The Life: Financing and the Independent

With the emergence of releasing music on the Internet, access to any artist has become virtually easy. But, for the independent upcoming artist, access to a wide range of consumers can be difficult.  This can easily be the end of a great artists career.  Exposure is huge! But it does cost money to be seen on the internet.  
Crowd Funding:
According to NPR.org (2012), "Musicians do have to spend money and a lot of time to hit their crowd-funding goals, so failure is expensive. But for some people, at specific moments in their careers, crowd funding can be a piece of the puzzle." The article goes on to say, "By now, everyone's

heard of Kickstarter, the website that lets people with an idea or project ask other people to contribute toward realizing it. It's called crowd funding, and this summer's big success story was musician Amanda Palmer. She raised more than $1 million to produce her new album. But crowd funding doesn't work for every musician every time." Crowd funding is a viable way to build your brand and increase your demographic reach.  But it does take away from the artistry and musicianship on an individual.  Your job can easily become fund raiser and not singer, songwriter and etc. 
Even though crowd funding can be beneficial, building a business plan to incur finances in traditional ways can be more beneficial.  A business plan can guide you and your project for three years. This can be a great guideline for a musician. So in addition to using the plan to gain funds, the business plan is for you. Artists like Macklemore and Ryan Leslie used business plans to incur funds and it has proved successful for these two artists.  These artists can compete on a major scale and have been able to stay independent.  

Gaining funds and allocating them to the proper channels and hiring the right help is beneficial. An artist one stop shop is look at negatively today. Has an artist ever sent you an inbox message saying, "Download my hot fire!!!" What is your first reaction? Mostly, if you do or don't know the artist, you would see the artist as a pest and overlook the message.  Hiring someone to do this correctly can have a positive effect on the outcome. This sole reason can be the benefit of finding financing for an artists project.  There is a whole article at noiseyvice.com who's title is, "WHY ARE SO MANY MUSICIANS SO BAD AT CROWDFUNDING?". The article talks about how a potato salad crowd fund was better than any musicians." But there are many successes in attaining funds. 
Use your time wisely and plan! Plan to build funds and gain investments financially and non monetary in the form of time from mentors and business PROFESSIONALS. 
References:
http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2012/09/25/161702900/crowd-funding-for-musicians-isnt-the-future-its-the-present
http://noisey.vice.com/blog/why-are-so-many-musicians-bad-at-crowdfunding
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/technology/personaltech/crowdfunding-tips-for-turning-inspiration-into-reality.html?_r=0
http://www.songkick.com/artists/472109-ryan-leslie