9 ms·

Cellist Zoe Keating has posted her "Online Sales & Streaming" numbers

88 points by jamesbritt 14y ago

jamesbritt 14y ago
This was linked from some Twitter posts from cellist Zoe Keating, who makes some interesting modern music. I'm impressed that she's making here numbers public. She gets more from Pandora than Spotify. https://twitter.com/zoecello/status/231126328924061696 https://twitter.com/zoecello/status/231126328924061696
- citricsquid 14y ago
  What I find most interesting is someone with 1.3m Twitter followers is having so little of her music streamed, I assume that this is because the majority of her fans purchase her music? I notice she has a Bandcamp account. I think it would be great to see her Bandcamp sales figures too as a point of reference, and ideally an explanation of how being available on Spotify / Pandora affected her sales figures. She's also posted some more stats here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkasqHkVRM1OdEJFUnhyNFFkZjVSUWxhWGl1dE9lQXc#gid=6 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkasqHkVRM1OdEJ...
  - stephengillie 14y ago
    How many of those followers aren't fans, but: 1. bots 2. People who want to set up a business deal (everyone from major label agents to real estate agents) 3. Random people that follow others in the hopes of gaining more followers
  - beatpanda 14y ago
    Her Bandcamp sales figures are in the spreadsheet.
    - citricsquid 14y ago
      oh, the spreadsheet has changed since posted. Thanks!
      - jamesbritt 14y ago
        Also, there are tabs at the bottom to view different pages of the spreadsheet. (Sorry if I'm saying something obvious; I didn't catch it at first myself.)
  - protomyth 14y ago
    Maybe people who listen to her are more into CDs and buying from iTunes / Amazon?
    - bigiain 14y ago
      FWIW, I've got both her albums and her EP on CD, one of those albums on vinyl as well, and an iTunes copy of the other album (since the CD didn't arrive quickly enough). I also buy concert tickets at every opportunity: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigiain/7325677270/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigiain/7325677270/ I'm a bit of a fan… If you've not heard her music (or want to hear more) there's a free (legal) download here: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/soundquality/sqy-16/4012556 http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/soundquality/sq... She's a bit of a geek/hacker too - she runs a laptop with Ableton Live, sooperlooper, and a bunch of custom applescripts (which don't always play nice when the laptop sleeps, she sometimes needs to reboot on stage), and she was talking about building some custom microcontroller hardware to give her easier/different control compared to the midi footpedal she's using.
  - bigiain 14y ago
    $80,000 (net after fees) of downloads/physical sales in six months (without label support, which is pretty impressive to me) - that's presumably something like $120K gross sales (before iTunes/Amazon's 30% cut and credit card fees). If you attribute _all_ of that to twitter (big assumption!), then it values her twitter followers at ~$0.18/year. I wonder how many twitterers beat that?
- bicknergseng 14y ago
  She gets more from NPR than Spotify.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  Why are there different "unit" rates for the same song on the same day on Spotify? Weird.
  - pyoung 14y ago
    My best guess is that payment is based on some sort of revenue sharing agreement. So Spotify takes a portion of it's revenue for a certain time period and divides it equally among the artists based on the number of times their songs were played.
  - jessevondoom 14y ago
    Different payout rates for free versus paid users, which also varies from country to country based on negotiated royalty rates. I'd also assume exchange rates come into play.
- guelo 14y ago
  The music industry has negotiated really hard with Pandora over the years and came close to killing them off a few times by raising the rates to more than Pandora could pay. At this point the music industry is basically taking all of Pandora's profits leaving them razor thin margins. I don't know why Spotify has gotten such a better deal except maybe through the influence of Kleiner Perkins.
k-mcgrady 14y ago
32,000 plays and only $132. That seems really bad, if music does start to move more towards streaming than purchasing artists are screwed. It would take nearly 300,000 plays at this rate for someone living in an average city apartment to make rent. The internet and technology in general have done some great things for music but making money is harder than ever.
- saurik 14y ago
  My opinion of this result changes depending on how many unique users those 32,000 plays represent.
- citricsquid 14y ago
  If the average listener listens to 10 songs from an artist per month that only takes 3200 listeners to "make rent". 3200 listeners is a very small amount when you consider a) how little commitment there is to listening to music b) how easy it is to distribute music. > The internet and technology in general have done some great things for music but making money is harder than ever. I think the amount you can make per listener has decreased but the amount of listeners and reach has increased exponentially. For evidence of this check out all the independent Youtube musicians, there are quite a few securing millions of video views per month, that alone is enough to fund a good life, then if you add in sales, streams (via Spotify etc) they make excellent incomes that they couldn't have got 10 years ago.
  - jcheng 14y ago
    Do you mean 32,000 listeners?
    - citricsquid 14y ago
      32,000 listens, 10 listens per person, 3,200 people.
      - fossiltooth 14y ago
        Sorry, I think you math is broken here. 32,000 listens in a month at even a half cent per stream (More than ms. Keating is making) equals $160 a month. Try paying your rent with that! Maybe you missed a decimal point? She would need 320,000 listens from 32,000 extremely dedicated fans each month, which is unlikely to happen. If we got this rate up to a full 2 cents (more than quadruple what it is now)your 32,000 plays would still gross her only $640. Not even half the cost of a 1 bedroom's rent in any metropolitan area that I'm aware of.
ralphleon 14y ago
She's amazing live if you ever have the chance to see her. A 6-foot tall woman with red dreadlocks playing the cello beautifully.
- daeken 14y ago
  She opened for California Guitar Trio in 2006 in San Diego. It was a tiny venue (an old church) and it was spectacular. I was maybe 15 feet away from her, and the acoustics were fantastic; she just kept layering things over and over. She played with CGT as well, at the end; never heard anything like it. One of the best shows I've ever seen in my life.
- btucker 14y ago
  This reminded me to check her schedule. She'll be in Boston October 11. Tickets purchased. Thanks!
- blu3jack 14y ago
  Agreed. Totally awesome cellist. Fantastic use of looping to create 16-32 part cello pieces live, on stage, as a one woman show. And yes, she's hot, in a way that's at once kind of manly and very feminine. I don't know quite how to describe it.
beatpanda 14y ago
All up, it looks like she made about $85,000 from October of 2011 to March of 2012. That's antihistamine money, especially for someone not making pop music. This appears to be unambiguously good news for independent artists.
- glimcat 14y ago
  After being at this for a while and being successful enough to get a label account on iTunes.
- 1337biz 14y ago
  Plus the "real" money for niche artists like these should be in live concerts. Honestly, I had expected the numbers to be much worse.
- kondro 14y ago
  The most interesting point is that most of this isn't from Spotify or any other streaming service. People use these services the same they would as if they owned the music. It is possible that total lifetime revenue from these services could be higher, but I doubt it.
  - bunderbunder 14y ago
    In the future I think this is going to have to play out the way it has been for Netflix: As streaming services disrupt other revenue models, content producers will begin charging streaming providers more money. Right now, though, it's still easy to think of Spotify in the way Keating suggests: As a form of advertising first and foremost.
- Bjartr 14y ago
  For those of you that are confused like I was for having never heard the phrase: It's antihistamine money because it's nothing to sneeze at
- revorad 14y ago
  unambiguously good news for independent artists What algorithm do you use for your amazing extrapolation based on one data point?
MartinCron 14y ago
Kind of off-topic, but it's worth pointing out that Zoe Keating has done some great work with the Radiolab guys.
- spacemanaki 14y ago
  Not sure if this was what you were referring to, but as well as some of her music being used in shows, she was interviewed in a podcast: http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2008/aug/25/quantum-cello/ http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2008/aug/25/quan...
bunderbunder 14y ago
Don't miss the Notes tab, it has some interesting and thoughtful comments.
- MartinCron 14y ago
  Including this gem: Some people say that if I was on a record label, I'd have a larger reach and therefore would be making more money. To this I'd like to point out that I make instrumental cello music.
swang 14y ago
I can't access Google Docs, can someone summarize what is on there (assuming it is summarizable)
- jamesbritt 14y ago
  A bunch of numbers showing what she made off her music from various sources, such as Spotify, Soundcloud, NPR (that surprised me), Pandora, Bandcamp, others. Hard for me to summarize the meaning of all this, the comprative values, unexpected results, and so on, but I think the other comments here cover that.
- lelandbatey 14y ago
  These Here is her summary on the final sheet. I will try to format it as much as possible: What is this? This accounting data is payment for plays of my "One Cello x 16" recordings from Spotify. The payments are minus the 9% taken off the top by CDBaby. Why did I post it? You've probably heard a lot of discussion on how musicians should be compensated for their work: There have been numerous articles on the subject; We know how the big players in the industry: - labels, digital retailers, streaming companies, etc - make money; We get reports on the industry-wide sales figures. But all the way at the bottom of the food-chain, how does a recording artist make a living? How much cold cash does an unsigned DIY artist make from a stream or a sale? These figures are surprisingly hard to come by, which is why the Future of Music Coalition has been surveying musicians on how they make a living (really worth reading: http://money.futureofmusic.org/ http://money.futureofmusic.org/). I thought it might be helpful for interested parties to see what a DIY artist receives for plays of their music on Spotify. But I admit I have grander designs: if we are going to discuss the ideal structure of the new music industry, we need to know how recording artists make a living today or we're just spouting hyperbole. So, in the interest of evolving the discussion, I am making myself into a data point. I encourage other artists, if they are able, to do the same. What is in the data? Again, this is what I received from Spotify for plays of a portion of my catalog. One of my albums is not on Spotify however because I don't have a digital distributor for it (I sell it on my own website, on Bandcamp and through my own label account with iTunes) Since I posted this info I've gotten a lot of questions about my music sales income for comparison, so I added a snapshot of iTunes, Bandcamp and Amazon and accounting from Soundexchange (i.e. Pandora) and ASCAP (i.e. Radio) Why aren't all my albums on Spotify? When I started releasing music in 2005 I used CDBaby since at the time it was the only way into iTunes for DIY'er. Years later, I got a label account with iTunes so I could release "Into The Trees" to them directly, without a service in the middle. This year I took my "One Cello x 16" recordings out of CDBaby and re-uploaded them into iTunes through my label account (losing all my rankings and reviews in the process, which is why I put if off for so long). Spotify does not work directly with artists, so to get my music in there I have to use an aggregator like CDBaby, TuneCore or Orchard. I've yet to find a digital distributor who will take my recordings without also having a piece of iTunes....and so that is why "Into The Trees" is not on Spotify yet. Bonus, Deep Thoughts! I think Spotify is awesome as a listening platform. In my opinion artists should view it as a discovery service rather than a source of income. The income of a non-mainstream artist like me is a patchwork quilt and streaming is currently one tiny square in that quilt. Streaming is not yet a replacement for digital sales, and to conflate the two is a mistake. I do not see streaming as a threat to my income, just like I've never regarded file-sharing as a threat but as a convenient way to hear music. If people really like my music, I still believe they'll support it somewhere, somehow. Casual listeners won't, but they never did anyway. I don't buy ALL the music I listen to either, I never did, so why should I expect every single listener to make a purchase? I think that a subset of my listeners pay for my music, and that is a-ok because...and this is the key.....there are few middlemen between us. My financial picture would be worse if I was on a record label. Some people say that if I was on a record label, I'd have a larger reach and therefore would be making more money. To this I'd like to point out that I make instrumental cello music. There is about as much chance of my music becoming mainstream as there is of me being elected President of the USA (hint: not possible, I was born in Canada and there are naked pictures of me at Burning Man). While it is probably true that the right label could help with the reach part, I don't think they could help me enough to offset their cut, and you know what….no label has ever approached me and the ones I've approached said no, so I'm guessing they think the same thing. I've said multiple times what my issue with Spotify is: fairness. I care about making the playing field level for all recording artists: signed or unsigned. Let it be a meritocracy. Also, I wish Spotify would do more to facilitate the connection between listeners and artists - i.e show that the artist is playing nearby, or add links to buy music. It's early days, so maybe this will happen eventually. p.s. What did I make on iTunes during the same period? I also sell digital and physical copies on iTunes, Bandcamp, Amazon and at concerts. It's comparing apple to oranges, but I for the same time period (Oct 2011 to March 2012), I received, net (i.e. after fees): - $46477.77 from iTunes - $25,000 from Bandcamp - $8352.45 for physical sales on Amazon - $2821 from Amazon MP3 p.p.s. I'd like to be known for my music more than my tendency to stir up controversy, so I probably won't say much more on the subject because I have some music to make….;-)
chucknelson 14y ago
My initial impression: if you like the Journey soundtrack or soundtracks by Clint Mansell, you'll like this. Had no idea who this was until this article, but I'm buying her album after listening to the tracks on her website.
jlarocco 14y ago
This is nice, but I'd still like to see a complete nobody, without previous record deals start out on the internet and "make it". So far all the examples of internet distribution "working" have been from big (or relatively big) artists.
- jamesbritt 14y ago
  From the Notes tab of the spreadsheet: (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkasqHkVRM1OdEJFUnhyNFFkZjVSUWxhWGl1dE9lQXc#gid=3 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkasqHkVRM1OdEJ...) "I thought it might be helpful for interested parties to see what a DIY artist receives for plays of their music on Spotify and elsewhere." and "My financial picture would be worse if I was on a record label. Some people say that if I was on a record label, I'd have a larger reach and therefore would be making more money. To this I'd like to point out that I make instrumental cello music. There is about as much chance of my music becoming mainstream as there is of me being elected President of the USA (hint: not possible, I was born in Canada and there are naked pictures of me at Burning Man). While it is probably true that the right label could help with the reach part, I don't think they could help me enough to offset their cut, and you know what….no label has ever approached me and the ones I've approached said no, so I'm guessing they think the same thing." As best I can tell, she is someone without a record deal who made it. And I don't think shes's even relatively big but she seems to do OK for herself.
- rodly 14y ago
  You're implying that this is the picture someone (companies? media? society?) has painted for "purely" digital artists. It is a silly position to look at this document and say, "See! ~40,000 and only ~$100 for their efforts! Haha!". If you think about how many people use Spotify, then remember how many listen to songs repeatedly, and then also remember how many listen to songs and then leave the room because someone rung the door bell, that's a shit ton of plays. So 40,000 plays doesn't take long to accumulate and if you only acquire this amount you're not good, niche genre, etc. We don't hold this same criticism to pure e-commerce startups. If an internet startup fails it's likely because they had a boring product and/or marketed themselves poorly, or some other reason. The barrier to entry for someone to create music these days is very low. Software is cheap, talent is cheap, and distribution (digital) is very cheap. So why would an artist expect to make more money making a song that took maybe 100 hours to make than a person who works 40 hours a week every week?
malbs 14y ago
Just wanted to say thanks for this link - I'm not interested in her numbers, but to stumble across this on HN, and head off and listen to her music, awesome. I really love the sound of the cello, and discovered another cellist, Philip Sheppard, in a similar way. And her album is only 8 bucks! in FLAC format!
- leftnode 14y ago
  Yup, same here. I've never heard of her before, but thanks to this link I went to her site, listened to the album and picked up a copy. Great programming music.
  - darkmethod 14y ago
    "Great programming music." I completely agree. Been listening to it all day. I'm thankful that the OP added this link to HN. It made my day that much brighter.
- trafficlight 14y ago
  Into The Trees is one of my favorite albums of all time.
- gtani 14y ago
  I discovered her music a few months back when i walked past her concert venue (a theater by the Univ of Washington) and thinking it was the Laurie Anderson/Phillip Glass crowd. I don't know a lot about cello (yet) but her left hand technique seems unorthodox. I saw this 6 string violin player last weekend, doing rockier stuff with similar tools (looper and typical rock guitar pedalboard: wah, chorus, delay, reverb, envelope filter and Tube Screamer, I think http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHtdgz5Ioe0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHtdgz5Ioe0
kristianp 14y ago
No mention of Grooveshark revenue (I mention it because I like to use it). After reading some stuff online including [1], I'm going to guess it is zero. [1] http://blog.tunecore.com/2012/04/grooveshark-trolling-the-sea-of-artists-to-make-a-buck.html http://blog.tunecore.com/2012/04/grooveshark-trolling-the-se...
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
medusa666 14y ago
After reading the Notes tab I naturally headed straight to GOOG, but was unable to unearth any "naked pictures [from] Burning Man." What is this thread without pics?
noonespecial 14y ago
Awesome. She's a hacker; first order. Watch this blurb from Wired. So much win. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6C1k5qer8k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6C1k5qer8k

88 points by jamesbritt 14y ago

This was linked from some Twitter posts from cellist Zoe Keating, who makes some interesting modern music. I'm impressed that she's making here numbers public. She gets more from Pandora than Spotify. https://twitter.com/zoecello/status/231126328924061696 https://twitter.com/zoecello/status/231126328924061696

citricsquid 14y ago
What I find most interesting is someone with 1.3m Twitter followers is having so little of her music streamed, I assume that this is because the majority of her fans purchase her music? I notice she has a Bandcamp account. I think it would be great to see her Bandcamp sales figures too as a point of reference, and ideally an explanation of how being available on Spotify / Pandora affected her sales figures. She's also posted some more stats here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkasqHkVRM1OdEJFUnhyNFFkZjVSUWxhWGl1dE9lQXc#gid=6 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkasqHkVRM1OdEJ...
- stephengillie 14y ago
  How many of those followers aren't fans, but: 1. bots 2. People who want to set up a business deal (everyone from major label agents to real estate agents) 3. Random people that follow others in the hopes of gaining more followers
- beatpanda 14y ago
  Her Bandcamp sales figures are in the spreadsheet.
  - citricsquid 14y ago
    oh, the spreadsheet has changed since posted. Thanks!
    - jamesbritt 14y ago
      Also, there are tabs at the bottom to view different pages of the spreadsheet. (Sorry if I'm saying something obvious; I didn't catch it at first myself.)
- protomyth 14y ago
  Maybe people who listen to her are more into CDs and buying from iTunes / Amazon?
  - bigiain 14y ago
    FWIW, I've got both her albums and her EP on CD, one of those albums on vinyl as well, and an iTunes copy of the other album (since the CD didn't arrive quickly enough). I also buy concert tickets at every opportunity: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigiain/7325677270/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigiain/7325677270/ I'm a bit of a fan… If you've not heard her music (or want to hear more) there's a free (legal) download here: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/soundquality/sqy-16/4012556 http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/soundquality/sq... She's a bit of a geek/hacker too - she runs a laptop with Ableton Live, sooperlooper, and a bunch of custom applescripts (which don't always play nice when the laptop sleeps, she sometimes needs to reboot on stage), and she was talking about building some custom microcontroller hardware to give her easier/different control compared to the midi footpedal she's using.
- bigiain 14y ago
  $80,000 (net after fees) of downloads/physical sales in six months (without label support, which is pretty impressive to me) - that's presumably something like $120K gross sales (before iTunes/Amazon's 30% cut and credit card fees). If you attribute _all_ of that to twitter (big assumption!), then it values her twitter followers at ~$0.18/year. I wonder how many twitterers beat that?
bicknergseng 14y ago
She gets more from NPR than Spotify.
waterlesscloud 14y ago
Why are there different "unit" rates for the same song on the same day on Spotify? Weird.
- pyoung 14y ago
  My best guess is that payment is based on some sort of revenue sharing agreement. So Spotify takes a portion of it's revenue for a certain time period and divides it equally among the artists based on the number of times their songs were played.
- jessevondoom 14y ago
  Different payout rates for free versus paid users, which also varies from country to country based on negotiated royalty rates. I'd also assume exchange rates come into play.
guelo 14y ago
The music industry has negotiated really hard with Pandora over the years and came close to killing them off a few times by raising the rates to more than Pandora could pay. At this point the music industry is basically taking all of Pandora's profits leaving them razor thin margins. I don't know why Spotify has gotten such a better deal except maybe through the influence of Kleiner Perkins.

k-mcgrady 14y ago

32,000 plays and only $132. That seems really bad, if music does start to move more towards streaming than purchasing artists are screwed. It would take nearly 300,000 plays at this rate for someone living in an average city apartment to make rent. The internet and technology in general have done some great things for music but making money is harder than ever.

saurik 14y ago
My opinion of this result changes depending on how many unique users those 32,000 plays represent.
citricsquid 14y ago
If the average listener listens to 10 songs from an artist per month that only takes 3200 listeners to "make rent". 3200 listeners is a very small amount when you consider a) how little commitment there is to listening to music b) how easy it is to distribute music. > The internet and technology in general have done some great things for music but making money is harder than ever. I think the amount you can make per listener has decreased but the amount of listeners and reach has increased exponentially. For evidence of this check out all the independent Youtube musicians, there are quite a few securing millions of video views per month, that alone is enough to fund a good life, then if you add in sales, streams (via Spotify etc) they make excellent incomes that they couldn't have got 10 years ago.
- jcheng 14y ago
  Do you mean 32,000 listeners?
  - citricsquid 14y ago
    32,000 listens, 10 listens per person, 3,200 people.
    - fossiltooth 14y ago
      Sorry, I think you math is broken here. 32,000 listens in a month at even a half cent per stream (More than ms. Keating is making) equals $160 a month. Try paying your rent with that! Maybe you missed a decimal point? She would need 320,000 listens from 32,000 extremely dedicated fans each month, which is unlikely to happen. If we got this rate up to a full 2 cents (more than quadruple what it is now)your 32,000 plays would still gross her only $640. Not even half the cost of a 1 bedroom's rent in any metropolitan area that I'm aware of.

ralphleon 14y ago

She's amazing live if you ever have the chance to see her. A 6-foot tall woman with red dreadlocks playing the cello beautifully.

daeken 14y ago
She opened for California Guitar Trio in 2006 in San Diego. It was a tiny venue (an old church) and it was spectacular. I was maybe 15 feet away from her, and the acoustics were fantastic; she just kept layering things over and over. She played with CGT as well, at the end; never heard anything like it. One of the best shows I've ever seen in my life.
btucker 14y ago
This reminded me to check her schedule. She'll be in Boston October 11. Tickets purchased. Thanks!
blu3jack 14y ago
Agreed. Totally awesome cellist. Fantastic use of looping to create 16-32 part cello pieces live, on stage, as a one woman show. And yes, she's hot, in a way that's at once kind of manly and very feminine. I don't know quite how to describe it.

beatpanda 14y ago

All up, it looks like she made about $85,000 from October of 2011 to March of 2012. That's antihistamine money, especially for someone not making pop music. This appears to be unambiguously good news for independent artists.

glimcat 14y ago
After being at this for a while and being successful enough to get a label account on iTunes.
1337biz 14y ago
Plus the "real" money for niche artists like these should be in live concerts. Honestly, I had expected the numbers to be much worse.
kondro 14y ago
The most interesting point is that most of this isn't from Spotify or any other streaming service. People use these services the same they would as if they owned the music. It is possible that total lifetime revenue from these services could be higher, but I doubt it.
- bunderbunder 14y ago
  In the future I think this is going to have to play out the way it has been for Netflix: As streaming services disrupt other revenue models, content producers will begin charging streaming providers more money. Right now, though, it's still easy to think of Spotify in the way Keating suggests: As a form of advertising first and foremost.
Bjartr 14y ago
For those of you that are confused like I was for having never heard the phrase: It's antihistamine money because it's nothing to sneeze at
revorad 14y ago
unambiguously good news for independent artists What algorithm do you use for your amazing extrapolation based on one data point?

MartinCron 14y ago

Kind of off-topic, but it's worth pointing out that Zoe Keating has done some great work with the Radiolab guys.

spacemanaki 14y ago
Not sure if this was what you were referring to, but as well as some of her music being used in shows, she was interviewed in a podcast: http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2008/aug/25/quantum-cello/ http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2008/aug/25/quan...

bunderbunder 14y ago

Don't miss the Notes tab, it has some interesting and thoughtful comments.

MartinCron 14y ago
Including this gem: Some people say that if I was on a record label, I'd have a larger reach and therefore would be making more money. To this I'd like to point out that I make instrumental cello music.

swang 14y ago

I can't access Google Docs, can someone summarize what is on there (assuming it is summarizable)

jamesbritt 14y ago
A bunch of numbers showing what she made off her music from various sources, such as Spotify, Soundcloud, NPR (that surprised me), Pandora, Bandcamp, others. Hard for me to summarize the meaning of all this, the comprative values, unexpected results, and so on, but I think the other comments here cover that.
lelandbatey 14y ago
These Here is her summary on the final sheet. I will try to format it as much as possible: What is this? This accounting data is payment for plays of my "One Cello x 16" recordings from Spotify. The payments are minus the 9% taken off the top by CDBaby. Why did I post it? You've probably heard a lot of discussion on how musicians should be compensated for their work: There have been numerous articles on the subject; We know how the big players in the industry: - labels, digital retailers, streaming companies, etc - make money; We get reports on the industry-wide sales figures. But all the way at the bottom of the food-chain, how does a recording artist make a living? How much cold cash does an unsigned DIY artist make from a stream or a sale? These figures are surprisingly hard to come by, which is why the Future of Music Coalition has been surveying musicians on how they make a living (really worth reading: http://money.futureofmusic.org/ http://money.futureofmusic.org/). I thought it might be helpful for interested parties to see what a DIY artist receives for plays of their music on Spotify. But I admit I have grander designs: if we are going to discuss the ideal structure of the new music industry, we need to know how recording artists make a living today or we're just spouting hyperbole. So, in the interest of evolving the discussion, I am making myself into a data point. I encourage other artists, if they are able, to do the same. What is in the data? Again, this is what I received from Spotify for plays of a portion of my catalog. One of my albums is not on Spotify however because I don't have a digital distributor for it (I sell it on my own website, on Bandcamp and through my own label account with iTunes) Since I posted this info I've gotten a lot of questions about my music sales income for comparison, so I added a snapshot of iTunes, Bandcamp and Amazon and accounting from Soundexchange (i.e. Pandora) and ASCAP (i.e. Radio) Why aren't all my albums on Spotify? When I started releasing music in 2005 I used CDBaby since at the time it was the only way into iTunes for DIY'er. Years later, I got a label account with iTunes so I could release "Into The Trees" to them directly, without a service in the middle. This year I took my "One Cello x 16" recordings out of CDBaby and re-uploaded them into iTunes through my label account (losing all my rankings and reviews in the process, which is why I put if off for so long). Spotify does not work directly with artists, so to get my music in there I have to use an aggregator like CDBaby, TuneCore or Orchard. I've yet to find a digital distributor who will take my recordings without also having a piece of iTunes....and so that is why "Into The Trees" is not on Spotify yet. Bonus, Deep Thoughts! I think Spotify is awesome as a listening platform. In my opinion artists should view it as a discovery service rather than a source of income. The income of a non-mainstream artist like me is a patchwork quilt and streaming is currently one tiny square in that quilt. Streaming is not yet a replacement for digital sales, and to conflate the two is a mistake. I do not see streaming as a threat to my income, just like I've never regarded file-sharing as a threat but as a convenient way to hear music. If people really like my music, I still believe they'll support it somewhere, somehow. Casual listeners won't, but they never did anyway. I don't buy ALL the music I listen to either, I never did, so why should I expect every single listener to make a purchase? I think that a subset of my listeners pay for my music, and that is a-ok because...and this is the key.....there are few middlemen between us. My financial picture would be worse if I was on a record label. Some people say that if I was on a record label, I'd have a larger reach and therefore would be making more money. To this I'd like to point out that I make instrumental cello music. There is about as much chance of my music becoming mainstream as there is of me being elected President of the USA (hint: not possible, I was born in Canada and there are naked pictures of me at Burning Man). While it is probably true that the right label could help with the reach part, I don't think they could help me enough to offset their cut, and you know what….no label has ever approached me and the ones I've approached said no, so I'm guessing they think the same thing. I've said multiple times what my issue with Spotify is: fairness. I care about making the playing field level for all recording artists: signed or unsigned. Let it be a meritocracy. Also, I wish Spotify would do more to facilitate the connection between listeners and artists - i.e show that the artist is playing nearby, or add links to buy music. It's early days, so maybe this will happen eventually. p.s. What did I make on iTunes during the same period? I also sell digital and physical copies on iTunes, Bandcamp, Amazon and at concerts. It's comparing apple to oranges, but I for the same time period (Oct 2011 to March 2012), I received, net (i.e. after fees): - $46477.77 from iTunes - $25,000 from Bandcamp - $8352.45 for physical sales on Amazon - $2821 from Amazon MP3 p.p.s. I'd like to be known for my music more than my tendency to stir up controversy, so I probably won't say much more on the subject because I have some music to make….;-)

chucknelson 14y ago

My initial impression: if you like the Journey soundtrack or soundtracks by Clint Mansell, you'll like this. Had no idea who this was until this article, but I'm buying her album after listening to the tracks on her website.

jlarocco 14y ago

This is nice, but I'd still like to see a complete nobody, without previous record deals start out on the internet and "make it". So far all the examples of internet distribution "working" have been from big (or relatively big) artists.

jamesbritt 14y ago
From the Notes tab of the spreadsheet: (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkasqHkVRM1OdEJFUnhyNFFkZjVSUWxhWGl1dE9lQXc#gid=3 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkasqHkVRM1OdEJ...) "I thought it might be helpful for interested parties to see what a DIY artist receives for plays of their music on Spotify and elsewhere." and "My financial picture would be worse if I was on a record label. Some people say that if I was on a record label, I'd have a larger reach and therefore would be making more money. To this I'd like to point out that I make instrumental cello music. There is about as much chance of my music becoming mainstream as there is of me being elected President of the USA (hint: not possible, I was born in Canada and there are naked pictures of me at Burning Man). While it is probably true that the right label could help with the reach part, I don't think they could help me enough to offset their cut, and you know what….no label has ever approached me and the ones I've approached said no, so I'm guessing they think the same thing." As best I can tell, she is someone without a record deal who made it. And I don't think shes's even relatively big but she seems to do OK for herself.
rodly 14y ago
You're implying that this is the picture someone (companies? media? society?) has painted for "purely" digital artists. It is a silly position to look at this document and say, "See! ~40,000 and only ~$100 for their efforts! Haha!". If you think about how many people use Spotify, then remember how many listen to songs repeatedly, and then also remember how many listen to songs and then leave the room because someone rung the door bell, that's a shit ton of plays. So 40,000 plays doesn't take long to accumulate and if you only acquire this amount you're not good, niche genre, etc. We don't hold this same criticism to pure e-commerce startups. If an internet startup fails it's likely because they had a boring product and/or marketed themselves poorly, or some other reason. The barrier to entry for someone to create music these days is very low. Software is cheap, talent is cheap, and distribution (digital) is very cheap. So why would an artist expect to make more money making a song that took maybe 100 hours to make than a person who works 40 hours a week every week?

malbs 14y ago

Just wanted to say thanks for this link - I'm not interested in her numbers, but to stumble across this on HN, and head off and listen to her music, awesome. I really love the sound of the cello, and discovered another cellist, Philip Sheppard, in a similar way. And her album is only 8 bucks! in FLAC format!

leftnode 14y ago
Yup, same here. I've never heard of her before, but thanks to this link I went to her site, listened to the album and picked up a copy. Great programming music.
- darkmethod 14y ago
  "Great programming music." I completely agree. Been listening to it all day. I'm thankful that the OP added this link to HN. It made my day that much brighter.
trafficlight 14y ago
Into The Trees is one of my favorite albums of all time.
gtani 14y ago
I discovered her music a few months back when i walked past her concert venue (a theater by the Univ of Washington) and thinking it was the Laurie Anderson/Phillip Glass crowd. I don't know a lot about cello (yet) but her left hand technique seems unorthodox. I saw this 6 string violin player last weekend, doing rockier stuff with similar tools (looper and typical rock guitar pedalboard: wah, chorus, delay, reverb, envelope filter and Tube Screamer, I think http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHtdgz5Ioe0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHtdgz5Ioe0

kristianp 14y ago

No mention of Grooveshark revenue (I mention it because I like to use it). After reading some stuff online including [1], I'm going to guess it is zero. [1] http://blog.tunecore.com/2012/04/grooveshark-trolling-the-sea-of-artists-to-make-a-buck.html http://blog.tunecore.com/2012/04/grooveshark-trolling-the-se...

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medusa666 14y ago

After reading the Notes tab I naturally headed straight to GOOG, but was unable to unearth any "naked pictures [from] Burning Man." What is this thread without pics?

noonespecial 14y ago

Awesome. She's a hacker; first order. Watch this blurb from Wired. So much win. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6C1k5qer8k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6C1k5qer8k