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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

#41

Post by andygcook »

parhamn wrote: post #22
mcgreenbeats wrote: post #4

this music is fantastic! Congrats on the success.

I just listened to "Lullabies For Little Crimes" and "Circles", it was great! I'm really happy Spotify found a way to surface artists like this who deserve attention!

Agreed. After an initial listening, it's clear Steve's really talented. Which admittedly probably helps with the earning money part of the article.

It's kind of like that PG quote:

"What Customers Want - It's not just startups that have to worry about this. I think most businesses that fail do it because they don't give customers what they want. Look at restaurants. A large percentage fail, about a quarter in the first year. But can you think of one restaurant that had really good food and went out of business?"

(edit - formatting)

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

#42

Post by john-shaffer »

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.

That's $800/month for a tiny artist that would otherwise be making about $0/month.

> I don't tour, I don't sell merch and I'm not on a major label. I'm just a small indie artist making music in my evenings— and Spotify is making that possible.

In other words, it's a hobby.

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

#44

Post by aeturnum »

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…

I think Spotify would do well to allow users to set a label of some sort on their listening. Like, there are times when you listen to your music for yourself in the car, and there are times when your phone is being used to power the speakers at a gathering. I don't know what the internals of the system looks like, but it seems like allowing users to maintain different profiles would be simple.

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

#45

Post by 3pt14159 »

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.

I listen to about 200 or 300 songs a day since I need music to get into the zone. It's listens not listeners.

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

#46

Post by notagoodidea »

sgt wrote: post #2

Does anyone still buy albums on iTunes? I haven't done that in a while, but I have to say I prefer to physically own the music I listen to often. If I can't get a physical media like CD or vinyl, then iTunes store was second best aside from illegal options.

It depends on the artists you are following but I tend to only buy albums on Bandcamp :

* Artists get most of the money, Bandcamp takes a fixed rate.

* I can have physical albums and/or .flac numeric version.

* If I am lazy, I have access to the streaming app of Bandcamp for the music I bought or to discover (actively, not through playlist) new artists.

Not perferct but better than iTunes and Spotify for me (and only for me not in general).

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

#47

Post by qppo »

jdxcode wrote: post #8

I feel Spotify makes it hard to listen to albums. I can queue up a song to play and it’ll then get back to my playlist, but if I play and album eventually it’ll reach the end and quit playing anything. Then I will have to stop what I’m doing and find something else to play. I feel the UX could be improved and it might change listening habits similar to Discover Weekly

What, you don't appreciate an ad between the Happiest Days of our Lives and Another Brick in the Wall part 2 or 2112 Overture and The Temples of Syrinx?

This comment may date myself

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

#48

Post by shacrw »

Scoundreller wrote: post #35
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”

"Stupefy by Spotify as a Service" : a mentorship service to protect those who get stupefied by spotify

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

#49

Post by racl101 »

sharkweek wrote: post #31
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.

As a humble band once said, I think their name was AC/DC:

Gettin' old

Gettin' gray

Gettin' ripped off

Underpaid

Gettin' sold

Second-hand

That's how it goes

Playin' in a band

It's a long way to the top

If you wanna rock 'n' roll

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

#50

Post by crispyporkbites »

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.

It's not anyones responsibility to ensure indie artists, or any kind of art for that matter, exists

It would be nice if people cared about things beyond $$$ and worked on art for the sake of art

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