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

My best guess is that payment is based on some sort of revenue sharing agreement. So Spotify takes a portion of it's revenue for a certain time period and divides it equally among the artists based on the number of times their songs were played.

Yeah, that was my initial thought. A single play on radio in a big market could easily reach well over 32,000 people. The revenue model for streaming seems to be based on the payout systems that are used for radio. Unfortunately for artists, streaming services like Pandora and Spotify tend to compete against their iTunes and album sales, at least much more so than radio ever did. (in fact radio airtime was mostly considered to be promotional back in the day, very few artists made money from it, and there were a number of scandals were labels payed radio stations to play their music).

This reminded me to check her schedule. She'll be in Boston October 11. Tickets purchased. Thanks!

   These Here is her summary on the final sheet. I will try to format it as much as possible:

What is this?

This accounting data is payment for plays of my "One Cello x 16" recordings from Spotify. The payments are minus the 9% taken off the top by CDBaby.

Why did I post it?

You've probably heard a lot of discussion on how musicians should be compensated for their work: There have been numerous articles on the subject; We know how the big players in the industry: - labels, digital retailers, streaming companies, etc -  make money; We get reports on the industry-wide sales figures. But all the way at the bottom of the food-chain, how does a recording artist make a living? How much cold cash does an unsigned DIY artist make from a stream or a sale? These figures are surprisingly hard to come by, which is why the Future of Music Coalition has been surveying musicians on how they make a living (really worth reading: http://money.futureofmusic.org/).

I thought it might be helpful for interested parties to see what a DIY artist receives for plays of their music on Spotify. But I admit I have grander designs: if we are going to discuss the ideal structure of the new music industry, we need to know how recording artists make a living today or we're just spouting hyperbole. So, in the interest of evolving the discussion, I am making myself into a data point. I encourage other artists, if they are able, to do the same. 

What is in the data?

Again, this is what I received from Spotify for plays of a portion of my catalog. One of my albums is not on Spotify however because I don't have a digital distributor for it (I sell it on my own website, on Bandcamp and through my own label account with iTunes)

Since I posted this info I've gotten a lot of questions about my music sales income for comparison, so I added a snapshot of iTunes, Bandcamp and Amazon and accounting from Soundexchange (i.e. Pandora) and ASCAP (i.e. Radio)

Why aren't all my albums on Spotify?

When I started releasing music in 2005 I used CDBaby since at the time it was the only way into iTunes for DIY'er. Years later, I got a label account with iTunes so I could release "Into The Trees" to them directly, without a service in the middle. This year I took my "One Cello x 16" recordings out of CDBaby and re-uploaded them into iTunes through my label account (losing all my rankings and reviews in the process, which is why I put if off for so long).

Spotify does not work directly with artists, so to get my music in there I have to use an aggregator like CDBaby, TuneCore or Orchard. I've yet to find a digital distributor who will take my recordings without also having a piece of iTunes....and so that is why "Into The Trees" is not on Spotify yet.

Bonus, Deep Thoughts!

I think Spotify is awesome as a listening platform. In my opinion artists should view it as a discovery service rather than a source of income.

The income of a non-mainstream artist like me is a patchwork quilt and streaming is currently one tiny square in that quilt. Streaming is not yet a replacement for digital sales, and to conflate the two is a mistake.   I do not see streaming as a threat to my income, just like I've never regarded file-sharing as a threat but as a convenient way to hear music. If people really like my music, I still believe they'll support it somewhere, somehow. Casual listeners won't, but they never did anyway. I don't buy ALL the music I listen to either, I never did, so why should I expect every single listener to make a purchase? I think that a subset of my listeners pay for my music, and that is a-ok because...and this is the key.....there are few middlemen between us.

My financial picture would be worse if I was on a record label. Some people say that if I was on a record label, I'd have a larger reach and therefore would be making more money. To this I'd like to point out that I make instrumental cello music. There is about as much chance of my music becoming mainstream as there is of me being elected President of the USA (hint: not possible, I was born in Canada and there are naked pictures of me at Burning Man). While it is probably true that the right label could help with the reach part, I don't think they could help me enough to offset their cut, and you know what….no label has ever approached me and the ones I've approached said no, so I'm guessing they think the same thing.

I've said multiple times what my issue with Spotify is: fairness. I care about making the playing field level for all recording artists: signed or unsigned. Let it be a meritocracy. Also, I wish Spotify would do more to facilitate the connection between listeners and artists - i.e show that the artist is playing nearby, or add links to buy music. It's early days, so maybe this will happen eventually.

p.s. What did I make on iTunes during the same period? I also sell digital and physical copies on iTunes, Bandcamp, Amazon and at concerts.

It's comparing apple to oranges, but I for the same time period (Oct 2011 to March 2012), I received, net (i.e. after fees):

- $46477.77 from iTunes

- $25,000 from Bandcamp

- $8352.45 for physical sales on Amazon

- $2821 from Amazon MP3

p.p.s. I'd like to be known for my music more than my tendency to stir up controversy, so I probably won't say much more on the subject because I have some music to make….;-)

My initial impression: if you like the Journey soundtrack or soundtracks by Clint Mansell, you'll like this. Had no idea who this was until this article, but I'm buying her album after listening to the tracks on her website.