Trent Reznor was disheartened by fans not paying for the Saul Williams album but I think he proved that independent music can viably be given away. Selling 30,000 copies of a niche album in its first couple of month in the wild with zero promotion is pretty damned good in my book. I believe that they succeeded in making money despite a flawed execution. So here’s a manifesto, of sorts. A mix of ideology, marketing and psychology.
The premise is this:
- People are basically good.
- People are prepared to pay for things they value.
- People fall in love with music.
- Long term relationships are more important than short term profit.
- Reciprocity is far more powerful than most give it credit for.
So you have an album. Great. Give the singles away. Let as many people hear it as is humanly possible. No one makes money from singles anyway so minimise distribution and manufacturing costs. Get it out there. Give it to podcasters, broadcasters, bloggers, Last.fm, Pandora, make it available for download on MySpace, Facebook, BitTorrent and the band website.
Where possible ask, but do not require, an email address. Email addresses are becoming part of our identities. They are valuable to us. We don’t like spam. If I choose to give you my email address then I’m demonstrating a degree of commitment to your cause. That’s valuable information and the first step on the trust ladder. Many won’t leave an address though. That’s not ideal but it’s okay. If they like the music they’ll be back. To help them find their way back leave clues. Put a URL instead of an album title and a short voice-over after the end of the track. The URL should point to a page dedicated to the track they’ve just listened to. Comments, discussion, sleeve notes from the artist, perhaps links to other artists that influenced the track, upcoming gig listings and releases. It’s a social object. Somewhere for people to get involved - like reading the gatefold in the company of a bunch of like-minded people. And include one more thing. A payment form.
If people like the track they should be able to pay for it. The song may be a grower. They may only stumble across it on a blog months after the release. Perhaps it gets used in a commercial or on Richard and Judy. Maybe their visiting friend from New York has it on her iPod. They should be able to pay whatever they feel it was worth to them. It may be nothing - that’s fine - your music isn’t for everyone. If they like it enough to pay be sure to ask them what they thought. Grab that feedback. You can use that to hone future releases plus it’s probably worth displaying a few of your favourite comments on the track’s page.
For those people who pay, try and offer them a little something by way of a thank you. Doing the right thing is fine but we’re conditioned to expect something for our money and we want everyone to leave happy. That ‘something’ might be a super-high-quality recording or some early demos or mixes. It’s a token to show that your appreciate their money.
Why do I think this will work? Because people are basically good. You’ve given them something that they value. Give them time to realise that they value it and then make it as easy for them to do the right thing as possible. But remember that there isn’t a single correct response - there are as many as you have fans. For some it might be emailing the track to all their friends, expanding your audience. For others it’ll be coming to your next gig, packing the place. Some will part with their hard earned cash in return for your baby. A few will do all these things and more.
Oh, and on a side note: do give away demos, sketches and whatever else on the band’s MySpace page, websites, whatever. Your early adopter fans get something exclusive and you get feedback from your core audience. Everyone’s a winner.
We know the music industry is broken. Download culture is too entrenched and no court case will change that. But society is changing too. We’re becoming more and more wired into the internet. We spend increasing amounts of time socialising online. We’ve seen sparks of what this can mean from Nizlopi, The Arctic Monkeys and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah but they were really just an extension of the old industry. Those acts used the online community to make the industry take notice but acts like Radiohead, Saul Williams and Jane Siberry are going a step further.
