassist for MEGADETH about royalties. He does a pretty good job of providing a simple explanation of the two types of royalties paid on recordings: "artist royalties" and "mechanical royalties." On the first video he talks about "artist royalties" which is money paid to the band or artist that actually performed the song on the recording (after the band or artist recoups or pays back all of the money the record company loaned to the band or artist) and "mechanical royalties" which is money paid to the song writer (without a need to recoup).

I stopped by the CMJ trade show booth of Fargo Tube and talked to Frank Connor, the CEO about the latest site for selling your music, Fargo Tube. Simply put, it is a simple-to-use, one-stop-shopping point of contact between your band and your fans with built-in social media features (and more coming) designed to make selling your music easy and efficient. I thought the concept looked pretty interesting and what I thought set it apart from other similar sites was its ease of use and that you are promoting your URL rather than the site's to your fans.

What the hell happened? How did she do it? Everyone in the industry is stunned and re-thinking every strategy. So, what about the music? Does anyone really like it? I'm stunned!

TopSpin CEO Ian Rogers said in a presentation at New Noise Santa Barbara over the weekend that only 25,000 to 30,000 artists are actually earning a living from making music. Boy, is my wife going to be disappointed to hear that!