Staying in the top 200 or so on ITunes plus on various other ITunes charts is a start. That in itself is an excellent promotional strategy – keeps him visible. The production on the actual track is awesome and it’s one of the rare instances where I prefer recorded Cook to live Cook. It’s a whole new paradigm. Curious to know how his bump compares to other Idols with independent releases?

elliegirl:As hard as it’s been for RCA to get them airplay, it’s going to be impossible for them to get airplay on their own.

As hard as it’s been for RCA to get them airplay with the wrong song on the wrong format and, in Cook’s case, at a time of year when traditional promotion opportunities were limited and other promotional opportunities were niche or nonexistent, not to mention with essentially no followup support when the wrong song on the wrong format failed to stick.

Fixed it for you. (And sorry, no one will ever convince me that TLG was a good — or the only — single choice for TLM. There were at least two other, better songs that could possibly have had some traction on HAC and would have had even a better chance on AAA.)

That being said, the idea of trying to get new ears without radio play is scary, and the Idol stigma is still real. But if you look at Hanson, for example, who managed to overcome a similar stigma of being bubblegum pop kids to become an Indie success story, maybe it can happen. I know Cook spoke about them with admiration even before the split with RCA.

Caro3278sweet2, thank you very much for your post — you articulated the same things I’ve been seeing recently in publishing and actually for much longer in music. I am a big fan of blowing the gatekeepers out of the way, and I hope the trend continues and the opportunities for artists (and consumers!) keeps expanding.

On a different note, I haven’t read “On the Island,” (not my type of book), but I do remember seeing it on a Kindle sale and promoted by Amazon. I wonder if that kind of connection to an entity with mucho promotion/distribution power, who take a minimal cut (as opposed to the mega-cuts the publishing houses and labels take), will be a wave of the future to fill the promo/distribution breach…

I don’t know what kind of advantage Cook has with staying with Fuller. Yes Fuller seems to respect David’s talent but what can he actually do for David? So far it seems to be exclusivly booking him charity gigs: Tiger Jam, The Glam Rocks Tommy Hilfger event and a USO concert in Hawaii. Which don’t get me wrong, charity fundraising is always good in and of itself. But how does this help David establish himself in his chosen genre how does this help establish him on radio? Having XIX and Fuller on his side is better than having no one is his corner and there’s a lot to say for loyalty but Fullers money and influence stop at the indie rock world and nothing will change that.

Yes Fuller seems to respect David’s talent but what can he actually do for David

The Tiger Jam gig was definately a step in the right direction, since he opened for Jon Bon Jovi and from what I’ve heard, totally won the audience over.  If he is trying to become accepted in rock, that was very important.  

Chris Cornell covered “Light On” in Orlando tonight… a song he had co-written with Brian Howes and never recorded, that he subsequently offered to David for DCTR in 2008.  After the song sold platinum, Cornell received a platinum record plaque too, as a co-writer on the track; he thanked David for that when they finally met.

Tonight, he performed it for the first time at the Orlando Hard Rock Cafe. IMO, It seems like a cool gesture of support.

“1st album – he sold what? let’s say 1 mil – at $12.99 =$13 millionCookies
cut at (let’s be generous) 15% royalty  - $1,950,000 (minus his fairly
big advance). So let say Cook walked away with 1.5 mil just for
discussion’s sake.

2nd album – sold 100K or so. Cookie’s cut at 15% is a measly $15K.
Ouch. Ouch. The artist that wrote the music from his soul, recorded the
songs, decided on the arrangements, etc gets $15k. That’s abusive IMHO.”

I agree with your point.  But I need to correct the calculation.  15k is 15% of 100k.  But 100k is the number of units, not the revenue.  You need to multiply that 100k by, say, $12.99 first.  Then calculate the 15%
 

Haley Reinhart.

“(I don’t know if anyone reads this any longer as there are newer discussions here, but anyway…)”

I always check back, DCAIfanHelsinki, until there is a different David Cook thread, the older one is where I’m likely to find added information

Like the intel about DCTR being on the Finnish charts Top 40, for four months! – the numbers threads are not set up to tell me that – so thanks!

” Does that depend on management or what? Who pays for promotion tours?”

Tours are Management’s responsibility – and when 19M was David’s management – well, they are very Risk Averse. Also, the US Tour was the “Bird in the Hand”, and there was plenty of demand…since it was extended at least three times, until it took up almost a year.

If he hadn’t been so popular here, I ‘think’ there may have been some ‘Out Of Country ‘ tours in 2009…but I have no facts…just random things that were said, and examples of other Idols.

It also helps to have a corporate sponsor willing to back an overseas appearance, like the Pop Tarts? (Heh.) sponsored the Idol Tour -  the Filippino promoters in Manila, or the Viet Nam appearance in 2011, sponsored by Hennessy, and maybe also the Hanoi board of Tourism, IDK *wink*

In the US, often Radio stations will sponsor a one-off show, a little quid pro quo. A poster has started a UK campaign on Twitter and DCO to get a DC appearance there – with addresses for two different promoters he is targeting.

We’ll see what happens with David’s new management, since August of 2011 -  XIX Entertainment; I’ll hope for you that David comes near enough for you to see his show, sometime in the future – I know he would like to come, he has said so.

I see that my last night post, with 2 video-links about inside record-deals and artist-development under major labels (from some specialists), disappeared, I’m pretty sure it will be back in 3 days, lol(not first time that has happened). I found this link with some Yahoo! thoughts about “10 Things Every Independent Musician Should Know to Help Their Career”; it’s pretty old(2007, MySpace era) but good enough for me to get some basic ideas about it http://goo.gl/Ue6Eq. I’m pretty sure David will be fine, in contact more with his fans, doing the music he likes… Hopefully we get more news about him, what he’s doing, about his musical projects…

OK, that’s just spooky!

That was my third one lost and only when I linked videos and they came back after days(I expect the last one too back in few days). There are many interesting videos about contracts, business/marketing(under ArstistsHouseMusic), I put only two videos not to get in “trouble” again and the post got poofted. I give now only the titles/names of the youtube videos if somebody is interesting in some “behind the scene of major labels” and still reading here for DC news:  “The Reality of Artist Development Deals at Major Labels”-
Owen Husney- manager and “Two Things That Your Record Deal Must Have”-Maggie Lange, attorney and Professor Berklee College of Music. Oh well, I’ve listened to some of them and I got a bitter taste in my mouth and even sad-mad kind of feeling; the labels seem that are looking only for instant-money and don’t care at all about artists’ talents or their potential (but we know already not for everyone it’s a norm), sigh.

 The way he talked about it being one of his three top favorite songs on TLM at the Night of Hope Concert, I suspect that “Paper Heart” would have been David’s choice to lead off as a single. That’s a funny story he tells, about Andrew and that song. “Circadian” and REM ought not to be cut up to fit in a radio slot. JMO.

I have a video from before Idol – I would link it – but then the post may disappear – but search on youtube for OLD MWK VIDEO… David is 23 years old here – talks about probably never making any money at music, (Little did he know) but he’ll be doing something he enjoys. At 3:25, he says his Dad told him “Set your price now, and if it ever becomes too expensive, then get out.”

His message has been consistent…all through Idol and up to now.

Some other thread, some other day, when Disqus is in a better mood – I’ll try linking the video…but it’s worth searching. IMO.

“The five WGWG winners all outsold their runner ups except for Kris Allen.”
Wrong.

Crystal Bowersox outsold Lee DeWyze. Sure both didn’t sell much and both didn’t have any 2nd major label album prospects, but Crystal definitely outsold Lee.