Chris Lendt, Vice President at Glickman/Marks Management Company the former Business managers for Kiss, Diana Ross and other artists, had some great comments to say about my ebook KISS School of Marketing: 11 Lessons I Learned While Working with KISS. He also goes on to offer some of his own insight on marketing.

Thanks again for sending me a copy of your book.  I’ve read through it twice now.  It’s a valuable primer for artists who are looking to break into the music business and crack the code as to how to make it work for them.  You offer a lively mix of truisms and business wisdom, succinctly presented and artfully packaged.

The ability to think counterintuitively is a theme that I emphasize in teaching entertainment marketing students at NYU.  One example of this is the traditional album.  The more this format  declines in sales and popularity, the greater its importance as a marketing tool.  Virtually every marketing platform is built on the album:  artwork, photos, Internet media, videos, concert production, merchandise, etc.  The CD as a source of revenue is clearly waning but as a marketing tool, it is vital in creating the brand of the artist.  Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, Jay Z, Black Eyed Peas, Katty Perry and Lil Wayne are a few current successful examples.

Kiss instinctively understood this long before the word “brand” was part of the everyday lexicon of  the music business.  The band was fortunate to have so many talented people involved in the early part of their career who recognized the value of these elements.  From what I can tell, they’re cashing in to this day on the music and imaging that was created in the ’70s and ’80s.  To be sure, it has stood the test of time.

Chris is currently teaching Entertainment Marketing in the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies and previously taught graduate and undergraduate courses in the Music Business program at NYU.

Chris is also the author of Kiss and Sell: The Making of a Supergroup. Kiss and Sell is a riveting account of the intersecting worlds of music and commerce, as viewed from the perspective of C.K. Lendt, a top executive with Kiss’s business management from 1976 to 1988. It’s an in-depth look at the convergence of hard rock, big business, and bigger egos, and a revealing story of how images are built and money is made and spent. It’s an unparalleled view of the lifestyles and excesses of rock stars, the pressures of staying on top, the influence of the entertainment industry’s power brokers, and the glitz, glamour, and celebrity of stars such as Diana Ross, Lisa Hartman, and Cher.