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How An Indie Musician Made $19,000 In 10 Hours Using Twitter

28 points by replicatorblog 17y ago

replicatorblog 17y ago
I know this sounds like a spam post, but it is the story of Dresden Dolls front woman, Amanda Palmer, using twitter in some creative ways to generate business. Actually filled with useful ideas that could apply to many other businesses, especially in the service market.
- gry 17y ago
  Likewise, here story about a coffee shop which uses Twitter place to go orders. http://blog.mrtweet.net/twitter-to-go-how-one-local-coffee-shop-used-twitter-to-double-his-clientele http://blog.mrtweet.net/twitter-to-go-how-one-local-coffee-s...
- J_McQuade 17y ago
  The title makes it sound like it was a 'nobody' suddenly using the 'net to strike gold - Amanda Palmer has a veritable army of uncommonly loyal fans, fans who would certainly pay far more than $25 for impromptu hand-designed T-Shirts from her, whatever the medium through which they were advertised. This story is, for anyone without such a fanbase, worthless. And 'indie musician'? The text itself (that was copied wholesale from the artist with little/no value added) references a "huge-ass ben-folds produced-major-label solo album"! Stupid stupid linkbait. That said, it is a fantastic record and it's a shame to see she's not made any money from it as yet.
  - chrisrhee 17y ago
    Exactly. I'd never play down the countless hours of work it takes to make a living from the music business - but doesn't being connected with a major label imply that you're no longer "indie?" So all you need is 10 hours, Twitter and a massive army of super-dedicated fans (340,000 listeners on last.fm alone) Disclosure: I work for an independent record label.
  - kragen 17y ago
    fans who would certainly pay far more than $25 for impromptu hand-designed T-Shirts from her, whatever the medium through which they were advertised While I agree that her fans love her, I suspect the immediacy of the medium made a big difference. If she'd advertised in the newspaper, ⓐ most of the fans never would have seen it and ⓑ those who did would mostly think, "Oh, maybe I'll order a shirt the next time I'm online."
    - replicatorblog 17y ago
      Great point, I'm sure all the mid level bands that have shirts languishing on Zazzle or CafePress would love to have those kind of sales figures. Having a huge fan base helps, but this is a new kind of experience that isn't possible via web,RSS, or other channels as currently offered.
noodle 17y ago
to be fair, though, she has a little extra clout backing her endeavor. your average local indie musician will have trouble managing this level of response.
- replicatorblog 17y ago
  Totally, the Dresden Dolls are working from a huge fan base, but it was interesting how it almost totally took any third parties out of the equation. My main interest in tech is the customization of physical products with web based design tools and It struck me as an interesting model for distribution in the future. If you are a purveyor of some limited edition good, it would give you a direct channel, add some mystique to the process, etc.
  - noodle 17y ago
    yeah and she also got airtime from neil, her boyfriend, with 600k+ followers.
mattmaroon 17y ago
"TOTAL MADE FROM 30,000 RECORD SALES = ABSOLUTELY NOTHING." I'm guessing that's only because her advance was greater than her royalties so far, so she really did make money off of those sales. Probably much more than $19,000 too.
- kragen 17y ago
  Any clue on what the [edit] solo album advance might have been? I think advances range over two orders of magnitude or more, don't they?
  - J_McQuade 17y ago
    Well, a close friend of mine helms a moderately well-known metal band (albums charted in Germany, high on the UK Rock Charts and on the Billboard Heatseeker charts in the US) and after two successful albums, a few large European tours and a month touring the US (in itself a big feat for a European metal band), they are still 'down' by a figure in the order of tens of thousands of GBP to their record label. It's definitely a tough game.
    - sanswork 17y ago
      Sounds like bullet.
    - kragen 17y ago
      See, the thing is, if they're only down by tens of thousands of £, which is like dozens of thousands of US$, they would earn out from that in short order if the album revenues were similar to their merchandise revenues Palmer cites here.
  - rodyancy 17y ago
    Advances run from 10k to millions, depending on how many albums the music executives believe you will sell, and how badly they want to distribute your album.
  - mattmaroon 17y ago
mcastner 17y ago
Funny story related to this article: I'd never heard their music before so I googled them, went to their official website, and checked out their videos section for some music videos. The music videos they link to on YouTube were all taken down due to Warner Music Group filing a copyright claim…against one of their own artists. Oh, and I still don't know any of their music and I'm not motivated enough to look elsewhere to find it, so WMG kinda just lost a potential sale there.
paul9290 17y ago
I could not go on reading this article after he proclaimed himself a rock-star. It seemed an interesting read up to that point!
sh1mmer 17y ago
I think this is very interesting but also somewhat misleading. Her traditional media connections, e.g. her label, helped her accumulate 30k fans on Twitter which she can then leverage in interesting ways. Not that this isn't interesting. However the point remains that conventional means remain a good way of starting a following, social networks are a good way of leveraging them.

I know this sounds like a spam post, but it is the story of Dresden Dolls front woman, Amanda Palmer, using twitter in some creative ways to generate business. Actually filled with useful ideas that could apply to many other businesses, especially in the service market.

gry 17y ago
Likewise, here story about a coffee shop which uses Twitter place to go orders. http://blog.mrtweet.net/twitter-to-go-how-one-local-coffee-shop-used-twitter-to-double-his-clientele http://blog.mrtweet.net/twitter-to-go-how-one-local-coffee-s...
J_McQuade 17y ago
The title makes it sound like it was a 'nobody' suddenly using the 'net to strike gold - Amanda Palmer has a veritable army of uncommonly loyal fans, fans who would certainly pay far more than $25 for impromptu hand-designed T-Shirts from her, whatever the medium through which they were advertised. This story is, for anyone without such a fanbase, worthless. And 'indie musician'? The text itself (that was copied wholesale from the artist with little/no value added) references a "huge-ass ben-folds produced-major-label solo album"! Stupid stupid linkbait. That said, it is a fantastic record and it's a shame to see she's not made any money from it as yet.
- chrisrhee 17y ago
  Exactly. I'd never play down the countless hours of work it takes to make a living from the music business - but doesn't being connected with a major label imply that you're no longer "indie?" So all you need is 10 hours, Twitter and a massive army of super-dedicated fans (340,000 listeners on last.fm alone) Disclosure: I work for an independent record label.
- kragen 17y ago
  fans who would certainly pay far more than $25 for impromptu hand-designed T-Shirts from her, whatever the medium through which they were advertised While I agree that her fans love her, I suspect the immediacy of the medium made a big difference. If she'd advertised in the newspaper, ⓐ most of the fans never would have seen it and ⓑ those who did would mostly think, "Oh, maybe I'll order a shirt the next time I'm online."
  - replicatorblog 17y ago
    Great point, I'm sure all the mid level bands that have shirts languishing on Zazzle or CafePress would love to have those kind of sales figures. Having a huge fan base helps, but this is a new kind of experience that isn't possible via web,RSS, or other channels as currently offered.

noodle 17y ago

to be fair, though, she has a little extra clout backing her endeavor. your average local indie musician will have trouble managing this level of response.

replicatorblog 17y ago
Totally, the Dresden Dolls are working from a huge fan base, but it was interesting how it almost totally took any third parties out of the equation. My main interest in tech is the customization of physical products with web based design tools and It struck me as an interesting model for distribution in the future. If you are a purveyor of some limited edition good, it would give you a direct channel, add some mystique to the process, etc.
- noodle 17y ago
  yeah and she also got airtime from neil, her boyfriend, with 600k+ followers.

mattmaroon 17y ago

"TOTAL MADE FROM 30,000 RECORD SALES = ABSOLUTELY NOTHING." I'm guessing that's only because her advance was greater than her royalties so far, so she really did make money off of those sales. Probably much more than $19,000 too.

kragen 17y ago
Any clue on what the [edit] solo album advance might have been? I think advances range over two orders of magnitude or more, don't they?
- J_McQuade 17y ago
  Well, a close friend of mine helms a moderately well-known metal band (albums charted in Germany, high on the UK Rock Charts and on the Billboard Heatseeker charts in the US) and after two successful albums, a few large European tours and a month touring the US (in itself a big feat for a European metal band), they are still 'down' by a figure in the order of tens of thousands of GBP to their record label. It's definitely a tough game.
  - sanswork 17y ago
    Sounds like bullet.
  - kragen 17y ago
    See, the thing is, if they're only down by tens of thousands of £, which is like dozens of thousands of US$, they would earn out from that in short order if the album revenues were similar to their merchandise revenues Palmer cites here.
- rodyancy 17y ago
  Advances run from 10k to millions, depending on how many albums the music executives believe you will sell, and how badly they want to distribute your album.
- mattmaroon 17y ago

mcastner 17y ago

Funny story related to this article: I'd never heard their music before so I googled them, went to their official website, and checked out their videos section for some music videos. The music videos they link to on YouTube were all taken down due to Warner Music Group filing a copyright claim…against one of their own artists. Oh, and I still don't know any of their music and I'm not motivated enough to look elsewhere to find it, so WMG kinda just lost a potential sale there.

paul9290 17y ago

I could not go on reading this article after he proclaimed himself a rock-star. It seemed an interesting read up to that point!

sh1mmer 17y ago

I think this is very interesting but also somewhat misleading. Her traditional media connections, e.g. her label, helped her accumulate 30k fans on Twitter which she can then leverage in interesting ways. Not that this isn't interesting. However the point remains that conventional means remain a good way of starting a following, social networks are a good way of leveraging them.