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 indie musicians and you’ve a nice music, so don’t short- differ yourself; you could always discount the CD  for special reasons (2-for-1 special); and, the “high” sales prices also includes your many 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 musician s. Certainly, it works best for folk musician s, and singer/songwriter types. But my reason is not hypocrisy it is a dramatic differ in our marketing plan.
You see, when  we  started out, I knew that the only “real” income available to indie musicians 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’ve 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 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 CD, the songs on that CD  will rocket up the charts. So you want the CDs to sell, because higher charting equals higher payback. Therefore, 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 choose from. Therefore 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, easy 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 band with an older marketing model that does not yield the highest payback. So think about that for a bit, and next week, I’ve a guest writer who will give you an exhilarating promotional idea that could send your listens over the top. Then the week following that, I’m going to betray my secret that has my song “Tolkien” at #35 on all MP3.com…
Stay tuned. Same bard time. Same bard channel!