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Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers

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Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers

#2
This was linked from some Twitter posts from cellist Zoe Keating, who makes some interesting modern music. I'm impressed that she's making here numbers public.

She gets more from Pandora than Spotify. https://twitter.com/zoecello/status/231126328924061696

Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers

#3

This was linked from some Twitter posts from cellist Zoe Keating, who makes some interesting modern music. I'm impressed that she's making here numbers public. She gets more from Pandora than Spotify. https://twitter.com/zoecello/status/231126328924061696

What I find most interesting is someone with 1.3m Twitter followers is having so little of her music streamed, I assume that this is because the majority of her fans purchase her music? I notice she has a Bandcamp account. I think it would be great to see her Bandcamp sales figures too as a point of reference, and ideally an explanation of how being available on Spotify / Pandora affected her sales figures.

She's also posted some more stats here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkasqHkVRM1OdEJ...

Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers

#4
32,000 plays and only $132. That seems really bad, if music does start to move more towards streaming than purchasing artists are screwed. It would take nearly 300,000 plays at this rate for someone living in an average city apartment to make rent.

The internet and technology in general have done some great things for music but making money is harder than ever.

Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers

#5

This was linked from some Twitter posts from cellist Zoe Keating, who makes some interesting modern music. I'm impressed that she's making here numbers public. She gets more from Pandora than Spotify. https://twitter.com/zoecello/status/231126328924061696

What I find most interesting is someone with 1.3m Twitter followers is having so little of her music streamed, I assume that this is because the majority of her fans purchase her music? I notice she has a Bandcamp account. I think it would be great to see her Bandcamp sales figures too as a point of reference, and ideally an explanation of how being available on Spotify / Pandora affected her sales figures. She's als…

How many of those followers aren't fans, but:

1. bots

2. People who want to set up a business deal (everyone from major label agents to real estate agents)

3. Random people that follow others in the hopes of gaining more followers

Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers

#6

32,000 plays and only $132. That seems really bad, if music does start to move more towards streaming than purchasing artists are screwed. It would take nearly 300,000 plays at this rate for someone living in an average city apartment to make rent. The internet and technology in general have done some great things for music but making money is harder than ever.

My opinion of this result changes depending on how many unique users those 32,000 plays represent.

Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers

#8

32,000 plays and only $132. That seems really bad, if music does start to move more towards streaming than purchasing artists are screwed. It would take nearly 300,000 plays at this rate for someone living in an average city apartment to make rent. The internet and technology in general have done some great things for music but making money is harder than ever.

If the average listener listens to 10 songs from an artist per month that only takes 3200 listeners to "make rent". 3200 listeners is a very small amount when you consider a) how little commitment there is to listening to music b) how easy it is to distribute music.

> The internet and technology in general have done some great things for music but making money is harder than ever.

I think the amount you can make per listener has decreased but the amount of listeners and reach has increased exponentially. For evidence of this check out all the independent Youtube musicians, there are quite a few securing millions of video views per month, that alone is enough to fund a good life, then if you add in sales, streams (via Spotify etc) they make excellent incomes that they couldn't have got 10 years ago.

Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers

#9

32,000 plays and only $132. That seems really bad, if music does start to move more towards streaming than purchasing artists are screwed. It would take nearly 300,000 plays at this rate for someone living in an average city apartment to make rent. The internet and technology in general have done some great things for music but making money is harder than ever.

Think about that for a minute.

How many people listen to a song, how often, and at what licensing rate?

Clearchannel radio claims their network reaches 237 Million listeners a month [1]. If they managed to hit one play for every listener they reach at $132/32,000 that is $977,592 per month.

Yes, its hard to get between 'starting' and 'living large.' And no, not everyone will go there, but the numbers here aren't "really bad" they are in fact pretty good.

One business which is an analog to the current music 'label' business will be similar to what search engine optimizers do, they will contract with a promising artist and say "I'll pay you $x up front, and in exchange for that you will sign over all the income from this song for the next 'n' years to me." Then the muscian gets paid up front, the music distributor/marketer has a chance to make some money, and everyone 'wins.' Once the contract expires all the rights revert back to the artist.

The artist is making a bet that they will get more money for the first 'n' years of the song this way, and the distributor is betting they can make more than that on the song.

[1] http://www.clearchannel.com/Corporate/

Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers

#10

32,000 plays and only $132. That seems really bad, if music does start to move more towards streaming than purchasing artists are screwed. It would take nearly 300,000 plays at this rate for someone living in an average city apartment to make rent. The internet and technology in general have done some great things for music but making money is harder than ever.

I garuntee more than 32,000 listeners heard her on NPR in any given city. So Spotify seems much better than radio, regardless of the consumer.
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