Posts from — December 2007

Music is so internet-centric because iPods consume bits and because of music’s younger demographic, iTunes, and torrents. It stretches to say that Apple pushed music into the domain of the legitimate internet, but only a little. Amazon is trying to do the same with print media via its Kindle.

Reading digits and hearing digits are the lingua franca of the internet. Right now, you are reading digits. So writers need to also develop direct-to-audience strategies.

This point is discussed at sfsignals in a post titled Mindmeld: how has the internet impacted book selling? (A wordy title. Ick. Who wrote that?) In any case, a quote from Lou Anders, editorial director of Pyr, an Imprint of Prometheus Books:

I agree firmly with Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow that the best advertisement for a book is the book itself and that everyone (or most everyone) has a threshold point - a certain page count - at which they give up reading online and purchase the physical book, whether that’s three chapters or three-quarters of the way in! (With me, it was a third of the way in to Michael Swanwick’s The Iron Dragon’s Daughter.) All of which is to say that I am very down with the net as a tool for promoting reading.

Reciprocity and curiosity are two innate qualities that Artists must leverage in order to successfully self-promote and generate income. How? If your audience is coming to you, what can they buy?

Also, make them want to return. Always leave them wanting more.

Seth Godin writes brilliantly insightful stuff. I highly recommend his blog. He articulates the concept of promotion with striking clarity:

Nobody says, “That Yo Yo Ma, he’s so self-promotional,” or, “can you believe what a self-promoter the Dalai Lama is?” That’s because they’re not promoting themselves. They’re promoting useful ideas. They’re promoting tactics or products that actually benefit the person they’re reaching out to.

Paris Hilton is a self-promoter. You don’t get any benefit out of her appearances other than temporary entertainment value and some schadenfreude.

I wish I had written that.

Promotion is a simple, and often repetitive, declaration of benefit. It is an act of branding. I might promote this blog - pwnership.com - in the following manner:

Pwnership. Pithy commentary about the internet and the Artist. Insight wrapped with humor, a sense of hope and possibility. Artists can find validation and income on the web. Pwnership.com discusses how.

The interview between Thom Yorke and David Byrne is a must read for any artist contemplating how to make a living. The money - big money - quote:

Byrne: Are you making money on the download of In Rainbows?

Yorke: In terms of digital income, we’ve made more money out of this record than out of all the other Radiohead albums put together, forever — in terms of anything on the Net. And that’s nuts. It’s partly due to the fact that EMI wasn’t giving us any money for digital sales. All the contracts signed in a certain era have none of that stuff.

For any artist, the closer the connection to the audience, the greater that natural reciprocity creates significant income. Close connection to the audience. That’s the secret.

Mr. Head struck pay dirt. He built he audience over the years. Then he sold direct. A simple model. For him, it rained clover.

David Byrne, in his Wired Magazine article, makes the following point:

So what happens when online sales eliminate many of these expenses? Look at iTunes: $10 for a “CD” download reflects the cost savings of digital distribution, which seems fair — at first. It’s certainly better for consumers. But after Apple takes its 30 percent, the royalty percentage is applied and the artist — surprise! — is no better off.

Not coincidentally, the issues here are similar to those in the recent Hollywood writers’ strike. Will recording artists band together and go on strike?

Musicians do not have a union, they do not go on strike. They might avoid a Baseball-like catastrophe to their product. But they also would miss out on the chance taken in big steps with each new contract. As a group, musicians have the opportunity to chose alternatives to record labels.

Consumers substitute. Consumers like better stuff. Consumers like cheaper stuff. The first part to moving away from record labels lies in the simple better+cheaper recipe.

Distribution and publicity are two remaining large needs to work away from labels. The internet is rapidly and radically changing the ability to either self-source or out-source those skills.

Several great links today. I’ll have comments later, but wanted to post them here to start. First off, thanks to Cory at Boing Boing for discussing Wired Magazine’s David Byrne’s Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists - and Megastars.

Money Quote from David Bryne:

So I have seen this business from both sides. I’ve made money, and I’ve been ripped off. I’ve had creative freedom, and I’ve been pressured to make hits. I have dealt with diva behavior from crazy musicians, and I have seen genius records by wonderful artists get completely ignored. I love music. I always will. It saved my life, and I bet I’m not the only one who can say that.

What is called the music business today, however, is not the business of producing music. At some point it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases, and that business will soon be over. But that’s not bad news for music, and it’s certainly not bad news for musicians. Indeed, with all the ways to reach an audience, there have never been more opportunities for artists.

Scanning the article further, there is reference to I Think Music, a great web site for any musician.

Thoughts later. Right now, I remember my older brother dressing up like David Byrne from Stop Making Sense for Holloween, and scaring me, because I was 7 at the time and because he dork-danced.

Steve Harris writes a great blog post about the value of third-party software distribution. It’s a sad story about hard work, third party promotion, and little monetary reward. The software in discussion is a successful Mac utility called Together. His lack of money quote:

Having gained nothing in material terms, the final argument in favour of massively cheap bundles was that it’s an investment of sorts. While not all users will stick with the application, many will potentially upgrade in the future…

The total made as a result of the bundle deal so far, before fees, is around $1150. One could argue that this is money I wouldn’t have earned otherwise, but it doesn’t exactly cover those two months of work. That time could have been used to produce the 1.3 version (that actually did increase sales) much sooner. This situation also snowballs, because the longer an app does not have a certain feature, the more you hear about it.

His accounting of the promotion is rather matter of fact, and distressing. He participated in a distribution model that promised all his success would be on the come. None came.

He did lose two months. That cost, especially in a product as ephemeral as software, could have been highly significant. If Leopard had been released on schedule, maybe his product would have died. These promising distribution deals can be rationalized as having no cost or no downside, but that is rarely the case.

Bands are relentlessly promotional given a stage for the night and a $220 share of the door. That opportunity, I understand. It even sounds similar to the one offered Steve Harris / Together. What is the self-promotion opportunity for a software developer? I can’t imagine there was one.

What is the downside of a bad night for a band? Not much other than the hangover. Downside for a software product? How about web-savvy angry software users that spam support forums with heinous complaints?

The KIT-Together utility is successful. It’s recent upgrade to the software was well supported by users. Steve notes:

Having put the best part of this year into that version it is a relief that every user I’ve heard from tells me that even if it’s not perfect, it’s a very capable application and a compelling upgrade.

The Utility has been well reviewed.

I would argue that self-promotion, good reviews, and word of mouth are the raw materials of successful promotion. People selling promotion get all of the gravy, usually leaving only table scraps. At least, that is the point I want to make because I see it happen to musicians, writers, artists, etc. far too often.

Thanks to Daring Fireball for citing Steve’s blog post.

I broke 4 pair of the V-Moda Duo Earbuds. This post is not a product review.

Rather, I posted this experience as comments to the Apple Phone Show blog. My comments reflected my sad experience. They bordered harsh. That tone still strikes me as fair and appropriate. The responses to my comments echoed back my tone. Understandably and appropriately so.

Scott Bourne, the Apple Phone Show host, responded:

Tom you keep leaving this comment every time we mention these earphones. And it’s completely contrary to our experience. Since you continue to leave this comment over and over, I have to ask, do you by chance work for a competitor to Vibe?

My point is a writer’s point. Tone is infectious. My words are my own, but the reader’s reaction is his. My post tacitly said “you’re misleading people.” That’s what was heard even if it was never expressly said.

It’s never what you say, it’s always what is heard.

Back to the review. I wrote as a pissy customer, not as an informed reviewer. Pissyness almost always highjacks calm discussion. Perhaps that reason is why so many business meetings fail, and why I am routinely employed.

I enjoyed being the pissy one for a change.

What do you mean by, “I didn’t get your package?” Picture from sawse.com. There are twenty more like this one.

I am busy rewriting 3rd-grade drivel mistakenly presented as modern business correspondence. Back next week. Or sooner.

My first post on imeem, not so good. First, more commentary, including a useful quote:

“Consumers love the idea of free music downloads, but I think it will be very difficult to underwrite that completely with advertising,” said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence.

It’s possible, he continued, that sites like Spiral Frog would have enough page views to generate revenue to compensate record companies for the lost revenue from sales. But he said he hasn’t seen numbers to prove it.

The imeem model, though, makes better financial sense for record companies, he said. “If you can’t download the music to your hard drive and you can’t put it on your iPod, then it’s basically Internet radio,” he added. “That model makes a lot of sense because most people aren’t going to pay to access music without being able to download it,” Sterling said.

Sterling concluded by saying that “music stores are trying to do iTunes one better, but it’s difficult to compensate for lost sales through advertising if people can download the tracks.”

What he said. imeem as replacement internet radio. The recent hike to royalty rates for internet radio forced most of those stations to close.

A music distribution channel cannot “do iTunes one better” unless it provides seamless portability and cheap(er) content. Perhaps what the labels want is to recreate radio on both the internet and portable music players. Perhaps revenues could be generated by audio or text ads as appropriate. First, though, kill old radio.

Royalties, ad revenues, purchases, subscription fees, etc., are due to copyright holders. Appropriately so. Even if the labels do nothing to further promote or distribute music, they are still due the economic opportunity embodied by the copyright.

If a different copyright model emerges, then the true death rattle of record labels could commence. Until the moment, I have to remind myself: Hate the player, not the game.