The Art of Music Monetization: “Selling”
Stop thinking about selling your music. Stop hoping that you will “sell” your music. Now. NO ONE WANTS TO BUY IT. Seriously. Also, stop thinking that a label or publisher wants to “buy” your music. They don’t.
You might ask: “what about the people who buy CDs at my shows”? They are not buying MUSIC — — they are buying a keepsake that you can SIGN that will remind them of a pleasant evening out. It’s a souvenir. Yes, even the gorgeous vinyl release you sweated over for months.
Music monetization is about use. Anything that hinders its use or is a hurdle to its use or makes it harder to use is death in the world of streaming and therefore, monetization. Effective streaming is about removing every barrier possible so your music is organically discovered, shared and used over and over and over and over…
If you get nothing else from reading my blog posts, the single most important philosophical shift in the entire media business — — and certainly the music business — — is that WE DO NOT SELL STUFF. “Conversion” is a concept that we will discuss and a exchange of money may or may not take place. However, “sales” are dead.
This is the part of the conversation where all the musicians who are MORE than 35 years old start throwing vegetables at me. They remember a time where sales were “everything”. That time hasn’t existed for 15 years. Now, it’s only about streaming.
Don’t like it? Deal with it.
Here’s the “dirty” little secret of artists: you use sales numbers as a way of validating your music and yourself. Michael Jackson famously put numbers like “45 million” on post-it notes on his mirror. He said in interviews that it was a goal. But really, the number is about domination and that you are BETTER than your colleagues. This is bullshit. Want to be validated? Call your mother, friend or therapist. If you need to be “fired-up” creatively by sales — — consider that your HEART isn’t really in your music. Validation on this level is poison. Stop drinking it.
Wanna’ be validated: post something relevant on social media and watch it explode. See the likes, engagement and conversions roll-in. Watch actions that are NOT about you that were caused by you. Can you start conversations and step out of the way? If so, you’ve got a shot…
Your unquenchable need for validation is also one of your biggest stumbling blocks to being successful at music monetization.
The old economy where you made a case for the “value” of your music based on sales is dead. Really. I speak to artists who have been at it for decades and they talk about things like Billboard charts and sales figures that “validate” getting advances, tours and exposure. Nope. All of that is gone, gone, gone…
Here are the new questions:
How many monthly listeners do you have on Spotify?
How many Spotify curated playlists are you on currently?
How many subscribers do you have on your YouTube Channel?
How many people follow your Facebook page?
How many Pandora “spins” did you get this week?
If you don’t know what I am talking about — stay tuned.
If you don’t know the answers to these questions — why not?
If you wanna’ be someone who is finally ready to embrace streaming — — you have to embrace metrics. Now, just to be clear — — if you are making music to have things streamed — you will fail. Make your music will integrity, inspiration, passion and make it as great as you can… after that, figure out how it becomes relevant. It’s pretty simple, if you LOVE it and you are PASSIONATE about it — — you have the beginning of a narrative to seek out like minded people who will love it too.
Don’t worry, everything will be OK. :-)
