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Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

stevebenjamins.com

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Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#31

Post by sharkweek »

boplicity wrote: post #21

65,000 listeners a month – $800 in revenue. 1.23 cents per listener per month. That works out to 14.7 cents per year. To earn a modest $50,000, you would need ~360,000 monthly listeners. This doesn't seem sustainable without outside sources of revenue.

Correct, this is why bands tour and sell shirts and other merch, and for most, work second jobs. As an anecdote, friend of mine is in two or three bands at any given time and bartends most nights he’s not playing shows.

Spotify makes it easier than ever for an artist to get their work out there, which is great, but it’s similar to the publishing world, where most authors who self publish do so into the void.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#32

Post by Scoundreller »

boplicity wrote: post #21

65,000 listeners a month – $800 in revenue. 1.23 cents per listener per month. That works out to 14.7 cents per year. To earn a modest $50,000, you would need ~360,000 monthly listeners. This doesn't seem sustainable without outside sources of revenue.

Hopefully any musician isn’t depending solely on Spotify.

But then again, saying the same thing about Youtube doesn’t quite sound the same.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#33

Post by mkl »

devalgo wrote: post #28
smeeth wrote: post #20

With great power comes great responsibility, Spotify Data Scientists. If discover weekly is truly that impactful a decision made by a model to include or not include a song could determine whether or not an indie artist can pay their rent that month. Not quite iris dataset classification. Edit: I should clarify that I only mean that this impact raises interesting questions and DSs (I am one) should pay close attentio…

It's not Spotify's responsibility to make sure indie artists are getting paid.

Well, it is definitely in Spotify's interest to keep as many quality artists as possible on Spotify, and that probably involves paying them.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#34

Post by volkk »

Spotify's discovery playlist is a double edged sword. My account is permanently screwed because I decided to listen to a lot of rain sounds when going to sleep for a few months while I had a puppy. Now ALL I get for recommendations are calm sounds. I don't actually listen to these during the day, I want my old stuff. I hate it and want to reset the discovery playlist, but seems I have no way of doing so aside from getting a new account?

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#35

Post by Scoundreller »

aczerepinski wrote: post #27

If anybody wants to know how to earn $20/decade with Spotify I can throw some of my own experiences into a blog post :)

Looking forward to your write up on “how to fail at Spotify and enjoy yourself”.

Edit: clickbaity: “How to Bomb Spotify”

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#36

Post by [deleted] »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #26
monocasa wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radios don't have to pay anything unless they're an internet stream

I believe that over the air and internet streams are paid out separately. Over the air looks to play 12c to 6c per play https://www.quora.com/How-much-are-music-artists-paid-in-Roy...

[deleted]

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#37

Post by speedgoose »

boplicity wrote: post #21

65,000 listeners a month – $800 in revenue. 1.23 cents per listener per month. That works out to 14.7 cents per year. To earn a modest $50,000, you would need ~360,000 monthly listeners. This doesn't seem sustainable without outside sources of revenue.

50 000$ isn't modest in most parts of the world.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#38

Post by HenryKissinger »

aczerepinski wrote: post #27

If anybody wants to know how to earn $20/decade with Spotify I can throw some of my own experiences into a blog post :)

$2 a year might have been enough to live a middle class life back in ......

What's the conversion rate for the Roman sesterces in 44BC to USD?

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#39

Post by fuball63 »

> Plus I think asking listeners to listen to a full-length album don’t make sense in our attention-starved world. Asking listeners to listen to a single song might just be a more realistic ask.

This is why I love listening to albums, because it flies in the face of throwaway/hyper-consumable media. Spotify, with its algorithmic playlists and singles focus, bolsters the throwaway consumption of music, but many artists also enjoy the long tail of revenue from album streams. If an artist creates an album with lasting appeal, they can smooth out the initial spike of physical sales with a long slow burn of revenue.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#40

Post by njovin »

volkk wrote: post #34

Spotify's discovery playlist is a double edged sword. My account is permanently screwed because I decided to listen to a lot of rain sounds when going to sleep for a few months while I had a puppy. Now ALL I get for recommendations are calm sounds. I don't actually listen to these during the day, I want my old stuff. I hate it and want to reset the discovery playlist, but seems I have no way of doing so aside from ge…

This is unfortunately a common problem and the only way to beat the algorithm is to turn it against itself.

Create few playlists and add songs you like to them and also be diligent about liking and unliking songs. These will heavily influence your recommendations and you should be able to get back on track.

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