June 15, 2016 at 14:21Music as a startup or why iTunes is evil
My name is Vasily Gustelev, I am one of the authors of the project “Music of the Invisible People”. When our music was not taken on any label, we created our own. By releasing a dozen releases a year, you quickly begin to understand something. It turns out that musicians can learn a lot from startups, and the release on iTunes is the last thing an independent artist should do.
Listen to our music while reading
Generally, if you are an independent musician, then placement on iTunes will cost you money. For example, at Tunecore, the price of placing an album is $ 30 for the first year and $ 50 for each subsequent year. But at the same time, the musician takes himself 100% of the profit. Just lay out your catalog compiled over many years is very expensive.
Therefore, as soon as we found people who arranged for us to publish for 30% of the royalties, we immediately opened the label and invited all our friends to upload the contents of the archives to the network. Simple mathematics suggests that this option is more profitable if the income from the album does not exceed $ 160 per year.
Here's the terrible secret: in the four years of the label’s work with Aityuns, we only brought out four thousand rubles once. The rest of the releases earn within five hundred rubles a year. Venues like Bandcamp give significantly more serious amounts! And, looking at all these reports, I want to tell you with confidence: the only benefit from aityuns for an independent musician is to show friends in the bar that you are really a musician. We will call this a reputational moment. If girls in bars already trust your status as a musician, it is better not to publish music on iTunes at all.
Let's look at the activities of the indie group as a startup. You release a product - musical compositions. And some of you, based on this product, provide the “live music program” service. How do we ensure continuous sales growth? I’m sure that the main strategy of an indie musician should be collecting a subscriber base . The subscriber base is a key resource, and it is the main indicator of a group’s success.
What is the subscriber base? This is a list of any contacts of people who like your music, and having received a message from you, they will not throw it into spam. We collect the following info: name, phone, email, address in social networks and the city.
How to use the subscriber base?
When you come out with new music - you report it to the entire database. It would be nice to be able to verify that the message has been delivered.
When you have a concert announced, you select from the database of subscribers from the desired city and inform them.
If you have a good collection of contacts, you can provide a certain amount of ticket sales, and the orgies will adore you for that. In small clubs, orgies themselves do not have a base of their regular visitors!
How to collect subscriber base online? I will write our ideas:
1. The obvious way is social networks. We get acquainted through the LAN with people who have entered your public / meeting or liked the music, and if they make contact, we add them to the list.
2. Let’s download music for free if you leave your email. On bandcamp websitethis functionality is available by default!
3. We arrange online contests in which you can participate leaving your contacts.
How to build an offline subscriber base?
In fact, none of my friends musicians collect offline subscriber lists, but only filter those who join. Meanwhile, the people who raised their fifth point from the couch and came to your concert are the most loyal audience. If a concert rolled into them, they are yours completely. First of all, they should be the basis of your base. Look for ways to collect their contacts! Here are some ideas:
1. Just hand out a questionnaire at the entrance, in which there will be questions like “which song did you like best”, and of course the contact details. Then do not forget to send them a letter of thanks!
2. Give a discount on merch if you fill out the questionnaire
3. Draw prizes among those who filled out the questionnaire
4. Collect contacts under the pretext that you will send pictures from the concert
5. If you are recording a concert, offer to leave contacts wishing to receive the record before anyone else
Why is aityuns evil?
Because you don’t know who is listening to your music. Some anonymous people for half a ruble listened to your tracks, and from this neither money nor pleasure. It’s very difficult to get into some kind of playlist or hit parade on iTunes so that some new audience gets to know you. Indie music is unlikely to make recommendations. You are lying there on a far shelf, and only those people whom you sent there yourself will listen to you. At the same time, aityuns takes a lot of money for himself!
Now compare with bandcamp : you know the mail of everyone who downloaded your music. You immediately get dibs from every sale, and the proportion there is very honest. And you can sell merch through the same platform.
By the way, I can say the same thing about VKontakte audio recordings. An amazing number of people listen to your VKontakte music, but you don’t know about it. Try not to merge Mouzon VKontakte to the last, otherwise you yourself are bothering to collect a contact list!
Bonus track: how to accept money at the bendcamp?
I am often asked how to take loot at the bendcamp. The problem is that the bandcamp does not accept payments in rubles, and it is forbidden to sell anything in foreign currency on the territory of our country. Paypal very strictly complies with the laws, and prohibits Russian citizens from selling music for currency. The solution is very simple: deceive Paypal and pretend that you are Europeans. In Europe, citizens can sell their music for any currency. Specifically, we did this: our partner lives in Belgium, he has a local plastic card there, to which he tied Paypal. It was this account he tied to Bandcamp. Foreigners simply pay in foreign currency, and if the purchase is made by Russian, then no violation occurs: he buys, as it were, from abroad. Then we somehow transfer this money to ourselves.
The main problem is that ordinary Russian people do not always have paypal :( And your Russian fans may be at a loss to buy your music. We will discuss it next time.
All our albums can be downloaded for free by email: because the subscriber base is more valuable than dollars. Here . should return to the analogy with startups Remember, many start-ups such as dropboksa for a long time given its service completely free of charge until the accumulated millionth subscriber base you have to act the same way, my friends.!
to sum up: collect subscriber base ov, use bandcamp or similar services, aityuns is evil, and
wish you success!
PS literally tomorrow Music of Invisible People begins recording a new album.
Listen to our music while reading
Generally, if you are an independent musician, then placement on iTunes will cost you money. For example, at Tunecore, the price of placing an album is $ 30 for the first year and $ 50 for each subsequent year. But at the same time, the musician takes himself 100% of the profit. Just lay out your catalog compiled over many years is very expensive.
Therefore, as soon as we found people who arranged for us to publish for 30% of the royalties, we immediately opened the label and invited all our friends to upload the contents of the archives to the network. Simple mathematics suggests that this option is more profitable if the income from the album does not exceed $ 160 per year.
Here's the terrible secret: in the four years of the label’s work with Aityuns, we only brought out four thousand rubles once. The rest of the releases earn within five hundred rubles a year. Venues like Bandcamp give significantly more serious amounts! And, looking at all these reports, I want to tell you with confidence: the only benefit from aityuns for an independent musician is to show friends in the bar that you are really a musician. We will call this a reputational moment. If girls in bars already trust your status as a musician, it is better not to publish music on iTunes at all.
Let's look at the activities of the indie group as a startup. You release a product - musical compositions. And some of you, based on this product, provide the “live music program” service. How do we ensure continuous sales growth? I’m sure that the main strategy of an indie musician should be collecting a subscriber base . The subscriber base is a key resource, and it is the main indicator of a group’s success.
What is the subscriber base? This is a list of any contacts of people who like your music, and having received a message from you, they will not throw it into spam. We collect the following info: name, phone, email, address in social networks and the city.
How to use the subscriber base?
When you come out with new music - you report it to the entire database. It would be nice to be able to verify that the message has been delivered.
When you have a concert announced, you select from the database of subscribers from the desired city and inform them.
If you have a good collection of contacts, you can provide a certain amount of ticket sales, and the orgies will adore you for that. In small clubs, orgies themselves do not have a base of their regular visitors!
How to collect subscriber base online? I will write our ideas:
1. The obvious way is social networks. We get acquainted through the LAN with people who have entered your public / meeting or liked the music, and if they make contact, we add them to the list.
2. Let’s download music for free if you leave your email. On bandcamp websitethis functionality is available by default!
3. We arrange online contests in which you can participate leaving your contacts.
How to build an offline subscriber base?
In fact, none of my friends musicians collect offline subscriber lists, but only filter those who join. Meanwhile, the people who raised their fifth point from the couch and came to your concert are the most loyal audience. If a concert rolled into them, they are yours completely. First of all, they should be the basis of your base. Look for ways to collect their contacts! Here are some ideas:
1. Just hand out a questionnaire at the entrance, in which there will be questions like “which song did you like best”, and of course the contact details. Then do not forget to send them a letter of thanks!
2. Give a discount on merch if you fill out the questionnaire
3. Draw prizes among those who filled out the questionnaire
4. Collect contacts under the pretext that you will send pictures from the concert
5. If you are recording a concert, offer to leave contacts wishing to receive the record before anyone else
If you did a concert and did not gather new subscribers there, I don’t understand why you did the concert.
Why is aityuns evil?
Because you don’t know who is listening to your music. Some anonymous people for half a ruble listened to your tracks, and from this neither money nor pleasure. It’s very difficult to get into some kind of playlist or hit parade on iTunes so that some new audience gets to know you. Indie music is unlikely to make recommendations. You are lying there on a far shelf, and only those people whom you sent there yourself will listen to you. At the same time, aityuns takes a lot of money for himself!
Now compare with bandcamp : you know the mail of everyone who downloaded your music. You immediately get dibs from every sale, and the proportion there is very honest. And you can sell merch through the same platform.
By the way, I can say the same thing about VKontakte audio recordings. An amazing number of people listen to your VKontakte music, but you don’t know about it. Try not to merge Mouzon VKontakte to the last, otherwise you yourself are bothering to collect a contact list!
Bonus track: how to accept money at the bendcamp?
I am often asked how to take loot at the bendcamp. The problem is that the bandcamp does not accept payments in rubles, and it is forbidden to sell anything in foreign currency on the territory of our country. Paypal very strictly complies with the laws, and prohibits Russian citizens from selling music for currency. The solution is very simple: deceive Paypal and pretend that you are Europeans. In Europe, citizens can sell their music for any currency. Specifically, we did this: our partner lives in Belgium, he has a local plastic card there, to which he tied Paypal. It was this account he tied to Bandcamp. Foreigners simply pay in foreign currency, and if the purchase is made by Russian, then no violation occurs: he buys, as it were, from abroad. Then we somehow transfer this money to ourselves.
The main problem is that ordinary Russian people do not always have paypal :( And your Russian fans may be at a loss to buy your music. We will discuss it next time.
All our albums can be downloaded for free by email: because the subscriber base is more valuable than dollars. Here . should return to the analogy with startups Remember, many start-ups such as dropboksa for a long time given its service completely free of charge until the accumulated millionth subscriber base you have to act the same way, my friends.!
to sum up: collect subscriber base ov, use bandcamp or similar services, aityuns is evil, and
wish you success!
PS literally tomorrow Music of Invisible People begins recording a new album.