Music Concerts

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’s tough for independent musicians and you’ve a wonderful music, so don’t short- differ yourself; you might always discount the CD  for special reasons (2-for-1 special); and, the “high” sales prices additionally includes your various costs. 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’ll notice something kinda hypocritical…none of our CDs are priced at $15! What gives??

Well 1st let me say, yes, I do still believe in a $15.00 sales price for many musicians. Certainly, it works perfect for folk musicians, and singer/songwriter categories. But my reason is not hypocrisy it’s a dramatic vary 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 six 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 have been raving about for the past few months is that MP3.com offers a new marketing model by offer ing “royalties” for listens to your music. And if you’re getting paid from people listening to your music. Then it needs to be efficiently available right?

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

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

Now think for a second. If you’ve 40 songs on your web site prefer the Hillbilly Hellcats, you’re most prefer 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. Therefore the new marketing model no longer relies on compact disc  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 compact discs from your web site.

I understand this all seems simplistic, but the vast reality is the majority artists on MP3.com are still running their performer with an older marketing model that doesn’t yield the highest payback. So think about that for a bit, and next week, I’ve a guest writer who will give you an interesting 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!