"Link, you're so popular now. Many record company agents have approached me, wanting to discuss signing with you. Take a look at these, are there any record companies you like?"
At noon, while he was lifting weights in the equipment area, Simon came up to him with a stack of documents.
During this time, he was still training at the boxing gym. When Taylor or Selena had time, he would learn guitar and piano with them, and leave the music matters to Simon.
However, Simon was a boxing agent and was not very good at music matters.
Link put down the barbell, sat up, and wiped his sweat with a towel.
"Can't we release it ourselves?"
Dynasty Promotion had a publicity department and a certain distribution capability.
"We can, it's not bad in Florida and Miami, but if we want to sell records to the whole country or even the entire Americas and Latin-speaking regions, our channels and manpower are very limited. Also, Dynasty Promotion is a sports company and has no experience in promoting and distributing music. The operation cost is too high, so it's better to leave it to professionals."
Simon said.
Link nodded. It was no problem to leave professional matters to professionals. He opened a few documents and looked at them.
Currently, more than 30 record companies had contacted him, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, RCA Records, Hollywood Records, and many small record companies, including Taylor's Big Machine Records.
There was no signing bonus, only the percentage of royalties on songs and albums, and various promotional packages, such as Hollywood Records offering him a B-level artist package, investing no less than 2 million US dollars in album release promotion, and holding future world tours.
Link didn't know much about these things, and after looking around, he didn't know which company had better conditions.
Simon was also a layman.
So he called Catherine and Taylor to get the opinions of two industry insiders.
Catherine told him that big companies and small companies each had their own advantages and disadvantages. Big companies had wide channels and strong distribution capabilities, but they had many artists, limited resources, fierce competition, and less royalty sharing.
Although small companies had limited resources and channels, if they could become the top singer and be fully promoted by the company, it would be much better than joining a big company.
Taylor directly advised him to join Big Machine Records and conquer the music scene together.
Link naturally wouldn't agree to her. Big Machine Records was founded in 2005 with a registered capital of less than 5 million dollars. Its resources and channels were too limited, and it was difficult to promote and package Taylor alone, let alone two people.
If he joined Big Machine, the company's resources would be even more strained. Even if he didn't want to compete with Taylor, the team behind him would secretly compete, which would inevitably affect their relationship. This was not the result Link wanted.
In addition, Big Machine's boss, Scott Borchetta, was not a good person. In 2017, after Taylor's contract with Big Machine expired, she announced that she would not renew it.
Scott was very angry and secretly sold the copyright of Taylor's first six albums to the person Taylor hated the most, the manager of Justin Bieber and Kanye West, another guy named Scooter Braun.
Afterward, Taylor was not allowed to publicly perform the songs she wrote herself.
This incident caused a big stir online at the time, with Taylor and Justin, Kanye, Scott, and others engaging in a war of words on Instagram, causing a shock in the European and American music scene.
Link had also eaten some melons back then and knew a little about this matter, so he was even less likely to join Big Machine. He was also planning to find an opportunity to let Taylor terminate her contract with Big Machine early.
"Don't try to persuade me. Big Machine Records is a new company, and it's already struggling to operate with one singer like you. Adding me would make it fully loaded, which would affect your development in the future. That wouldn't be good. If you don't believe me, ask Mrs. Andrea, she definitely knows the situation better than I do."
"Hey, how did you know my mom was next to me?"
Taylor laughed.
"I guessed."
"You guessed right. My mom said that if you were a new singer, just occasionally releasing a few singles for fun, joining Big Machine would be a good choice. But you're too famous, your first single was able to reach the Billboard charts before it was officially released, and you have great potential. Big Machine Records is too small a platform for you."
"Yes, Mrs. Andrea is right. It's more suitable for me to choose another company, but I have a few more questions to ask you."
Link asked a few more professional questions, such as the percentage of royalties on records, the ownership of album copyrights, and the share of streaming revenue after signing.
Taylor told him that according to the contract between the singer and the record company, the singer himself could get 20% to 40% of the royalties for each album, the songwriter, producer, and other main creators would equally share 5%, and the rest would belong to the record company.
As for the copyright of the album, even if the songs were written by the singer himself, because the record company also participated in the production of the songs and the filming of the music videos, it was equivalent to joint creation, so the copyright basically belonged to the company, and the singer only owned part of the copyright.
Unless it was an independent musician who wrote, produced, and released their own music, they could own the copyright of the entire album and get all the royalties.
Independent musicians were mostly very strong or well-established musicians. They had strong creative ability and a fixed fan base, and they could sell their albums without the support of record companies.
This path looked cool, but it was only suitable for those famous singers, not for newcomers.
After listening to Taylor, Link felt that he was more suitable to be an independent musician. He was a celebrity, with his own traffic, and the songs in his hands were basically popular songs, which could sell well without much promotion from the record company. There was no need to give money to others.
However, being an independent musician was equivalent to fighting alone. He had to train every day and didn't have much time and energy to manage the company.
He told Taylor his thoughts and asked for her opinion.
Taylor told him that he could find a professional to cooperate with, such as Scott Borchetta, the boss of Big Machine Records, who used to be a music producer at the Nashville branch of Universal Music Group. He left Universal in 2005 and founded Big Machine. Â
There were many people like Scott, and if he looked carefully, he could always find a few suitable candidates.
"You're right, I'll consider it. What time can you come home today?"
Link asked.
"Do you miss me?"
Taylor asked sweetly.
"Yes."
"I miss you too. I want to go home now, but 'Fearless' is about to be released, and I have a lot of work recently. I probably won't be able to finish work until seven o'clock today."
"It's okay, you come back early, I'll cook and wait for you."
After hearing Taylor hang up the phone, Link put away his phone and thought about who to cooperate with.
Catherine was a suitable candidate. She was an industry insider and a relative, so it would be convenient to cooperate. However, their current relationship was good, and if they became business partners, it might cause more trouble.
But besides Catherine, he couldn't find a more suitable candidate.
Just as he was hesitating, Ivanka called and asked if he had time to go to Madison Square Garden to watch the boxing match between Holyfield and the Eastern Giant Valuev. She had two tickets.
Link was a little surprised. After returning from Miami, Miss Ivanka had called him several times, but they only talked about boxing arrangements and rarely talked about personal matters. This time, she took the initiative to invite him to watch a boxing match.
Link thought for a moment, it was probably a serious matter, so he agreed.
(End of this chapter)