There are 10,000,000 music tracks online which have failed find a single buyer. That's out of a total of 13,000,000 tracks available.
Wow. So selling something online is just like selling something offline. Who would have thought?
Music doesn't sell itself. You have to market it.
Thoughts?
That's increadibly high! Does that stat take into acount repeated tracks...like the same song being sold through multiple digital retailers? Because I know a couple of my songs that haven't sold any copies on certain retailers, but have sold well on Amazon and iTunes.
Either way, point well taken...people aren't going to buy your stuff if they don't know it exists.
Posted by: Matt Rodela | January 02, 2009 at 11:59 PM
That makes me feel better since just about everything I've got has been sold at least once. :)
Posted by: Phil Johnson | January 03, 2009 at 12:50 PM
No, say it isn't so! ;)
I'm still amazed at how many people proudly profess, "I sold _x_ number of copies/downloads/whatever without ANY PROMOTION AT ALL!".
I mean, do you brag about that? Don't you WANT to tell people about your music? Do you really want your fanbase to be "random"?
The last pair of really awesome shoes I bought no doubt came from a beautiful, strategically designed ad that knew I would have no choice but to get those kickers and get them now. That ad found me, I didn't find it.
We don't shop 'randomly' for anything else...let's not assume our listeners find their music that way.
Posted by: Dana from Serious Vanity Music | January 04, 2009 at 02:52 PM
Well to be honest - is it a shock? Especially when music is no longer trying to be expressive - it's now more possessive as in please buy this so I can make money get famous and look ultra cool... maybe people want art for once?? I doubt it... but someone has to keep that thought rolling.... do we even remember if music is art or commodity?
- Ian RhymeRock
Posted by: Ian @ Rhyme Rock | January 04, 2009 at 07:26 PM
I'm just getting back into music (May 2008) at the urging of friends to put my music out. Things have changed so much as far as distribution is concerned since I was in music 20+ years ago, there are so many tools for distribution. That's now the easy part. The hard part, is like you said, "marketing". That's the most challenging part of all I've found, especially if you don't perform live.
What I've found is that some sites will assist you in marketing such as iLike and Last.fm. They're the only 2 sites I've found so far that will recommend your music (if you work their sites).
If there was a magic formula, I'm sure every musician would know about it. I'm still trying to discover the how to market music myself.
Posted by: Ty Showers | January 09, 2009 at 11:28 AM