Family Values Promotions

My wife Shirley and I are very proud to announce that M&S Public Relations has just been awarded 2011 Best of Indianapolis Award by the prestigious U.S. Commerce Association (USCA). If there has ever been a reason to choose one company over another, this would be it. There have been those that have said that if you have to pay for the trophy, it cannot be a legitimate company. It must be understood that this company, as well as many other companies, are in it to make money and you cannot make money by given everything away. Research is done by these companies in order to find companies like ours that are there to help the people. Therefore, for the small charge of a trophy to recognize us for the work that we do, it is worth it.

If you want to succeed in the music business, why not sign up with a company that is continually pushing forward and that is recognized by a National organization that is in the business of those that are making progress in their perspective field, rather than a company that is giving you the same story no matter how often you visit their website. It is up to you.
Michael J. Caron
President
M&S Public Relations
Always pushing forward to make sure that we can help to make your dreams come true.

If you have the dream of climbing the Stairways to the Stars you must be willing to Take That First Step. It's up to you to make your dreams come true!!

The official name of our business is M&S Public Relations and our website shall be known as Family Values Promotions. We shall do everything possible to help you move forward in your musical endeavors.

Thank you.

My name is Michael James Caron (shown here in the Snake Hat) with our client Chuck Kesilman and my beautiful wife Shirley Ruth Caron. I am president of M&S Public Relations (aka) Family Values Promotions. My wife Shirley is Vice President. Shirley is also in charge of finances, therefore, if you have any questions regarding payments or any other money matters you should address them to her. Our main goal is to get you, the artist, the recognition that you deserve.

This is my beautiful wife Shirley Ruth Caron. She is Vice President of M&S Public Relations and Financial Director for our operations. Questions regarding fees, commissions or other matters regarding payments will be directed to her at all times. You may reach Shirley at (317)887-2819. If you reach the answering machine it is very important that you leave a detailed message. She is becoming very busy and can only return calls that have messages.

When my wife Shirley and I began this business back in 2003, we went against the rules many times. We were told that in order to run a successful business we must charge a fee of $300.00 per year, plus require at least 30% of our client's revenue. Our price to represent you is $150.00 for a full two years and require only 10% of client's revenue. Since 2003 at least forty of our clients have gone on to bigger and better things. We have received nothing at all for our efforts. Nobody works for free. Therefore, we are now looking for all new clients that believe in honesty. If you cannot be honest, no matter how good you are, do not contact us. We have lost too much over the past eight years to continue to support clients that had no intentions of paying back. Once we have signed our new clients, those that are listed here will be gone..........We will be opening a category for Reggae and other Music as well, including Rap and Hip Hop. We are not trying to be harsh or portray a negative attitude, however we do need to know that you understand our situation before we even begin. Once we have found a record label or distributor for your music, you will have to follower their rules for their part of the business. Although many people feel that once they land that recording contract, the money is going to be flowing in like water. Not so. Once everyone has taken their cut you will be lucky if you have 20% left. If you have already signed a contract with a record label, you are stuck anyway and cannot get out of it. Be sure to read the fine print. It is very, very, important that you know what your responsibilities are and what their responsibilities are. If you don't understand anything at all about a contract, don't sign it until it is explained to you. If you sing cover songs, be sure you have permission to reproduce the music before you sign any contracts to have 10,000 copies or more of the songs reproduced, which you will pay for and eventually be sued for infringing on copy rights. If you sing original material, be sure that your original songs are copyrighted and that you have not given the rights to your songs away while signing a contract. This is where the magic word FREE comes in. If a record label hears a song sung by you that sounds like it will be a hit, they will offer to produce and distribute your song for free. After you sign the contract and a few weeks or months go by and you have not heard from your producer, and you have also not received any royalties from your original material, you may start to wonder what is taking so long. The truth of the matter, and this happens every day of the week, when you signed the contract, you also signed an agreement to turn over all rights to your original material to your producer. You even signed over rights to your producer to allow someone else other than yourself sing the song, because it no longer belongs to you. We have been telling people this for at least ten years, and they still sign contracts without reading them first. Once you sign the contract, we can not help you. So, how do you make money in the music industry? First, we will put your pictures, biography, and everything else on our website. We will not display all of your songs on our website because of one simple fact. If you have twenty original songs that you want displayed, and these songs are also on iTunes or other sites where people can purchase them it would be just as easy for them to lift them off our site for free. This goes for You Tube videos. This is a small example. One of our clients that felt that he knew more than we did, signed a deal with his producer for a video. He was told to mail all his pictures to the producer along with a check for $350.00. He was also told that he would receive $1.50 for each video sold. My client waited to be called to Nashville to shoot the video. Instead he was informed that his video was on You Tube. Here is an example of a $350.00 video.

I Love Bluegrass

If you are performing on stage during a Summer Festival, it is well worth your while to put it on You Tube for recognition, However, it would be nice to see what you look like, and if you have a band it would also be nice to see what they look like. Those that view our website want to see what appeal artists would have at their establishment, as well as how well they sing. It's nice taking a stroll down memory lane, but that is all you will have is memories. We would rather have you making new memories. No matter what genre music you sing or what you look like, if you have some You Tube Videos, send them to us and we will give you an honest opinion of whether we can help you or not. We don't even care if you are a woman singing in the shower. The way to make money in music is to stay active in the clubs, private functions, and other venues that will keep bringing the money in and get your name known. Check the bottom of each page. We have comment forms that you can use to get the info to us.

Competition; Every business has them. You will have offers to represent you free of charge or have people gaurantee to get you a Recording contract within six months, {If you send them $3,600.00 actual figure} When or IF you get that contract that will cost you an additional cost of $5,000.00 to $10,000.00. If you feel that you are so good that you should not have to pay a penny for your promotion that's find. We are here to help those that realize that when someone offers you something for free, you will get your money's worth.

This is me, Michael James Caron (Mike)

and my beautiful and talented wife Shirley Ruth Caron

We will be introducing two new features to our website. The first is Showcase Your Talent which is already in place. On this page we invite you to display you songs wheather they are on sing snap, Reverbnation, or You Tube. There is no cost for this feature. This is for those who love to sing but would rather not do it professionally or think that they may have a chance but would rather not put out the money until they know for sure. If you are interested, e-mail me at michael_caron2942@hotmail.com Include a clear picture or pictures, tell me a little about yourself and include the links to your music.

Be sure to include a clear picture and some information about yourself.

The second feature will be for anyone who has ever displayed their talent at a music award show whether it was in a school auditorium, theater, or even the EIA Award Show in Nashville. As long as the show was video-taped either before a live audience or just a private showing. It will be best if you are able to condense it to include your performance only. If you performed two or more numbers, that is fine. Send the link to me at michael_caron2942@hotmail.com along with detailed information. What month and year, name of the show, location, and if you received an award please include that as well. Also be sure to include your name and address (which will not be displayed) and one or more clear photos. We look forward to hearing from you.

Click here for email

When you performed at a music contest or taping of a show, more likely than not you had to travel to get there. That cost money. Once there, you had to find lodging, which you also paid for. Then came the food. When you arrived at the hall or venue where the taping was being held, you signed in. If you had guests with you, they signed as well. Both you and your guests had to pay a fee for being there. Usually, taping is done in two days meaning more money for lodging and food. Somewhere during the taping you were told that you could purchase a copy of the finished product for a set price. Therefore, for you to even be able to see your performance, you would have to pay for it. By the time your weekend was over, you and your family spent a little over $1,000.00. You were thanked for your time and told that they would be in touch. After about three or four months your video finally arrives. By now you are fuming because of all the money you have spent for nothing. Use the video to your advantage. Whether it was last year or ten years ago. Let others know how you sound and get the recognition that you deserve. My wife Shirley and I had to pay the same amount as everyone else even though we supplied the talent. When it was Shirley's time to sing, she received the most unprofessional response possible from her producer.

She had just recovered from a Grand Mall seizure and was told that she had to sing.

Don't keep a video hidden in a drawer when it could be used to help you get back at least some of what you lost. We no longer work with those in the music industry that put money before talent. If it were not for the songwriters that write the songs and the vocalists who sing the songs there would be no need for producers to produce the songs or distributors to distribute the songs. In fact, there really isn't much need for them now. If you send in a couple of good videos and club owners in your area see and listen to your music and like what they see, you are on your way. Today's music is digital. You would only need enough CDs or DVDs to sell at your performances. As an example, if there is a club near you that you would want to perform at, let me know. I would send a link of your performance to them, along with your information. When I hear back from them and get the information from them I would let you know. If you agree with the terms, it's a go. The world is digital, so why stay in a different dimension? Always remember one important fact. If you sign with a record label, either small or large, either the record label or an affiliate will want to distribute your songs. Most will want you to order at least 10,000 copies of which you will normally receive 200. You will either pay for these 10,000 copies up front or the money will be taken out of money owed you. Either way, you will be putting out more money than you take in. I would need two CDs or DVDs. Either I would make an MP3 file with one, or have you supply a link for the song or album. This is what I would send to venues in your area to revue your performance. They are already at the computer and they will respond quicker then sending them bulky packages that they very seldom open. Most often, a package will remain on their desk for a week or more before they open it, however email is read daily.

It is going to take time to make all the changes necessary throughout this website, therefore you may come across some conflicting statements here and there. My wife and I knew nothing about the music industry before she was nominated by the E.I.A. Awards show (Entertainer Indi-Association)for Silver Writer Artist of 2003. This was an exciting time for both of us, and before the taping was even finished a woman approached Shirley saying that she wanted to promote her talent. Although I did not know that much about the music business, I knew that when the Talent Promoter told us how much her services were and we told her that we could not afford it, and she waved her hand and said, "Don't worry, I'll wave the fee." that did not sound right. However, instead of telling her that we did not require her services, we were too caught up in the moment and went along with it. For the next year or so, we were having to pay for a lot of incidentals not covered by the Talent Agent. To pay for those incidentals, we managed to create about four Talent Showcase events to cover expenses and promote our artists to Emerald Records. At the first Talent Showcase, we had ten artists to present to Mister Ayres. By this time, we were already in debt from paying out all the money to the Talent Agent. The money paid to her did not include the semi annual $100.00 fee that we had to pay to be members of the E.I.A. plus the entry fee of $450.00 for each E.I.A. Award show that we attended. By this time, Two songs written by Shirley had already been published, but not yet released. Two weeks before the E.I.A. show was to be aired, I called Shirley's Talent Agent to tell her about the results of the Talent Contest. She was in a meeting with Cliff and when I told her what I had, she quickly told me to tell Cliff and handed the phone over to him. He told me to get the information to him as quickly as possible, and said that the talent agent had something to tell Shirley. The talent agent told Shirley that she had just quit and that Shirley would have to find a new talent promoter. Shirley said that she already had one. Me. We still had to pay our fee like everyone else, even though without our ten artists there would not have been a taping of that show.

Supposedly, we were to receive 10% of the entry fee for every client that attended the E.I.A. Awards Show, plus 10% for every client that signed and paid for, an Emerald Records contract. Many of our clients signed contracts and have received royalties for their songs, however in the past ten years we have received approximately two hundred dollars for our efforts. In that amount of time, these are the awards that have been presented to us. Shirley Ruth Caron Golden Poet/ Artist 2005- Female Adult/Contemporary Vocalists 2006- Platinum Writer/Vocalist 2006- EIA Golden Writer Artist 2007- Mike and Shirley Caron EIA Golden Legendary Writers & Promoters 2008- EIA Golden Promoters & Artists 2009.

Those that receive a nomination from the Entertainer Network which is the company owned by Entertainer Indi-Association do stand to go forth in the music industry and get a lot of recognition, however, we the promoters do not receive a penny for our efforts. This is the Harsh Realities of the Music business. Those thet you think are making thousands of dollars a week are probably not making enough to survive.

~Mike~