megassus wrote: http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/9604/review_detail/?review_id=68447
took me sometime to get to listen to this cool cool album

and to become and bigger fan and now aware that you've become commercial in total

money donations can confirm this

So it's time for you to start selling your albums for money!
(doing this online is very easy these days)
if any help is needed don't hesitate to ask!

see you in myspace!
myspace.com/megassus

TROY

thanks for your listening megassus!
i don't think that i'll get much money with my music lol...

well as you see with my friends from the USSR/China/BAGDAD
you better sell yourself before someone else will!

Sell, sell, sell!!!
What a greedy man!
People come to Jamendo not for making profits, you know...

when you go to work
is it also for being greedy?

well...
i'd like my Jamendo album to be download for free and not being sold by others for money:
http://mclub.com.ua/vcat.phtml?action=vs&album=53799

Pedro megassus is right! Start selling right away! It will sell like pancakes in the market

Hi,
well the problem is that at this time i don't have the money to press an album. when possible, i'll surely do it for people who want to have the physical cd. Now i think i'll let the music available by free downloads, even if i press a cd, because people share free music a lot, and i have more listeners everyday thanks to that. if i only sold my music, i would be as if i locked it in a way, and it would probably stop this process. Of course i would love to have a comfortable living with music, but i'm not famous enough for that=) Now i think i prefer having a growing number of listeners (thanks to last fm and jamendo...) than selling a few records... being heard is the most important thing to my opinion, i know some french bands who signed with a label, sold some records, but still have a few number of listeners. It's funnier surfing on the "creative commons" wave=)

People who want a physical CD so badly can simply use their burner. Regarding signing with a label check out this article. That new Rhythmcreation dude writes pretty cool articles.

thanks! i'll check it out...

well, it's a good article. his vision of the music business is quite extreme (but quite exact!). It's obvious that signing with a label if you have to owe them tons of money in the end (and the rest of your creations) seems to be a stupid thing... As he said, he's talking about the worst case possible (what a mess!!). But I know a french band ("sin") who signed with a major for one record, then went back independant with no real problem, and if they didn't earn a lot of money, they at less got the benefit of the promotion. The guy who wrote this article is right, but he's going a little fast on the "self-promotion" paragraph... because when you want to sell music, promotion is almost everything! no need to wonder how the major companies manage to sell the bullshits they release, just spending tons of money in promotion. when you promote your music by yourself, even if you make good music, you don't have this money, and you're trying to climb the everest wearing socks=)
So i quite agree with him, there are lots of tools on the net to record, have your site, your pages (many...), distribute (physical or mp3), but all of this is nothing regarding the role of a huge promotion, the only thing that makes you really reach the largest audience and sell records. Unfortunately only those big labels and majors can do that. But well...nevermind! Let's continue listening to independant artists on the net, things are getting better for them anyway (while majors are dying...).

don't worry mate! I was just joking! Distributing music through Jamendo will reach a wider audiences!

I am becoming fresh bodyholic day by day

Hi Fresh Body Shop, I am the person who wrote that article, I didn't realise I had so extreme views. lol

I think a lot of it comes down to what your ultimate goal with your music is, for me it would be to make an reasonable average wage from making music which I enjoy. This I believe is now quite achievable without a label. From iTunes as an example you can earn 70cents per track. 1 album = 10 tracks = 7 dollars for a full sale. In my country England a good average wage is about £20000 which is about $40000. That's 5700 album sales a year (or 15 album sales every day throughout the year). Very achievable I think with a bit of work and time. You've just got to realise it won't happen right away like it can on a good label.

Yes it is difficult to promote yourself, but you've started to do that already :-). I was trying to point out in the article that perhaps people should try chasing becoming independent rather than wasting time chasing getting signed. I heard from other articles around the net (Although I'm not sure how true it is) that signed musicians to a major label typically get about 9 cents per iTunes sale. So to get the same amount of money as stated above would take about 45600 album sales.

Good luck with your music

hey thanks for this response rythmcreation!!

rhythmcreation wrote: I was trying to point out in the article that perhaps people should try chasing becoming independent rather than wasting time chasing getting signed. I heard from other articles around the net (Although I'm not sure how true it is) that signed musicians to a major label typically get about 9 cents per iTunes sale. So to get the same amount of money as stated above would take about 45600 album sales.

that's right. anyway i don't have any ultimate goal with my music=) i didn't even try to sell my mp3s, but i'm still searching for keys to promote by myself to reach some more audience,... my socks are a little wet sometimes=) now could come the questions: "Is the creative commons wave a good way to promote youself when you don't have any money to waste in self promotion?" Can this be the good start for an artist to create a real fanbase? do you need a certain level of popularity to start selling your creations? i'm really wondering how many people are willing to pay for the music they listen in 2008...

fresh body shop wrote: how many people are willing to pay for the music they listen in 2008

Not enough to make your living from selling your music, that's for sure.
We offer a lossless version of our album for any sum that one's willing to pay, so far there were only 6 people who requested it. But a free MP3 version has been downloaded 14172 times in 47 days since the album was published.

60,000 album sales in the UK gets you a "silver record"

some of the artists on jamendo could get to be equivalent to artists going silver or gold! -if- they were record sales

with no music video, promotion team, touring, R+R and so on

if only those 14172 downloaders paid a dollar each hey not bad

but then if it were a dollar, would they have downloaded?

if the triplexity "14172 to 6" ratio is anything to go by then no

but if triplexity toured, then maybe theyd make money, tickets, merchandice

using jamendo to get a fan base as "free body shop" says could be very worth while...

fresh body shop wrote: Can this be the good start for an artist to create a real fanbase?

yes.

the uk band "artic monkeys" were independent and made it via a myspace fanbase, they are now huuuuge

i must confess. i'm

ljmudit wrote: fresh bodyholic

too

my old copyright album sold like peanuts in my city

fresh body shop: you sell your album here in India. Youngsters like me here are crazy for such type of music.

thanks ljmudit=) (and CIRC!)

Triplexity wrote: Not enough to make your living from selling your music, that's for sure.
We offer a lossless version of our album for any sum that one's willing to pay, so far there were only 6 people who requested it. But a free MP3 version has been downloaded 14172 times in 47 days since the album was published.

well triplexity, you're a good example! it gives some answers to my questions. This obviously shows that even if an artist gets a huge popularity, only a few people pay for it (are they even interested in flawless formats for the most part?) and i keep in mind the example of Saul Williams... But keep it on!! it's great to reach that number of listeners, even if they didn't pay for your music, they love what you do! i think that a lot of artists would have prefered that than selling a few records=)

fresh body shop wrote: But keep it on!! it's great to reach that number of listeners, even if they didn't pay for your music, they love what you do! i think that a lot of artists would have prefered that than selling a few records=)

you are right!

Another negative impact of selling CD's (which may not be true for everyone or everybody) is piracy. Artists suffer huge losses due to piracy.
As far as I know, I think Jamendo is a good platform for artists to distribute music. Firstly, piracy is almost impossible. Secondly, distributing something free reaches wider audiences (just like happens with public goods in the economy), people who can't afford to buy CD's can take cheaper means to reach music through internet. And also it is sometimes impossible for artists to sell their music everywhere in the world. So internet is something where everybody in this world can connect and acquire something which is inaccesible

@ Triplexity

I've looked at what you have tried with your latest album that you mention above. You are offering FLAC files to buy. I think you will find that the average listener won't even know what a FLAC file is. they won't know whether they can play it and they also won't know about the benefit of quality a FLAC has because they are so used to MP3 files. Most people download MP3s to go on their MP3 player and end up using the bad in ear headphones that came with them. They are used to listening to bad quality files. I think that has more to do with the sale figures you describe.

You are assuming that potential buyers of your music have the same knowledge you have about file types and their benefits

So how would you do that?

Explain the free download in Jamendo is 192Kbps MP3 and is of Reasonable Quality
Give them the choice of 320Kbps MP3 and state it is Great Quality aswell as FLAC and call it The Best Quality
Link to an article about FLAC saying "If your not sure what FLAC is you can find out here" or write your own section about it
Bring the donation button up the page maybe, it's hiding down the page a bit. Do a table and bring it up as a column down the side maybe. The donate button is like an advert, read up on how webmasters use where the eye focuses first on a page to place effective advertisements. At the moment some people may not even see it.
Explain more that you use your time to produce this music and donations of any size are appreciated and will help to keep your music free. Make people who like your music feel like donating is the right thing to do, (sell yourself more).
Maybe offer some other incentive like all donators get to go on a special email list which will include news and advance previews of your next tracks before Jamendo gets it.
An alternative to Paypal maybe, not everyone knows how to use Paypal or has an account, I use eBay for selling and even ebay buyers with 100+ feedback still don't understand Paypal and want to send me a cheque for stuff.

Wow lots to do Hope that helps you with what I see , i'm not an expert and don't do this myself yet with my music, but that's what I would do and I will be doing something similar myself once my own album comes in a couple of months time.

Very good answer, thanks.

I made an article explaining what is FLAC

rhythmcreation wrote: I've looked at what you have tried with your latest album that you mention above. You are offering FLAC files to buy. I think you will find that the average listener won't even know what a FLAC file is.

I know nothing more than mp3, .wav, .wma and others

Triplexity wrote: I made an article explaining what is FLAC

thanx

Interesting discussion....

I think there's one way by which you can earn a significant amount of money and reach out to more people as well: Licensing your music to TV/Films etc. If you haven't already done so, check out this website - they deal in music licensing for independent artists

even if you're not looking to make any money from your music, it would still be totally worth it because it'll help you reach out to a lot more people

good luck!

- yet another fresh bodyholic!

tw3rp wrote: - yet another fresh bodyholic!

+1

Sahi baat kahi bheedu!

ljmudit wrote: +1

Sahi baat kahi bheedu!

+1 to your +1