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For those that are into numbers, here's some random stats from August 2007:
Total number of albums in CD Baby:
194,385
How many of those have ever sold a CD:
170,379
Percentage of artists who have sold a CD:
87%
Total number of albums in Digital Distribution:
129,014
How many of those have ever earned digital income:
123,168
Percentage of Digital Distribution artists who have earned digital income:
95%
How many artists sold a CD from January to June 2007:
101,648
How many artists had a CD sold in July 2007:
35,701
How many received payments in July 2007:
21,764
How many received two weekly payments in July 2007:
3245
How many received three weekly payments in July 2007:
1282
How many received four weekly payments in July 2007:
513
Here are the scary ones:
How many artists account for 25% of our total sales volume?
280 = 0.1%
How many artists account for 50% of our total sales volume?
1879 = 1%
How many artists account for 90% of our total sales volume?
23,504 = 12%
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
It seems our 80/20 rule is actually 90/12
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How many artists account for 90% of our total sales volume? 23,504 = 12%
::jaw hits floor::
I guess every long tail has a short head?
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If you have read "The Long tail", then you would know that this is consistent with industry in general. The "long Tail" actually consists of lots of little micro-niches, and each niche has its own head and a long tail - so in the end there is just a small number of people that rise to the top, but they are in various areas of the "long tail".
If you haven't read the book - pick it up. it is a must in the world of internet marketing.
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Wow, thanks for sharing and what a reality check. This is only slightly better than major label numbers last time I read, where 5% of their artists kept the entire industry afloat.
It's tough out there, even in indie land. Those 1% that are making up 50% of the sales volume must really be working their arses off.
Monty
http://www.dimensionzero.com
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I would guess that many of the artists on CD Baby aren't really
trying to make a full-time career out of their music. Perhaps quite
a few already have rewarding job that they love, do music as a
hobby, and said "hey, it'd be kinda fun to make a CD". And once
you have a CD, might as well put it up for sale at CD Baby :-)
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How about including $'s in these stats? For example,
1879 artists, or 1%, grossed 50% of our sales volume which is $.
It looks like 1% or maybe even 12% are "making it" in the new indie Internet music industry. But, it would be interesting to see what that gross revenue is.
Those 500 (!) artists that get paid each week, are they making enough to survive statistically?
I know over the past three years record sales for the majors have declined 20% each year, for a total of 60% drop. Which, is why almost every record store where I live has gone out of business.
Just wondering if the indie market is as just as bad as a whole. From my brief conversations with musicians it seems that people are buying less music these days. I'm wondering if this is true in the big picture.
Monty
http://www.dimensionzero.com
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Keep in mind that's only the picture of one particular month! I don't believe in statistics, because things change all the time. I had 5 payments in January, and 3 in July - but 4 in May, and I am just always happy when I get a payment. All CD Baby artists are important, no matter who is selling more or less. More important is, that the music is good. Good music will always find it's audience! And CD Baby provides a platform that allows us to get the music out. EVERY SINGLE SALE IS A SUCCESS!!!
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Arg, can't edit existing posts. One point I forgot:
A lot of these artists that aren't selling what they used to sell are selling a lot of merch and that's where they make the money they tell me. Can't digitize and burn a T-Shirt! Of course this is mostly at gigs. But, what about a merch store for CD Baby? It would be great to sell T-Shirts, Posters, etc. via CD Baby.
Then, we could see if Merch really does sell better than music, and that music is really just a business card these days to get gigs and sell merch.
Monty
http://www.dimensionzero.com
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Those numbers aren't actually that scary. We don't know how many bands/artists on CD Baby have disbanded (or retired). There are almost 60,000 CDs not available through digital distribution, and I'd bet most of those are by artists that faded away. Only a few might have a digital distribution deal elsewhere.
On the other hand, I'd imagine there's a growing number of "digital only" albums on CD Baby (maybe those are included in the grand total for CDs?). So it may be interesting to know if sales overall are trending towards downloads over physical CDs. For example, in July '07 XX% of total $ paid to artists was for CDs sold and XX% was for digital downloads compared to the same stats over July '06.
Then again, it's just numbers and all I'm really concerned about is making better music myself!
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I would like to see more DD numbers. In the past year Digital sales have been 93% of the revenue of us....but the CD's cost way more to manufacture....
so we are still operating at a loss with the CD's but very profitable with the digital (which has already covered the cost of the CD manufacturing several times over)
also..despite the 30% growth of CD sales at CDBaby...I'm convinced growth would be 300% if the website was more commerce friendly. This is just based on reading the reactions of people we send to cdbaby.com
not everyone will trust their credit cards to a website with such a casual attitude.
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This I excellent data, thanks Derek.
I'm interested in the price point of the 25% + 50% + 90%. Are these artists into the bulk discount offer stuff?? What do they ask up front for their CD (on average, of course).
Also, how many of these acts are in/on the sampler CD program?
Stuff like that.
Cheers,
Hughie
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> Not everyone will ever remember or return to a store that is
exactly like all the rest.
It's all about opinions but personally I couldn't agree more, Derek.
What a terrible shame it would be to wake up one day and find CD
Baby was suddenly like every other CD store out there. Your 'casual
attitude' is what I - and I suspect I am not alone - LOVE about CD
Baby.
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I would hope the 90/12 metric posted above is interesting enough
to investigate further.
However as I mentioned iTunes is more than saving the day for us
both at CDbaby and with other distributors, so I'll not waste any
additional energy on this.
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Very interesting
especially the following figures:
25% / 280; 280 = 0.1% of CDBaby artists
50% / 1,879; 1879 = 1% of CDBaby artists &
90% / 23,504; 23,504 = 12%
I am convinced that there are things that the
top selling CDBaby artists are doing to increase their sales that the
bottom selling ones aren't doing.
I bet much of this information can be found at:
http://cdbaby.net/tips
and
http://cdbabypodcast.com/
Especially Episode 004 : Dan Zanes -
Make friend’s with CD Baby’s Top selling artist
But then there's the larger problem, some people might not be doing what they know they need to do. Those are the same ones who believe CDBaby ought to be doing more for them.
there's a reason it's called DIY
Ande
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of course though, those who are doing well would likely do well elsewhere as well. So in the interest of improving CDBaby lets not give them to much credit thats rightfully due to the hardworking artists. For sure a better CDBaby would benefit even the 12%
Otherwise what is the point of any improvment, and discussion thereof?
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tried to listen to one of those podcasts. they could use some SEVERE editing as a lot of it is just chatter. will try another one another day maybe.
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I receive a check every month and with additional advertising to my snocap( banner ads ), I plan on making much much more.
Keep on keepin on Derek !
DC Pryor
www.myspace.com/swrecordsnet
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thanks for the stats. you guys keep great records. we are impressed with the downloads. that is a part we never really figured on and it is the part that has paid the most. is this the wave of the future?
thanks again for doing a great job.
linda & roland
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This is certainly humbling...
I'm curious as to how many bands/artists are from the US and from outside?
Selling on CDBaby from Europe isn't financially a good idea at the moment due to the poor conversion rate dollar/euro or dollar/british pound and the high cost for us to post CDs over to the US.
As many other european artists, i use CDBaby for those US customers who will not order from a european website (there are a few who think the internet = USA...) and for digital distribution.
Still, even with this in mind, those are humbling stats.
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On CDBaby.net, it says "over $250,000 paid every week".
So i've made a rough calculation for people who were asking for dollar figure.
"How many artists account for 25% of our total sales volume?
280 = 0.1%"
25% of $250,000 = $62,500
Shared between 280 musicians = $223 per musician per week
Of course, i'm guessing not all 280 musicians have an equal share of this money, maybe some make $400 per week and some $100 per week.
So this is a very rough calculation, but it gives a ballpark figure, for those who were enquiring whether any of those musicians were actually able to make a full time living from this.
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| by
on Wednesday September 12 2007 @ 12:43AM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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interesting stats, but i don't think they have much to do with the status of the indie music scene in general. that is, one's cdbaby stats don't reflect one's overall sales. in my case, cdbaby sales account for about 1/10 of my online sales, as most of my customers just buy directly from my website. those who sell exceptionally well on cdbaby most likely drive all their web traffic here, yes? that's something i'd be curious about, though of course that's something that derek and the crew probably don't have the time or desire to investigate.
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> those who sell exceptionally well on cdbaby most likely drive all their web traffic here, yes?
Yes, and for good reason:
Gary Jules, for example, one of our top sellers of all time had plenty of built-in audience that would have likely purchased from a PayPal link on his site.
But he sent them all to CD Baby instead because doing so put him in our top-sellers chart, which in turn created twice as many sales, due to our tens-of-thousands of shoppers browsing the site running across his album because it was on the top-sellers chart. (He counted: half his sales were from existing fans, half his sales were from people just browsing cdbaby.com.)
In his words, "I paid CD Baby an extra dollar per CD sold to handle the stuff for me, and in return they doubled my sales."
Something to keep in mind.
I guess I should probably make this clearer in our pitch instead of burying it in the comments here.
:-)
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Hi all...
I'm one of the 513 ... and I do drive most of my online sales to CDBaby. CDBaby's fabulous accounting and prompt and endearing customer service made them the obvious choice ...I really couldn't do it better myself. I'm touring too much, for one thing... and I *never* was able to keep records the way that CDBaby does.
CDBaby has it all. I love everyone who works there. I stop by when I'm in Portland and I'm constantly impressed by how happy folks are there. I think the people who work for CDBaby are treated well, which is important to me.
I love all the support that CDBaby gives to artists. I love the credit card machine. I love their little postcards. I always have a stack with me in case I sell out at shows, or to give to people who really want the CD but forgot their credit cards.
I greatly appreciate the public presence CDBaby has at events that are important to me - Folk Alliance, for example. Derek's workshops at FA are usually the best thing that happens there.
For the past four years my sales have averaged about $540/month (that includes credit card sales and digital). I'd say that at least $200 of that monthly average wouldn't have happened without CDBaby.
Moochas smoochas to all of you!!
Anne
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Awwwww... THANKS Anne! :-) We love you, too.
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Just had to say what a exceptional talent Gary Jules is... his version of 'mad world' haunts me eveytime i hear it... i think you should use your comments above Derek about Gary somewhere with maximum exposure, it's one of those lessons artists & labels need to hear...
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Hello everyone,
And I'm one of the 1282... I just love CDBaby! I learned about Derek and CDBaby somewhere in its 4th year of existence, and I love them more and more each year that passes. While we don't drive our CD sales solely to CDBaby (Amazon takes the lead with some 30-60 CD's sold per month), we always prefer to send our customers to CDBaby, because we know they'll be taken care of, and because we love the support that we get from CDBaby. Having our music available through iTunes and so many other digital distribution channels is such a dream come true for us independent musicians. And we L*O*V*E using the CDBaby credit card machine at all our live events!
So I read Anne’s comment above, and I had to scratch my head…. what little postcards? Did I miss something? Is this something new? Sounds like something I might use at our live events. Where can I find out more?
Our group doesn’t tour (we’re building a great local scene right here in Milwaukee), but if I’m ever in Portland, you can bet I’ll be stopping in with armfuls of organic chocolate and Kauai Kona coffee to pass out to Sri Derek and all the hard-working angels at CDBaby. Then we’ll make sure to give out chair massages to all the computer-weary ones. You all are angels! Thank you for everything you do!
All love to you,
Ragani
P.S. Happy (and very early) 10th Birthday to you all at CDBaby!
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Just read those figures, and was very impressed, we are trying to build our own site at the moment and intend to direct sales to CDBABY. although having spent many months making an album, to finally selling (hopefully) is a long and torturous road. Its like going fishing, new cool rod, killer bate, but no catching of fish.(yet) There is the FALSE HOPE theory, for all the NEgatives out there. Check out our theory THE KINGDOM OF DEALS, by WORD-STREAM, on CDBABY
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How shocking and sad that 24,000 CD Baby indie artists didn't even sell one record! Not to friend or a family member even. We all know how difficult and expensive it is to make a record and 13% of us here haven't even sold one! Wow.
Monty
http://www.dimensionzero.com
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> How shocking and sad that 24,000 CD Baby indie artists didn't even sell one record!
What I find shocking are how many artists never even tell anyone to buy a copy!
I'm surprised by how many websites I go to that make no mention it's for sale anywhere, just directing people to downloads the MP3s, showing them a bio and calendar, and leave it at that.
Our most successful artists, by far, are the ones that have websites that ask for the sale. Sites designed to lead to a sale. Give MP3s or whatever, but make it easy to buy, and encourage them to buy.
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Derek,
It's probably me, I'm new to the blog thing. I've posted 3 different times wondering what role the $5 CD plays in the sales figures.I'm wondering what percentage of sales from physical CDs are the ones in the special $5 category. Perhaps I posted it on another page also, I can't seem to find the post now. Sorry.
Scott Earl Holman
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> what role the $5 CD plays in the sales figures
I don't know. It would take me an hour of work in the database to find out, and I'm not up for it right now. Sorry.
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the $5 sale got me into 4 new bands that after giving their samples a spin i was more than comfortable in buying the whole thing.
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I have sold a lot more physical copies of my EP (which is priced at $5) than my LP (which is priced at $13). It looks like quite a few people look through the $5 specials gallery so if you are on the fence about this, yes, I think it will help you make more sales. But, as Derek states on the site if you are interested in profit it's not worth it. This EP was a short run EP so the $3 per CD sold makes less than a dollar of profit usually.
BUT, great promotional device I would say. If you are giving away free CD samplers of your music might as well try to sell them here.
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Hey thanks for all that input!
I of course wonder about the implications of prices at different levels.. but I was also wondering about the mindset of the customers(are they a bargain-hunter type crowd). Also, I was wondering if the distributors seem to have a tendancy to go for that pile more than others.
Thanks
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so this is for real??? how do the fan know about you?
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I was in Portland last year, it was fun to visit Cdbaby I've met nice people and funny cat there.
I always was treated with respect at CDbaby (not like other record labels etc.)They are honest! I love CDbaby!
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I'm curious how much the the top digital sales per month payout is
for the top CD Baby artists. Are there any individual CD Baby artists
getting monthly digital payments of more than $20,000? $10,000?
$5,000? And how many artists are averaging monthly payouts at
those price points?
What's the single largest CD Baby digital sales payout for a 1 month
period to a single artist?
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Sorry - I'm not sure, and that'd take me another hour of work to find out. The above numbers will just have to do. :-)
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IN my humble opinion:
Okay... the reason that CD sales are down has to do with two things:
1.The convenience of a download.(however CD's DO sound better... especially the new 24bit 98Khz DVD albums)
2. The theft of music and film.... books etc via illegal downloads.
I just finished getting into an online argument, concerning illegal downloads, with the folks at bite me tooooorrreeeent!
Listen, those guys get your credit card(charge you at $25 and I think $50 a subscription at piratebay???)They jumble the names of the songs, on there websites, a bit... to confuse the FBI and Interpol.. still they get closed down. Problem is they need to go to jail for a minimum of a year and have their bank accounts confiscated...
and an end user... should be fined and do 90 days.
From my perspective(as a indie film director and
part-time musician composer), it's the P2P techie's and programmers that are looking to scam the musician or film person or book writer.
One goes to these all you can eat music and film download sites for $25 a year. Do you really think they have the musicians interest at heart. Hell no. They are f**kin thieves. They use the P2P system to make a buck of the back of YOU the artist. Start fighting back. Remind your audience that piracy hurts you and the team that helps to
realize your vision. Statistically, if they are willing to rip off a major label... they are willing to rip off the independent artist. Fight Back.
When all of this illegal download stuff started happening... the big argument from the torrent heads was that they wanted to only buy one or two track off of the album. So now that we have iTUNES and such, they don't even want to shell out a buck or two for a song or two. F**k them and throw them in jail for 90 days. There is no difference from someone going into a Walmart and stealing a CD or a DVD and someone doing an illegal download on one of these membership sites.
The other argument was how rich the artists are...
they won't miss a few dollars. People forget when the artist had nothing... most indies make about $35,000 a year here in the states.
Those P2P(peer to peer) website programmers are making big money off of YOU. They make the major recording labels look like angels. At least with a major label you get some upfront money to pay the rent, buy some new instruments, FOOD, etc.
I ranted on another page here on the CDBaby site ... so I will not go into again(it concerned Snowcrap)
Here are a couple of links that will serve to educate you as to some of the problems artist's of
both the Major labels and the Indie's will have to
deal with. Can we say thieving kids and adults???
Check out the links for information on how kids and adults view illegal downloading.
There is a study done here in the US of A... and one done in Europe:
Digital Life America, a unit of the Solutions Research Group, has found that out of the 32 million Americans who have downloaded at least 1 movie from the Internet, 80 percent have done so over P2P.
Link: http://www.srgnet.com/pdf/Movie%20File-Sharing%20Booming%20Release%20Jan%2024%2007%20Final.pdf
---
The European study:
According to a study into children’s safety and how they use the internet, European kids appear to have a basic grasp of the law when it comes to file-sharing. However, they aren’t really bothered by it and just carry on downloading - music in particular.
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sip/docs/eurobarometer/qualitative_study_2007/summary_report_en.pdf
I think you can find the original info and links on a pro P2P site called: torrentfreak.com
I'm anti P2P
Hope you find the information useful.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Also, thank you to Derek for providing the space for me to rant.
Good energy,
Marc
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We get puzzled within ourselves here at MadMouse Records for many different reasons,especially concerning our main group GP-101. Any feedback from anyone and you too Derek,would be gladly welcome!
OKAY...Here is our puzzlement.
We've been offering free mp3's on music.download.com for two solid years.Even before we joined CdBaby. We've had 30 different tunes on there over those two years and the download numbers are real good, you can see them in black and white and see its true. After some internet research,CNET,who owns music-download has also distributed to similar sites around the world these same mp3's of us,some of our earlier ones we pulled from the USA site,to make room for new ones,still survive on other sites they've been distributed to,and are still being downloaded in countries as far as Australia and even China! After adding all the download numbers together from all sites,the USA side is about 12,000(which is small) but by the time we added in European numbers ,Australia,Japan and China,We've had close to 1,000,000 (yes! one million downloads!)of the free ones! The songs we sell and give away are different in case anyone is wondering.
Which leads to puzzlement #2
Before I begin number 2,let me put in a disclaimer that we are not blaming CdBaby in any way,shape or form because they got us into the digital realm,if for no other reason is enough for us!
Puzzlement number 2
We are one of the 24,000 who only sold 1(yes one) physical cd last year(2007)! The digital side has done much,much better including full album sales digitally,Itunes has been our biggest paycheck worldwide,but I will tell you the purchased downloads are significantly less than than the free downloads that are posted of us worldwide?
CdBaby is finishing the release of GP-101's second album,which will probably be mostly digital sales again,which is totally fine by us,even though we would appreciate some level of physical sales,the job done by Derek and the team digitally for us is sufficient and we're very satisfied with that.
So why is it our free mp3 downloads are of phenomenal status and getting professional reviews around the world and some of them are still circulating internet radio, but we can hardly get people to look at our CdBaby page which only had about 1200 views for 2007! Our MySpace page has had about 200,000 views in 2007 which has CdBaby Links all over it,but yet they rarely link to it! We post ads in the myspace forums and we get hits from there sometimes. People flock our live shows in the summertime(We put on an awesome light,snow and foam party!) But its a good thing we do this for the love of the music and the adoration we get from our live shows. Otherwise it would be very discouraging. If digital is where we are going to do our best,than that's fine! SO?...What can we do or do different that can drive these sales to at LEAST a 1/4 of what's being downloaded around the world free?
Or does anyone have a clue what we are talking about?
Or are we just a local anomaly and should just be satisfied with that?
OR?? Are we just freaking lunatics all the way around?
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hi all
cd baby is the best
TRUST US
we aint in any way bigging ourselves up here but in over 40 years in the industry, we have as individuals been with major recording companies CHRYSALIS, A&M, VERTIGO and EPIC to name but a few. all they are interested in is HOW MUCH YOU CAN MAKE FOR THEM.
WHERE WAS CD BABY 40 YEARS AGO WHEN WE NEEDED YOU !!!
Derek and the cd baby crew
you are a breath of fresh air in an industry that stinks
Anyone who wants to give us a shout...please do via wildturkey@wildturkey.mu
Thanks for all your help and support
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE
The Turks
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Hey an idea for CDBaby... how about a "surprise me" button on the
home page which takes you to a randomly selected CD?
I love discovering new music randomly and I'm sure there are
others who would use this feature.
It might even out the sales figures a bit and push a little traffic to
the pages of those who haven't sold many discs...
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Hi all
I'd just like to know if I'm alone here in the community who
makes only 50cent or less per CD per month in the digital
distribution.
At my own site I get 150 visitors everyday. There are 34 links to
Itunes, Emusic, Rhapsody, Msn, Napster by my 7 CDs. On the net
I'm spread over 150 musicsites where there are additional links
to these digital distributin sites.
But maybe I should do some more promotion to lift the $0.5
dollar up a bit.
What is your suggestion?
Thanks, Attila
http://atko.dk
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its tough to compete with free..
that's the end result, I've experienced nearly every facet of "the biz" from major label artiste to sweeping studio floors.. I've been up, down, and just about everywhere in between..
The end result is that its difficult to compete with free, our only hope is to inspire patronage and carve out a niche..
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