Live Music Archive

A year ago, I wrote a passionate article on the merits of charging $15 when you sell your CD s. Some of my reasonings included: It is tough for indie performers and you have a wonderful music, so do not short- change yourself; you can always discount the CD  for special reasons (2-for-1 special); and, the “high” sales prices furthermore includes your numerous expenses. I made a few addendums, but that’s the gist of it.

But now, if you head over to http://mp3.com/thebards and check out the Brobdingnagian Bards page at MP3.com, you will notice something kinda hypocritical…none of our compact discs are priced at $15! What gives??

Well first let me say, yes, I do still believe in a $15.00 sales price for many artists. Certainly, it works best for folk artists, and singer/songwriter types. But my reason isn’t hypocrisy it’s a dramatic change in our marketing plan.

You see, when we started out, I knew that the only “real” income available to indie performers comes from CD  sales and merchandising since royalties from ASCAP and BMI are a joke. So our plan has been to record every 6 months or less and put out new material. By then end of last summer the indie process has been leaving us drained, and we were thinking we overextended. Then along comes MP3.com.

One of the things I’ve been raving about for the past few months is that MP3.com provides a new marketing model by provide ing “royalties” for listens to your music. And if you are getting paid from individuals listening to your music. Then it needs to be readily available right?

Well, we’ve followed the footsteps of a lot of of the top MP3.com musicians and have about 40-50 tracks available on our web site and more are coming every week. In doing so, we make a solid $20 a day from our web site.

Now with each listen, the songs are tracked on MP3.com on their music charts. You sell a compact disc, the songs on that compact disc  will rocket up the charts. So you want the compact discs to sell, because higher charting equals higher payback. Therefore, our low price on MP3.com.

Now think for a second. If you have 40 songs on your web site like the Hillbilly Hellcats, you are most like ly going to make your 15 unique listens because your songs are located all over the charts. There are plenty of songs to pick from. As a result the new marketing model no longer relies on CD  sales of $15.00, but listens. When you realize that you open yourself up to a whole slew of, in my opinion, simple marketing tactics that will make you more resources from listens than selling CDs from your web site.

I understand this all seems simplistic, but the vast reality is most musicians on MP3.com are still running their performer with an older marketing model that does not yield the highest payback. So consider that for a bit, and next week, I have a guest writer who will give you an exciting promotional idea that might send your listens over the top. Then the week following that, I am going to betray my secret that has my song “Tolkien” at #35 on all MP3.com…

Stay tuned. Same bard time. Same bard channel!