That’s right folks, just give it away! Don´t try and make money from music sales, make it available to everyone, for free! Or…don’t.

It is quite worrying when self proclaimed marketing gurus encourage musicians to not focus on trying to make money from their music itself (as this is a silly thing to do) but to solely focus on alternative revenue streams. This post is not criticising the wisdom of giving free samples away, this is the oldest trick in the book and a great way to introduce people to your music; but making things other than your music your primary revenue stream seems quite defeatist. The arguments for giving your music away free are understandable - putting a price on your music will drive potential fans away (since music is now free), people dont want to pay for music anymore (especially not yours), music is free like it should be! Get with it! - but these arguments are by no means conclusive.

The alternatives presented to not selling your actual music are to sell aspects of your music which cannot be “copied”, which is pretty much not to sell your music at all, but yourself. Get people to pay to be your fans and sell them stuff which non fans dont get, like behind the scenes pictures, interviews, limited edition merchandise, exclusive song releases etc. Fair enough, these revenue streams should be considered, but

they shouldn’t be the primary revenue stream. We think that the fan base of an artist should not be built up around what other services they can offer their fans, but the way the music can move and affect the people who listen to it – the music itself which should be the “unique selling point”. Artists shouldn’t have to compete about what “package” they can offer fans, but  the quality and deliverence of their music. It´s all about the music!

So what can we do to counter the conditions which encourage artists to give away their music for free? Well, continue developing and supporting services which easily allow fans to find the music they like, and artists to find their fans. Essentially, we need to develop better and better services to enable fans to navigate the long tail of music, and artists to place themselves in a place where their audience can be found. In addition, we need to enable all artists to sell their music globally, on all the music shops, and from as many websites as possible!

Tags: artists, free, indipendent, marketing, Music, support sites, The new music industry

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Promotion advice, The new music industry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.