Explaining the Paradox

The other day I was discussing plans for a music distribution network for original musicians in Second Life with a friend of mine. She remarked I was a delightful paradox and I didn’t think much of it at the time.

But now I am thinking about it. What did she mean? Did she find it paradoxical I could be so willing to incline a cynical eye towards the elaborate schemes of other, and still pony up the chutzpah to propose my own grand vision?

Perhaps she did, perhaps she did not. But if anyone finds that somewhat paradoxical, allow me to tell you the difference between the random dreamers of Second Life and myself.

I’m simply proposing what works for me will work for others. If I can sell hundreds of MP3s a month, why can’t other quality original music artist? I don’t see any reason why I should be the exception to the rule. And I’m inclined to think those music lovers need to be basically trained to buy MP3s. It’s currently not part of the program for most music aficionados.

Now I’m going to speculate on what it is I’m doing right. While I might be wrong on what I’m doing right… I must be doing something right because in the first three months of 2009 I’ve averaged over one gigabyte of downloads each month.

Quality. I write good songs and seem to be able to create recordings with decent production values. I also seem to be able to make these recordings in a reasonable (read profitable) amount of time. I’ve heard one artist mention it takes him 100 hours to make a finished recording of a single song. Perhaps he was trying to impress on people how professional he is, but I don’t think I have 100 hours invested in any collection I’ve released.

Promotion. I put new songs in heavy rotation in my shows. People come to know and love the new material and when they see it listed in the new collection they are quite interested in buying it. Example, one of my supporters really loves the song “Howard Roark and me”, she even asked for the lyrics before the song was released as part of a collection. The day of the release party, she was there while I was setting up to be first in line to purchase the collection with her favorite song in it.

Events. Each collection has a release party. While I’ve throttled back the pre-release hysteria the last time out, it didn’t affect sales at all. Everybody that looks at my performance schedule sees the upcoming release party date and time. They are all well aware that something new is coming, and they do show up to buy the collection the day it’s released.

Cross promotion. While new collections sell the most, every month I sell old collections as well. The more people hear, the more they seem to want to hear. Each collection sells other collections. I’ve had very profitable days where someone runs the board and buys all the collections.

Preview. Odd terminology actually, but the fact each collection is available on my web site to listen to in it’s entirety allows people to make and informed opinion about their potential purchase. One of the nice things about administrating my own web site is I get the stats, I know what pages people are looking at and how much time they are spending there. 23 visitors spent one hour or more viewing the site. What do you think they were doing? I think they were listening to music.

Collections. I seem to be the only guy catching on to this, but reasonably priced collections sell better then the “songs ala carte system” so popular on the interweb today. I’ve tried selling single song and found it a lot of bother to administer, and it seemed to be too much of a bother for the consumer as well. Once I ditched the singles altogether things started to move. The simple fact is people are interested in Zorch as an artist and in most cases don’t want just the “HIT SONG”. They go to concert after concert and have come to realize I have a strong catalog and they want as much of it as they can get.

Price point. L$ 100 per song is a good deal less then what I-tunes charges for a download. Some might think I’m short changing myself, but I don’t see it that way at all. Each sale nets me a small sum of money, but the money is not what has real value. The real value is getting my music in the hands (and ears) of listeners. This promotes my live show (more money), sell more collections (more money) and creates interest in further releases (in time… more money).

But it’s not really about the money primarily it’s about the music.

But, no kidding, money matters. I’ve been a musicians all of my adult life, and I’ve spent most of that time trying to figure out a better way to work my craft and make a living.

Currently, I make a daily amount of money equivalent to working in a bar band with out the overhead or major effort required. Unlike a bar band I work more days per-week (seven days a week if you are counting), so I’m already doing better then if I pitched in with some goobers doing Garth Brooks covers.

As a matter of full disclosure, I play one fee paying show per-week, and I’ve offered to play that show for tips only, but the owner insist on paying me. All other monies are made via tips.

But I do sell MP3 collections. The monies made from that would probably come close to covering any shortfall due to lack of fees.

Is the music scene in Second Life about to blow up? I don’t think so. But there are sufficient numbers of interested people to support this musician dreams. I do think there is room for growth. Not BLOW UP type growth. But I can see things becoming more profitable for me.

One of the things that would make things even more profitable for me is the growth of the original music community as a whole. If more people were in the habit of buying MP3s, there would be more people buying mine.

Before you pass me off as some money grubbing bastard, I feel I should point out I work very hard. I play lots of shows, write lots of songs and release a collection every season.

But then… if you are doing something you love you never work a day in your life.