This morning I asked in this post if there were folks out there who were using models like The Point to finance the production of albums and by the middle of the afternoon I was in touch with the following protagonist in a topical success story.

Chicago-based folk-pop rocker Jenny Gillespie recently finished recording material for an upcoming album. What is particularly interesting about her project is that she put the money needed to record the album together using The Point, MySpace, and other networking tools. Gillespie challenged her fan-base, friends and family to raise $650 for production costs and easily raised the cash to record. She talks here about her project, how she would do things differently if she were to do it again, and advice to those who hope to follow her model.

I am wondering how you came upon the idea to finance an album by way of soliciting donations – via a “finance my album” campaign, as it were. Had you been thinking about it before The Point came along or was the site a catalyst? Andrew [Mason, boyfriend and founder of The Point] had suggested I do it, but at first I thought it was too self-indulgent. But then I thought ‘why not?’ People had asked me before if they could donate somehow, so it turned out to be the perfect tool.

How long did the campaign take to kick into full gear?

It worked pretty quickly. I think I raised the money within 3 weeks.

How did you let people know about the campaign?

I haven’t announced it in shows, but I did post about it on my Myspace blog. It really was just me contacting friends and family and asking them to help. People who worked for the Point contributed as well. People who know me know that I’ve been working at this for a long time, and I’m doing it all on my own, so they want to help me take off.

People actually wanted to donate after the campaign was closed and I’d reached the $650 mark! I am thinking of doing another campaign to raise money for doing publicity for the album.

I was just going to ask something with regard to that – Have you thought of creating an inventory of services otherwise offered by labels and financing those via a similar campaign?

Yes, I would like to do that with a publicity package provided by Ariel Publicity. The service basically shoots your album to like 1000 blogs.

The touring thing will be the next step. If I could find a booking agent, that would be great but it’s the chicken and the egg thing. I have to create a name for myself before I can get a booking agent, which means I have to book the shows myself. For that I won’t need to raise money, but I could use the Point to get people to attend the shows in certain areas – as Cracker did.

Cracker showed up to your show?

No. Cracker formed a campaign on the Point to get people to come to the show. If they knew a certain number would show up, then they’d do the show.

This is such an interesting step on how to move forward with self promotion, financing, managing, etc. I recently spoke with MEN, [a DJ duo preformed made up of JD Samson and Joanne Fateman of Le Tigre] for another publication and they’re touring around a non-album, essentially. Music they have released online. And they were talking about not knowing what to promote at shows – We discussed the future of varying type of distribution. This all seems to fit nicely into that.

MEN could sell digital download cards through DiscRevolt. Although I think CDs are still pretty cool.

Definitely. I mean, I talked to them mid-tour and they were trying to figure it out. And then after the tour, they had said that it was strange because through Le Tigre, they certainly formed a dependence on having something tangible to tour and sell so they were still trying to figure out what it all meant.

I think that’s why having a CD will remain relevant. People want to leave the show with a souvenir. Even if it’s a compilation of their songs on the web with a cover.

If someone were to ask you any advice on to how to go about doing something similar, what would you tell them?

I would suggest to someone who wants to raise money for an album on The Point to make sure that if they don’t already have a fan-base to have mp3s for people to listen to – even if they’re demos.

Also don’t be afraid to ask for help! I was afraid to ask for money but then it happened! Also keep people informed of how you use the money. I need to post another news update that tells that I actually went in and recorded. I’ve been bad about that!

If I were to do it differently, I would have asked for more money because a dozen people or so wanted to contribute money after the campaign closed. I’d say to keep in mind that the whole process of recording on your own is long, arduous, sometimes painful but overall very fulfilling, and raising the money for it should give them confidence that people really want to hear your stuff.

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