Strategies for selling your music ... online.

Since people get everything they want for a $10 streaming subscription, they don't understand why anyone would pay for music. Streaming should simply give artists a proper percentage for using their work. Basically, we're fucked.

Your album cost you the time to write it, record it, engineer it, mix it, master it and post it. That's a lot and we're not even mentioning the years it took to gain the skills to do that.

We simply can't rely of music sales anymore. the only way out is through publishing, and that's a fairly dead end itself, unless you're writing hit tunes for pop stars or movie soundtracks.

I'll be curious to follow this as well.

But agree with Martin. Market share of people willing to purchase a digital file is very small. Most are on streaming services. Even I am am paying for Spotify. The down side is of course, you as an artist don't really get paid anything from spotify or other streaming services unless you're getting millions of hits for it to be really sustainable.

Those numbers actually look pretty decent. the key is really narrowing down your audience. I'm in the early stages of doing something similar so this is very interesting to me.

One thought, maybe instead of trying to sell your single/album you point the ad to your song on Spotify and have people save/follow it. Or try selling a different product like merch (shirts, artwork, etc). IME people are more likely to buy merch than they are music.

Or, try changing the pitch. Maybe work on creating a compelling story (your story), and ask people to "donate" to support the "cause" (in this case the cause would be you making music), similar to how Patreon works, and they get the single/album for "free" with a donation.

I'm just brainstorming here. These are all ideas I'm working on. I'm weeks away from a serious social media campaign for my business (got derailed by covid) and months away from a social media push for some original music I'm working on. I'll let you know what works and doesn't for me.

Best of luck

Facebook is a scam, in my opinion, I wouldn't give them a penny.

I have, I think, 6 albums for sale on Bandcamp. To date, talking all time earnings, for several years, I have maybe made about $75 total. Most of that is from close friends or people I know really well who just want to support me.

My strategy on this topic is to think about "what would I do as a fan?" Do I buy digital downloads? Almost never. Do I like seeing Facebook ads? No I think they're kind of corny.

If I wanted to be a "good citizen" maybe I would buy my friends' music on bandcamp, to sort of support them the same way a handful of them have "supported" me. I certainly pay attention when my cohorts put out releases.

Things I pay for, really, are limited to vinyl albums of things I really love. Digital should be assumed, basically, to have a zero value in 2020. I might buy the odd CD here and there too. But fewer and fewer consumers use CD's these days. I might buy a cassette tape too, but they are literally trash and so I don't buy a lot of them. I wish people would stick to CD's and vinyl at the lower rungs of the popular ladder.

I don't really want my music on streaming services. Those are exploitative of our passion and profit the wrong people. Bandcamp is closer to the "good guy" in this field.

I do support YouTube, just because I love watching other people, and uploading my own stuff once in a while. To make any kind of money on YouTube you have to have tens of thousands of views, which I am personally nowhere close to. For whatever reason, this service is more valuable to me than the audio streaming services.

But you have to think of who gets the money and who doesn't. Enough people are viewing YouTube that you can sort of think of it as "reaching" people even though it's not profitable for most people. People like to "look at stuff." It seems to have shifted that way, and away from playing albums. As far as I can tell. I do better with videos, compared to my recordings, even though it's a marginal difference. People seem more interested. I think video is up and audio is down is what I'm saying. It's a whole other skill set though.

My strategy with album release is direct messaging everyone I know that I think would be interested. Last one I did about a year and a half ago, I really did get a response, and some positive feedback. So maybe sending those 20 emails or whatever it was sort of paid off. A few people "actually listened." I think sticking to EP and Album releases is probably better than single song releases. Give people more to chew on. I have heard people say the opposite though, so it can be debated.

Do I go to shows and buy merch? I'm 37 years old and those are getting fewer and farther between. But if I had a live act on a regular schedule I would damn sure try to have CD's and maybe vinyl records.

I hope this is on topic enough, just trying to share my real experience.

That's sort of how Twitch works, with streaming live video.  When people follow, subscribe, etc, they pay money to the person making the video, sort of like tipping a bartender or something.  I don't think that's a very good place for musicians though.  A lot of music people on YouTube talk about their Patreon in their videos also.

Dr. Bill you primarily work in music for picture, is that right?  I'm curious to hear about that world that you live in if you have anything to dish.

Yeah, about 25 years ago - mid 90's I started moving over from records to Film/TV music.  I've always done records though, but my main focus became music for picture because there was more money to be made in that camp.  At least there was back then.

Just like the record biz, things have changed radically and thrown the business on it's proverbial head.  The big paydays are long gone.  The blockbusters still have great budgets, but the mid level movie budgets for music have fallen like a rock.  $100k to $50k to $25k to $5k - all in.  (Musicians, engineers, supplies, editors, whatever it takes to complete.)

At some point along the rocky downhill road, I realized that OWNERSHIP of content is where the money was/is, and essentially "selling it" like I had was a dead in street.  Big companies always want ownership of masters and publishing.  Gee...wonder why....  Cause that's where the money is.  It's where the money is in neighboring rights.  It's where the money is in performance royalties.  It's where the money is in licensing.  It's where the money is!!

So...I started to push against "industry standard" practices and take the road less traveled.  Taking no money upfront, and keeping my creative works.  That worked well for awhile....until it didn't.  I have been able to survive completely of royalties for a decade, but it's looking more and more bleak for the future.

Essentially - and believe me, I have quantified this and double checked percentages, stats and royalty streams with other composers - essentially "streaming" i.e. Amazon VOD, Hulu, Netflix and the myriads of new services popping up daily - essentially they pay about 4-6% of what cable TV paid in royalties.  Probably less than 1% of what Network TV paid.

That's obviously unsustainable.

Everything in the creative arts is imploding in on itself - constricting - becoming smaller - becoming more difficult. Film music, TV music, "Records", video, it's all the same with unique yet similar roadblocks and hurdles.  Unless you are big-time, have "name recognition" or are EXTREMELY lucky, you're making pennies.  Or more correctly thousandths of pennies.  (believe me, I'd be THRILLED to be making pennies - I'd be retired with a nice boat and beachfront property in the bahahas..... :-) )

So.....what all this requires is new thinking, new ways of monitizing, new forms of promotion, new workflows.  If you're tied to old school paradigms, prepare to be moving in next to the dinosaurs.  You will almost certainly become extinct.  If you think outside the box, try new things, move ahead instead of fighting to move back, maybe you will have a chance.  Unfortunately, only time will tell us which of us will survive.  (If any)

But back a few steps - my move to keep the ownership of my creative works at the expense of getting money in hand when I wrote it - that move may very well save me.  At the very least, it gives me a venue to explore.  I now own over 1200 of my own titles.  And it's almost all at the quality level or better of the "average" release.  That's a lot of creative mass to leverage.  So....

Look at neighboring rights - record company keeps 50%, artist keeps 40%.  Streaming (Spotify) Record company keep majority - can't remember the exact percentage, artist gets gypped.  Performance royalties - publisher keeps 50%.  Seeing a trend?  Those who own the goods are taking a big FAT percentage.  So why give your creative works away for nothing or next to nothing.  It kills off the possibility of future potential.  Keeping ownership means that YOU are the record company, YOU are the artist, YOU are the publisher, and YOU will be the lions share of any monies generated.  Unfortunately, as wiz has noted, it also means promoting yourself.

If you only have 1 EP, well, that income is going to be infinitesimally small.  If you have a hundred albums with 1200 songs out there, then the payday just went up exponentially.

With that in mind, I have enough material for a solid 50-75+ CD's, Digital releases or whatever you want to call them, and I create new titles virtually every day.  In terms of earning potential and survival, unfortunately quantity is going to trump quality in anything but high end artist releases as it takes NUMBERS to get found and/or recognized from my research.  

Later this year I'm going to launch a record company comprised of mostly my own music and release a ton of music the next couple of years to the music consuming public that has not previously been available publicly - in a DECIDEDLY off beat, non artist oriented direction that I'm not really wanting to talk about yet.  At least that's my plan and I hope too - God willing.....  I'm not planning for super stardom, I'm not planning for mega-bucks, I'm just hoping for another diversified income stream to help support those that are currently sagging.

Time will tell if it's a complete waste of time and money, or if I might be able to retire with a middle-income life someday.   .

 At least I'll die trying with my work boots on....  

At the risk of sounding obtuse, I think I've said about as much as I want to publicly at this point.  Read between some of the lines of my post...  . And really, it's all an exploratory mission for me.  Who knows what I'll find.  

Congrats on the new song! Nope I'm not making money selling music, and wouldn't try. But if I were trying you are kind of on the right track, in that you are calculating stuff. First, $27.50 is less than a trip to Kinko's to make flyers. I think you actually did pretty good getting 12 people to go to the song. If you posted flyers all over town would 12 people look you up?

First you calculate your 'per person' potential sale costs ($27.50/12= $2.30). Then you can calc your conversion rate. No conversion yet, so you'll need a bigger sample size. Even if you had 1 or 2 sales, it tells you very little. You need a sample size of hundreds, better thousands, of folks to actually listen to the song and see how the numbers fall. They'll rarely ever buy the first time they hear it, but it would be nice to know that ratio. That's probably why live sales work better, there's groups of people actually listening and part of the experience. Even there I notice T-shirts seem to sell much better. Beer mugs. Socks. Everyone can stream the music now, only the truest die hard fans support with purchasing music. And really if you think about it, buying music is like buying something they already have. Streaming. (audience subconsciously: "I already own your CD.. but I like you so much that I'll buy it for no reason") Vinyl is a little better because its a different sonic experience and cooler artwork. 

Targeting a market is tough. The music needs to make a super deep connection in order for a purchase to happen these days. And these days, even if the deepest connection happens.. free is SO nice!!! The purchasers of music might be out there, but to really know got to increase the sample size somehow.. live on radio? vlogger interviews? Wherever you can connect with the audience..


I've aways thought touring retirement homes could be a success. Music connects with people in transition, so there's potential for strong connections there. Plus that age range paid for music their whole lives, and might not be broke.  

Personally, for that Entertainment "Lottery Ticket"...
I have more faith in developing a TV Show concept, vs. creating/marketing Music.

FWIW some years ago, there was an opportunity (for me!) to make relative Big Bucks, by being the Associate Producer on a new Network TV show. I had to sign a pile of NDA's BTW on this.

Long story short, at the 11th Hour, the Network Owner decided not to run it.

I'm encouraging the main person, who was the concept originator/Head Producer to rekindle things, with other Networks/Cable Stations etc...
As she holds the Copywrites/Trademarks.

I also have some of my own ideas, to do my own thing too. And have an Entertainment Attorney that's a good friend, and will help wrangle a support team, assuming my Show Treatment indicates it.
(He represented a successful Musical in the past FWIW)

Anyway, this kind of thing/Film & TV placement IMHO is where more of the money is at.
Chris

I've done many online ads, online fund raisers as well as running campaigns via Mail Chimp to draw some interest in new releases. The mailing list is crucial for me as it is made up of ONLY people I know who are interested in the music. Still, sales are not incredible by any means. We end up selling far more CDs and merch at shows than we can online. I think building a fan base is essential and then getting them to tell friends, etc. We have had considerable airplay that helped for a moment in time, but due to the cost of radio promotions, it isn't sustainable. Which brings up the real question: "Can you make a sustainable income in music?" After trying for most of my life, I'd have to say "no". I'm not a defeatist. I just see that people generally do not buy music and the streaming services give so little to the artists. Until laws change, I can't see any future in music (financially). I'm still not throwing in the towel at all. The band I am with has sold over 4000 Cds in the last 8 years. We've met a lot of great people by traveling the country. We continue to write and record and promote the music. We do this for ourselves; not in hopes of making a living doing it. I think most artists (in any field) are not able to finance their life through the art they make. So, we have to work a day job to pay bills and get to tour as often as possible to share our music. Even with what I wrote, I hate to admit it. I think the worst insult people give me is that I have a nice "hobby". "Hobby" does not define what we do, but the art we create does define us.

Several of my friends did live streaming concerts during the quarantine and have online tip jars. Various services offer that like Paypal and Venmo. 

Also I think Patreon can be setup that way so that rather than a monthly subscription model, you just pay the artist when they create something. So every time you release a single I'd pay some amount. In fact I thought that's how Patreon works, you sign up to pay like$0.50 or $5 or $50 for every thing that artist creates and posts they get paid.