The right price to sell your album online? (Suggestions)

  • Thread starter Thread starter TheComposer
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I really think that when an artists/bands start thinking about the money aspect of music, ecspecially unestablished acts, they forget about what got them into music in the first place. Its about doing something that you love to do, and are passionate about. Its about doing something that you love so much you would do it for free. Remember that feeling you got when you played your first gig? Remember the feeling you still get when play a gig even though all the bullshit you had to go thru to play it, the one member who shows up right after your loaded up..,usually bass players in my bands,...etc,etc.

Im not saying Im right but lets just say for arguments sake we all make an album, and lets say they are all pretty good production and song wise, so essentially we are all competing for the same audience or demographic...whatever. Now your gonna buy CD's and all that jazz and sell it for 10 bucks..ok?
Well Im gonna give my music away. Not because its not worth anything but because it gives me an advantage . Its not like I was gonna make a bunch of money anyway, but maybe i do get some people at my gigs and then maybe after they see me they decide hey, I want this dudes CD, then bam you make the sale or you give them the download voucher after they pay you or whatever, hell I dont know? No, you dont give ALL your music away but you dont start off charging for all of it neither.

Thats just my take on it, there are just so many artists out there, what do you do?

Did I even make any sense? LOL
 
PS - this is something I find interesting:

Bandcamp

Just watch the section called 'Selling Now' that updates in real-time as things sell. Then check out the prices, click on the links, play the audio and read the bios. Its pretty cool.


dreib said:
I really think that when an artists/bands start thinking about the money aspect of music, ecspecially unestablished acts, they forget about what got them into music in the first place. Its about doing something that you love to do, and are passionate about. Its about doing something that you love so much you would do it for free. Remember that feeling you got when you played your first gig? Remember the feeling you still get when play a gig even though all the bullshit you had to go thru to play it, the one member who shows up right after your loaded up..,usually bass players in my bands,...etc,etc.

Im not saying Im right but lets just say for arguments sake we all make an album, and lets say they are all pretty good production and song wise, so essentially we are all competing for the same audience or demographic...whatever. Now your gonna buy CD's and all that jazz and sell it for 10 bucks..ok?
Well Im gonna give my music away. Not because its not worth anything but because it gives me an advantage . Its not like I was gonna make a bunch of money anyway, but maybe i do get some people at my gigs and then maybe after they see me they decide hey, I want this dudes CD, then bam you make the sale or you give them the download voucher after they pay you or whatever, hell I dont know? No, you dont give ALL your music away but you dont start off charging for all of it neither.

Thats just my take on it, there are just so many artists out there, what do you do?

Did I even make any sense? LOL
Click to expand...
 
dreib said:
Hmmmm.........
Click to expand...

Hmm I'm an idiot hmm, or hmm that's an idea :-) Anyway - it gives me an idea of what people are actually paying, minute by minute, the genres, quality of song writing, the recording, mixing and mastering quality, and so on and so forth..
 
Well I dont know you well enough to call you an idiot yet! LOL

Yea I watched the ticker thing and didnt have time to figure out everything , but yea it does give you an idea on what the market will pay i guess? I didnt really understand how that was working, I need to read how that whole web sight works.
 
dreib said:
Well I dont know you well enough to call you an idiot yet! LOL

Yea I watched the ticker thing and didnt have time to figure out everything , but yea it does give you an idea on what the market will pay i guess? I didnt really understand how that was working, I need to read how that whole web sight works.
Click to expand...

Those are sales as they occur in realtime on bandcamp. Obviously it can't be all of them :-) Anyway - their platform seems very cool.
 
kcearl said:
When i said $6.99 i meant $20 :D
Click to expand...

It's like an episode of Pawn Stars! :laughings:

Ahhh, the days when albums would cost a guy $20... although TOOL's prices are still sitting at $20.
Can't say I've seen many new releases even from big names over $15.
Alice in Chains' comeback a few years back cost me $10.

People say that albums don't sell nowdays but people like Lady Gaga or Adele or some of these Hip Hop dudes are selling plenty :confused:
I just don't understand. Especially when you consider that other genre dudes like metalheads are hardcore into supporting their bands.
I guess mainstream listeners don't bother trying to download. Or maybe they just don't know how :laughings:

Also. This month is my 3 year anniversary of not illegally downloading any music :D
 
More and more people are just buying singles which makes sense cause the reality is 3 or 4 good songs on a record and then just a bunch of crap.
 
I think the reason I tend to be concerned with money when it comes to music is that it's a form of validation.

If people pay for my music, that tells me that they think it's good enough to pay for. Plus, I don't like losing money playing music. Recording can be expensive.

Mostly, my biggest issue playing music is the chicken/egg problem of getting people to listen and getting gigs in the first place.
 
I find it nonsensical that studio musicians are being told to "make their money from gigging" with this bullshit entertainment biz attitude of "you're being paid with exposure" from the owners. The ability to compose a well-executed recording is a completely different skill than being able to play a killer live show. It's like hiring a writer as an actor. There are obviously going to be successful and favorable cases of overlap but they are the exceptions. Also, Do writers, actors...or even contractors accept lip-service, compliments and word of mouth recommendation as payment while waiting for people to take notice so they can eventually profit from their efforts? I liken such a concept to supply-side economics where the immediate benefactors are everyone but the laborer. And in show business, you know how fast things turn stale, the back end stinks unless you have a hit record or you die young/a legend. Relax, I'm not going there.


To answer the question in the OP I offer the following:
Music has become very institutional in its consumption, in spite of the lines being blurred with who is a musician/producer/engineer thanks to home computing. Records [and tapes to a lesser extent] used to be personal. Being tangible, they become unique in the way they wear with repeated use. If you can somehow recapture those intangible qualities of the tangible media experience and package them in a digital format then album sales will probably pick up. Bjork had the right idea. I think Jack White does too, and every other release that presses vinyl with a free-digital download serial # included to claim at the website. I [somewhat] recently bought a 2sided 7" single with such a code, sticker & protective sleeve for < $6 shipped. Worth it. The A-side was made streamable on soundcloud I believe prior to release. Namedrop: Merge Records. Very nice packaging and overall presentation. I'd like to see more of that.
 
haunt said:
Also, Do writers, actors...or even contractors accept lip-service, compliments and word of mouth recommendation as payment while waiting for people to take notice so they can eventually profit from their efforts?
Click to expand...

With the exception of contractors, I'd say, yes. Unless there are people who do plumbing, carpentry and electrical work purely for fun?

The arts are a different beast altogether.

Writers, actors, visual artists and musicians pretty much all start out on a small scale doing what they do for free, don't they? Most never get paid for it. It's hard to imagine a scenario where someone in the arts immediately sets out to get paid for what they do. People setting out to make money doing something that millions of people do purely for fun are in an altogether different economic predicament from people who work in trades that no sane person would do simply for their own enjoyment.

I agree that writing/recording/producing music can sometimes be exclusive to being a good live act, but I think the majority of successful bands/musicians do both at least fairly well. My guess is that doing one really well but not the other is actually more the exception than the rule.

I obviously don't know the answers to any of the questions in this thread and hadn't really given it much thought before, but I find it interesting.
 
Although only brand new to this forum, I have been in the record business for more than 40 years and it seems to me that you/we are all missing something.

Arn't we all in the music business to make money on our product, whether it is as a singer/songwriter or as a record company signing artists (as is the situation in my case).

Firstly, I find it really hard to believe that anything decent can be produced for as little as $800, unless it has been composed, played, recorded and mixed by the one person operating in (say) that person's bedroom and with no hard copy end product produced.

There is no way a high quality recording can be produced for that amount of money if done professionally when studio time, arrangers, recording engineers, professional mixers, professional mastering engineers, professional graphic artists, CD replicating houses (even if based in China), ALL royalty payments made, etc, etc, etc, for the $800 price.

We have just completed a 5 track EP for a new artist that we signed and thus far our production cost is over $6K and we have not paid our first royalty payments (due for payment at the end of June) nor have we done any PR/Video/etc and the artist is a typical alternative/punk artist with only three musicians having to be hired --- a great sounding CD by the way!!!!

Why do I say all of the above???

To get our money back we have to sell CDs and quite a few of them, we can not afford to be giving away for either nothing or virtually nothing, copies of the artist's CD or the songs contained on it.

The current state of play with music being both given away --- recently received an account from CDBaby where it listed some songs from an old catalogue, that had been sold/streamed/whatever for $0.0001 --- is crazy and in my opinion has only come about and is now expected by the music buying/acquiring public because WE have let it happen.

Back not all that long ago, public heard an artist's songs then went out and paid the full price to obtain the artist's latest recording/CD simply because they liked the material, they generally did not expect to get it for nothing or virtually nothing --- sure there were some people who took a copy onto cassette from a friend's purchased recording, but most people had their own purchased copy

If all the record companies and independent recording artists banned together and told the online distributors (both paid and free) that they wanted the full price for their product and if the online distributors refused to agree, then the artist/record company pulled all their product and refused to deal with them, they the distributors are eventually going to go broke or will agree to sell product for the correct price.

If this does not happen, then record companies will in the very near future not be able to invest in professionally made and sounding recordings, they will not be able to sign artists and the world will be left with either no purchasable music or music that has been amateurishly produced and sounds crap.

The possible end result will be that we will get 24Hr talk-back radio on virtually every radio station as they will generally not accept rubbish or bad sounding product.

I am much older than I guess are most of the members on this forum and will in the not too distant future, be hanging up my microphones, so it will really not concern me if a profit can be made or lost, but for you younger members, many of you would like to make music your career and therefore will need to make a profit from it --- your future is in your hands!!!!!!!!

Give the above some serious thought before you start underselling or giving away your product if you want our industry to continue/survive and remember the number of outlets/venues for live music is generally decreasing by the day, which in turn makes the sale of your music (and professionally done and presented), at the right price, even more important.

My rant for the day.

David
 
I'm all for giving my music away for however much people want to pay. Bandcamp uses that kinda structure. They call it "name your price". If anyone felt like the music was worth something, they are free to put in some money as a donation. If not, I hope they at least have a good time listening to some music I created.
The real money is going to be in merch anyways. Real, tangible CDs, rather than downloads. T-shirts and posters. That's the kinda stuff people want to spend money on. Not some file to put on their computer.
 
\David - lots of passionate common sense in your post. I would point out - the site is homerecording.com. Most are hobbyists, recording at home with no budjet. Although there are many talented musicians who frequent this site, the majority will probably never choose to sell anything.

CSP said:
Although only brand new to this forum, I have been in the record business for more than 40 years and it seems to me that you/we are all missing something.

Arn't we all in the music business to make money on our product, whether it is as a singer/songwriter or as a record company signing artists (as is the situation in my case).

Firstly, I find it really hard to believe that anything decent can be produced for as little as $800, unless it has been composed, played, recorded and mixed by the one person operating in (say) that person's bedroom and with no hard copy end product produced.

There is no way a high quality recording can be produced for that amount of money if done professionally when studio time, arrangers, recording engineers, professional mixers, professional mastering engineers, professional graphic artists, CD replicating houses (even if based in China), ALL royalty payments made, etc, etc, etc, for the $800 price.

We have just completed a 5 track EP for a new artist that we signed and thus far our production cost is over $6K and we have not paid our first royalty payments (due for payment at the end of June) nor have we done any PR/Video/etc and the artist is a typical alternative/punk artist with only three musicians having to be hired --- a great sounding CD by the way!!!!

Why do I say all of the above???

To get our money back we have to sell CDs and quite a few of them, we can not afford to be giving away for either nothing or virtually nothing, copies of the artist's CD or the songs contained on it.

The current state of play with music being both given away --- recently received an account from CDBaby where it listed some songs from an old catalogue, that had been sold/streamed/whatever for $0.0001 --- is crazy and in my opinion has only come about and is now expected by the music buying/acquiring public because WE have let it happen.

Back not all that long ago, public heard an artist's songs then went out and paid the full price to obtain the artist's latest recording/CD simply because they liked the material, they generally did not expect to get it for nothing or virtually nothing --- sure there were some people who took a copy onto cassette from a friend's purchased recording, but most people had their own purchased copy

If all the record companies and independent recording artists banned together and told the online distributors (both paid and free) that they wanted the full price for their product and if the online distributors refused to agree, then the artist/record company pulled all their product and refused to deal with them, they the distributors are eventually going to go broke or will agree to sell product for the correct price.

If this does not happen, then record companies will in the very near future not be able to invest in professionally made and sounding recordings, they will not be able to sign artists and the world will be left with either no purchasable music or music that has been amateurishly produced and sounds crap.

The possible end result will be that we will get 24Hr talk-back radio on virtually every radio station as they will generally not accept rubbish or bad sounding product.

I am much older than I guess are most of the members on this forum and will in the not too distant future, be hanging up my microphones, so it will really not concern me if a profit can be made or lost, but for you younger members, many of you would like to make music your career and therefore will need to make a profit from it --- your future is in your hands!!!!!!!!

Give the above some serious thought before you start underselling or giving away your product if you want our industry to continue/survive and remember the number of outlets/venues for live music is generally decreasing by the day, which in turn makes the sale of your music (and professionally done and presented), at the right price, even more important.

My rant for the day.

David
Click to expand...
 
This is a good post heat - and I would go a little further - the vast majority of poets, writers, sculptors, painters, actors and yes musicians will probably not make their living from their art. It's all speculative and unpaid until you 'make it', and the lottery is probably better odds.

heatmiser said:
With the exception of contractors, I'd say, yes. Unless there are people who do plumbing, carpentry and electrical work purely for fun?

The arts are a different beast altogether.

Writers, actors, visual artists and musicians pretty much all start out on a small scale doing what they do for free, don't they? Most never get paid for it. It's hard to imagine a scenario where someone in the arts immediately sets out to get paid for what they do. People setting out to make money doing something that millions of people do purely for fun are in an altogether different economic predicament from people who work in trades that no sane person would do simply for their own enjoyment.

I agree that writing/recording/producing music can sometimes be exclusive to being a good live act, but I think the majority of successful bands/musicians do both at least fairly well. My guess is that doing one really well but not the other is actually more the exception than the rule.

I obviously don't know the answers to any of the questions in this thread and hadn't really given it much thought before, but I find it interesting.
Click to expand...
 
I disagree with most of CSP's post!

We're not all in this for the money. Hopefully, most of us are in it for our love of creating music! Money is just a tangential goal in the hopes that you won't go bankrupt supporting your expensive, addictive HR hobby!
A home recording can (and sometimes even does!) sound good for $800 including physical reproduction. That, however, assumes that the musicians already own their own equipment (or can borrow it from someone) and they are competent to do all the work themselves. Then, most of the budget goes to doing a small run of the physical media. Whether or not you're good enough to make a decent album in your bedroom is probably a comparable crapshoot to whether or not you'll make your money back from paying someone to do it.
The big thing I disagree with is the "content creators need to demand what their music is worth or not distribute it at all" idea. That's why piracy is so rampant. The prices should eventually converge on what the market supports, but if you try to force people to spend the $20 that they would have spent at an HGM 15 years ago, they'll just download it instead.
 
Guys,

I was not trying to be disrespectfull to anyone or to knock the "home" recordist, I was simply trying to say that we are all in this "business' for the love of it and that we should be getting a reasonable/good return for the time and effort we spend engaged in our love. Sure, I am somewhat different to most of the forum's members in that I own/operate a commercial record company and therefore have to get a good return on my investment or I will either go broke or have to close my business, but why can't we all see something reasonable for our efforts.

If most of the forum members 9and other musicians) allow the idea that musicians will work for nothing to continue, it could easily happen that if a record company hears some product, they will start developing the notion that artists will release product for virtually nothing and will start offering contracts with virtually no return (if any) for the artist.

Most record companies today have in their contracts that the artist pays for much (if not all) of the production costs before the artist sees any royalty payment. What could be next?

By the way, an artist signed to my company pays for nothing, the record company pays everything, but the artist still receives a very good royalty figure.

Finally, a great forum and I am sorry that I have only just discovered it.

David
 
Get ready for a bunch of contradictions :p:

I think CSP had a great post.

And I do agree with the statement about getting in to the music business to make money.
It's easy for that to be misinterpreted as "I got into music to make money". Nope. Not at all.
I love music because I love music.
But as with anything, when you start selling something, when you release something and charge for it your motivation is to make money. Be it to become "rich" or just have enough cash to pay your bills or whatever.
If it's not then just release it for free.
But as VHS said, for many people, independent artists that have "real jobs" especially, money for music is a validation. It means a lot to know that someone thinks your music is worth enough to pay for it.

It's all a little touchy for me, because I can see it from two viewpoints.

-As a wannabe "engineer/studio owner/guy with gear that people want to use"
Between all my gear, guitars, amps, monitors, computers, drums, software, mics, stands, cables, etc. $10k +/-. And more importantly 6 years of practicing, reading, and trial and error. I've invested a lot.
Assuming some essentially random person would want to come in and use my gear, space, and/or "skills" (lol) I would want to be reimbursed. This stuff was expensive.

and more importantly-

-As a "artist/producer of my own stuff/musician/whatever":
Personally, I haven't released anything and charged for it(... actually I haven't released anything at all :p). But if/when I do, I'll just be looking for that validation and to recoup mastering and duplication (cassettes, cd's, vinyl, download cards, usb drives, wax cylinders ;)) costs.
Because as I said- I do this for no other reason than the fact that I love it. Even if I wasn't aiming to release something. I would still have bought all the equipment. I would still have invested all the time. And I would still play, record, and mix my music. So I see no point in trying to recoup the cost of my equipment or to reimburse the time I've invested (all that counts as production costs right?). I would've invested it anyway, you know what I mean?

The whole label thing is a bit trickier.
I think it's bullshit that places like iTunes get more money for music than the artists themselves.
And labels and artists coming together would be great. But I don't know if I can see that happening. Most of the people that release stuff like that and need the money are just looking for the validation of telling people "Hey! My stuff is on iTunes!!!"
The people that release stuff on places like that and make money are already established artists.
A lot of major labels are responsible for struggling artists due to screwing them through advances. It's not just the major labels, it's corporations period. Viacom/MTV networks has its hand around the throat of music as well. It's all about what they market and control.
But that blame lies on the artists as well.
I don't want to come off as one of the "anti-label" guys either. Because I'm not. In a perfect world it would be great to be on a label. That's the dream right? To have someone who believes in what you're doing?
But not for money, or advances. Just for distribution and guidance/ stuff like that :D

:facepalm: I think I've confused myself at this point.

Idk it's all very strange.

I'd like to end this with I quote I've read:
"I do think there is a future with music, because people want music."
But as they say, things get worse before they get better.
 
Last edited:
I didn't take away anything negative from your post, nor did I consider it in any way disrespectful. I was pointing out the name of the forum :-)

CSP said:
Guys,

I was not trying to be disrespectfull to anyone or to knock the "home" recordist, I was simply trying to say that we are all in this "business' for the love of it and that we should be getting a reasonable/good return for the time and effort we spend engaged in our love. Sure, I am somewhat different to most of the forum's members in that I own/operate a commercial record company and therefore have to get a good return on my investment or I will either go broke or have to close my business, but why can't we all see something reasonable for our efforts.

If most of the forum members 9and other musicians) allow the idea that musicians will work for nothing to continue, it could easily happen that if a record company hears some product, they will start developing the notion that artists will release product for virtually nothing and will start offering contracts with virtually no return (if any) for the artist.

Most record companies today have in their contracts that the artist pays for much (if not all) of the production costs before the artist sees any royalty payment. What could be next?

By the way, an artist signed to my company pays for nothing, the record company pays everything, but the artist still receives a very good royalty figure.

Finally, a great forum and I am sorry that I have only just discovered it.

David
Click to expand...
 
CSP said:
Guys,

If most of the forum members 9and other musicians) allow the idea that musicians will work for nothing to continue, it could easily happen that if a record company hears some product, they will start developing the notion that artists will release product for virtually nothing and will start offering contracts with virtually no return (if any) for the artist.
Click to expand...

Isn't that how they've always done it? :D

I've heard so many horror stories of successful bands who get into a cycle of debt where as long as they keep making hit records they keep owing the label more and more money.
 
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