The view from here

It’s funny how the longer you do things the more your point of view changes on key topics. I thought I might share my observations from this point in the journey.

When I first stated selling MP3s, I really thought people would impulse buy the singles. Well, they aren’t. I’m selling collections of songs, but for the most part the singles are untouched. As a matter of fact most single download happen when I know someone is particularly fond of a song and I just give them the note card for the download for free.

The biggest sellers are Black and White, and White and Black. These have the songs people are most familiar with, so that is not surprising. But they also represent the most expensive Items I have for sale.

I read this fact as implying I’m not selling music at an impulse level. People see my music as something they want and want a good deal of. There aren’t hit singles; the whole catalog seems pretty sound (judging by sales).

While standard business practice would be to continue to make singles available, simply because there is a potential sale there, the fact of the matter is the singles vendor is probably more of a distraction then an advantage. There are LOTS of songs in the singles vendor and finding the one you might want is not easy. You have to wait for each graphic to load and rez. With over 30 songs available that is a lot of loading and rezing.

Setting up a web page for each song and making a graphic for each song, and setting up a vendor slot for each song makes marketing singles very labor intensive. Considering the negligible sales, it’s probably not worth the effort.

I’m probably going to phase out single sales and I don’t think anybody will even notice. For most artists it would make sense. Most have ONE CD worth of material and a few songs are vastly better then the others.

All this thinking is of course pointing forward to the impending release of “Songs in the key of Green”. I’m already promoting the songs in concert, so when the collection is finished people will be familiar with the material. However, as always there is a bi-directional agenda with this project. I want people to want the music, but will be attempting to create a recording that would appeal to anybody that happened across it.

Many view music in a real life verse second life context. But music really does transcend this narrow-minded point of view. Harrie has mentioned she drives to work listening to my music. Luka listens to my music and shares it with her co-workers. Music in second life is as real and valuable, or worthless as it would be if is happened in real life.

If you are wondering if I’m implying I’m using my position in Second Life to launch into real life you are missing the point. I’m trying to connect my very real music with very real people.

Music needs to find a place in someone’s ear, home, and heart. This is the reason I record music.