If you’re an aspiring music industry entrepreneur with ambitions of owning your own record label but no clue of where to start, you might want to look into purchasing an already established independent record label.
It’s surprisingly easy. All you need is $5,000 and basic knowledge of how to find your way around Craigslist. No, really. As Exclaim! reports, the owner of Canadian imprint Handshake Inc is flogging it for five large on the classifieds site.
An ad titled “Record Label for Sale“, put up by the founder of the “extreme and underground metal/noise” label, David Hall, lists your acquisitions as a back catalogue of EPs, LPs, a few DVD releases, and one book title.
For a mere $5k, you’d also immediately come into the possession of “North American and International distribution, digital royalties, press contacts, remaining stock (vinyl, dvds), 2k twitter followers and 2k Facebook likes”.
According to the Craigslist ad, becoming the new owner of Handshake Inc is perfect for “hobbyists, pros, and any goal oriented people who still maintain a sense of hope and wonder about the music industry”.
Hall has confirmed the legitimacy of the ad to Exclaim! and the ad stipulates that he is seeking “serious inquiries only”, so no trolling, people. Hall is serious about selling off the label he founded in 2006.
“Due to the gradual but unforeseen onset of a very serious health issue, I can no longer, in good conscience, deal with or run the day-to-day operations of the label,” Hall wrote in a farewell post on the Handshake Inc blog.
“I could, irresponsibly, try and forge ahead, throw caution to the wind, and ‘see what happens’ but out of respect to my family and the bands and artists I work with, I will not take this approach.”
“I can’t stress enough how lucky I have been to work with bands, musicians, studio professionals and industry folk who have entrusted me with their art, and treated me as a peer: I hope to remain friends with the amazing people I have met through running Handshake,” he added.
After launching the imprint in 2006, Hall was joined in 2011 by Catharsis PR person Kim Kelly and Agoraphobic Nosebleed frontman Jay Randall. The label has put out releases by the likes of Fuck the Facts, Rwake, Orthrelm’s Mick Barr, Gridlink, and more.
