How to Make Band Videos More Appealing for Buyers By Phil Laws

As a fan of music I have gotten excited about band memorabilia in the past. When it comes to buying a music video anthology I'd hope that some of the content was not available on YouTube, and would pay in the $1-$2.00 per video range. 5-10 videos for $10 would be my target on a DVDR/self-printed anthology. Even at 10 videos with an average track time of 5 minutes it's only a 50 minute play time unless there's other content on the disc.

Band member interviews is one thing that could be done relatively easily, picking questions for each to answer (using a MySpace survey maker can help with good questions to pick from) and finding a friend of the band who has a good interview voice to conduct them. Don't try to overproduce the interviews by making them perfect because it will turn out not looking like an interview at all (I don't know, that could be exactly how your band might want to express themselves personally.) Mistakes in interviews make them look all the more authentic as long as it doesn't slow the interview to a stop at any point. If you can't get access to a video camera you could do the interviews as audio and have pictures from gigs and other pictures of band members synced with video creation software (there are a lot of free ones available.) With interviews added to the DVD I would pay $15 for a copy.

I'd hope there was also some other content in the package other than the videos/interviews, whether it was just mostly song lyrics and information/photo's rehashed from press packs the band already has together. A little more insight into the personalities of the people behind the music and an item autographed by all the members (folded Band Poster, maybe) would be really nice to see in any purchase like this. This is likely to be the premier (most expensive) thing that the band is selling at the time and in my opinion should come with autographs if you're selling less than maybe 20 a week. It's worth the time to do the autographs up to a certain point of sales.

A piece of art or poem written by any band members would be good to squeeze in to the printing of Lyrics/Bio's/Acknowledgements. Generally adding a few things that the purchaser could otherwise not get would be great and add to the marketability of the DVD (and perceived creativity of the 'artists'.) Other thoughts I've had are Drumstick/Guitar Pick, Keychain or bumper-sticker with a band logo, but your own ideas are probably better than mine if they are more unique and since they are your own. Thinking of things that would work for your band or that go with your band name to personalize any bonus item (like if your band name was "Animal Arcade", looking in to printing arcade tokens with a picture of animals on one side and a band logo on the other.)

I wouldn't want to pay more than $10-15 unless the packaging (including cover art and printing) looked professional, the play time was over an hour and there were at least a couple 'extras' like the ones I mentioned. With all of those things I could see 10+ songs (at just over an hour total) with interviews, lyrics, Autographed band poster and another thing or 2 "otherwise unavailable" (or available for separate purchase) I might pay $20 or $25. Once you tout something as being "otherwise unavailable" it wouldn't be too cool to later make those things available without changing them a little at least, though. I hope that's helped some.

Author Bio Phil Laws. Lyricist having written enough songs for 5 - 7 full albums currently "Singer/Writer for 12 Speed Hooker." Having sat with Netvalar editing his myspace profile, Phil Laws can be found on Myspace at http://www.myspace.com/wishhiker along with samples of poems and songs at poems-and-quotes.com