It is a standard deal: You sign a contract with a record label, which lends you money to make a record, and unless you're unusually successful, you spend the rest of your career paying it back.
Mark Erelli was disenchanted with the standard deal.
After funding five albums more or less the same way - by borrowing money, either from his label, Signature Sounds, or from friends and investors - the Boston folk singer tried a new way of paying for his latest record: He asked his fans to chip in.
Fan-funded albums are the latest variation on do-it-yourself recording for smaller acts keen on making a professional-quality album while avoiding some of the entanglements of the record industry.
By paying for albums without borrowing from a label, artists have creative control and retain ownership of the songs.
The model has worked so far: From folk to indie-rock to metal, musicians have raised tens of thousands of dollars by appealing to their listeners for help.
Erelli was able to raise about $10,000.
By stretching his budget, it was sufficient to pay for time in a Maine recording studio, the services of producer Zack Hickman, session musicians and various related costs, including music gear, for his seventh album, Delivered.
The record comes out next month - unless you donated, in which case you've already received your autographed copy.
Depending on how much you gave, you also might have received other perks, such as a CD of bonus songs and a limited-edition poster, as a thank-you from Erelli.
He says about 120 people sent him donations of between $25 and $500 from May to December of last year.
"That's nothing to make a record," Erelli says by phone from home.
"Favors were called in; things were done.
I think I did all my vocals live in three days with the band, two weeks after my newborn son came home from the hospital.
It was not an ideal time or way to make a record, but it's what I had the money to do when I had the time to do it."
Fans often have opportunities to order albums far in advance, but the chance to play a more integral role in Erelli's new record appealed to Terry Woodburn, who sent the singer $100 on behalf of himself, his wife, Laurie Dahl, and their 12-year-old daughter, Emma.
Woodburn has been following Erelli's career for years.
"I believe in what he does," Woodburn says.
"I think Mark Erelli is really one of the unsung pillars of excellence in songwriting, and I think he's vastly under-recognized and underappreciated in the music scene."
Artists and fans aren't the only ones who can benefit from independently financed albums - they also make a difference for small record labels like Signature Sounds, the indie to which Erelli licenses his albums.
"It allows us to spend less money in the recording studio, so more of that money can get spent elsewhere in the promotion and marketing of records," says Jim Olsen, who runs Signature.
Given the recent industry-wide downturn in record sales, every dollar counts, especially for a small record company.
If Signature fronts the money for recording, the budget generally runs between $8000 and $15,000, with another $20,000 to $30,000 spent on publicising an album.
"With sales shrinking, we just have to be more conservative," Olsen says.
"But at the same time, we definitely have more to spend on promotion than we would have if we had to pay for the record.
There's only so much money to go around, so this is really a leg up for us."
Although Olsen was among the first donors to write a check for Erelli - for $500 - and several other Signature artists are funding their records the same way, he questions whether the fan-funded model can sustain itself in the long-term.
"It certainly works the first time, but you have to wonder, two or three albums down the line, if the fans will be willing to shell out," Olsen says.
Erelli has thought about that, too.
The singer is not ruling out another fund drive, but releasing a debt-free record this time will make it easier to save money so he can pay for more of the next album himself.
