This is nice, but I'd still like to see a complete nobody, without previous record deals start out on the internet and "make it".
So far all the examples of internet distribution "working" have been from big (or relatively big) artists.
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
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Do you mean 32,000 listeners?
32,000 listens, 10 listens per person, 3,200 people.
Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers
#33This is nice, but I'd still like to see a complete nobody, without previous record deals start out on the internet and "make it". So far all the examples of internet distribution "working" have been from big (or relatively big) artists.
From the Notes tab of the spreadsheet: (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkasqHkVRM1OdEJ...)
"I thought it might be helpful for interested parties to see what a DIY artist receives for plays of their music on Spotify and elsewhere."
and
"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."
As best I can tell, she is someone without a record deal who made it. And I don't think shes's even relatively big but she seems to do OK for herself.
Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers
#34This is nice, but I'd still like to see a complete nobody, without previous record deals start out on the internet and "make it". So far all the examples of internet distribution "working" have been from big (or relatively big) artists.
You're implying that this is the picture someone (companies? media? society?) has painted for "purely" digital artists. It is a silly position to look at this document and say, "See! ~40,000 and only ~$100 for their efforts! Haha!". If you think about how many people use Spotify, then remember how many listen to songs repeatedly, and then also remember how many listen to songs and then leave the room because someone rung the door bell, that's a shit ton of plays. So 40,000 plays doesn't take long to accumulate and if you only acquire this amount you're not good, niche genre, etc.
We don't hold this same criticism to pure e-commerce startups. If an internet startup fails it's likely because they had a boring product and/or marketed themselves poorly, or some other reason.
The barrier to entry for someone to create music these days is very low. Software is cheap, talent is cheap, and distribution (digital) is very cheap. So why would an artist expect to make more money making a song that took maybe 100 hours to make than a person who works 40 hours a week every week?
Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Maybe people who listen to her are more into CDs and buying from iTunes / Amazon?
FWIW, I've got both her albums and her EP on CD, one of those albums on vinyl as well, and an iTunes copy of the other album (since the CD didn't arrive quickly enough).
I also buy concert tickets at every opportunity: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigiain/7325677270/
I'm a bit of a fan…
If you've not heard her music (or want to hear more) there's a free (legal) download here: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/soundquality/sq...
She's a bit of a geek/hacker too - she runs a laptop with Ableton Live, sooperlooper, and a bunch of custom applescripts (which don't always play nice when the laptop sleeps, she sometimes needs to reboot on stage), and she was talking about building some custom microcontroller hardware to give her easier/different control compared to the midi footpedal she's using.
Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers
#36Kind of off-topic, but it's worth pointing out that Zoe Keating has done some great work with the Radiolab guys.
Not sure if this was what you were referring to, but as well as some of her music being used in shows, she was interviewed in a podcast: http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2008/aug/25/quan...
Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers
#37All up, it looks like she made about $85,000 from October of 2011 to March of 2012. That's antihistamine money, especially for someone not making pop music. This appears to be unambiguously good news for independent artists.
Plus the "real" money for niche artists like these should be in live concerts. Honestly, I had expected the numbers to be much worse.
Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers
#38This 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…
$80,000 (net after fees) of downloads/physical sales in six months (without label support, which is pretty impressive to me) - that's presumably something like $120K gross sales (before iTunes/Amazon's 30% cut and credit card fees).
If you attribute _all_ of that to twitter (big assumption!), then it values her twitter followers at ~$0.18/year. I wonder how many twitterers beat that?
Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers
#39Just wanted to say thanks for this link - I'm not interested in her numbers, but to stumble across this on HN, and head off and listen to her music, awesome. I really love the sound of the cello, and discovered another cellist, Philip Sheppard, in a similar way.
And her album is only 8 bucks! in FLAC format!
Re: Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers
#40This 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
The music industry has negotiated really hard with Pandora over the years and came close to killing them off a few times by raising the rates to more than Pandora could pay. At this point the music industry is basically taking all of Pandora's profits leaving them razor thin margins. I don't know why Spotify has gotten such a better deal except maybe through the influence of Kleiner Perkins.