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Tom Booth
Joined: 03/17/12
Posts: 3
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Can a "starving artist" make a living?
Saturday, March 17, 2012 at 2:12 AM
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Hi, I'm new here, just discovered this site yesterday. I think it is really great what you have done here. I'm not an artist or musician, I'm a programmer (Perl) web designer. I'm also sort of getting into advertising but anyway...
I have a friend who IS a singer/songwriter/musician and I got into designing/programming a music download website for her stuff and that is how I ended up here - researching the various options and I guess you would call it business models. After finding this site (Artist Server) I recommended she take a look and sent her the link.
The problem these days seems to be there are so many ways to get free music downloads either legally or illegally, circumventing technology, file sharing, etc. etc. How can an artist like my friend possibly make any money? How could I design a site that would protect her work, yet allow people to listen to it but not just take it for free?
I finally came up with the idea of combining a music site and an advertising site. Give away the music but still make money. I thought it could work and started working on the site and just recently got it more or less ready to launch. Then she seemed to become ambivalent about if she really wanted to do that or not.
So I just came across this site yesterday and sent her the link today, pointing out that it appears the formula has been working as artistserver has survived through thick and thin for more than ten years based on more or less the same idea.
Anyway, my question was basically, realistically, how much income might she be looking to make from advertising revenue if she were to join artistserver. A lot of her music is already available for free download on reverbnation and myspace and facebook. She has worked really hard for years developing her talent and is, IMO really great. I'm wondering if she would be better off bringing it here rather than having her own music store or other options I've looked into.
It is something of a dilemma, how to make a living as an artist when everyone basically wants to download everything for free.
It seems you have hit upon one solution, but I'm wondering what it actually boils down to in terms of actual dollars and cents.
The site I've been working on is also intended to generate income through advertising for at least one musician, my friend, but uses a somewhat different model, more geared towards local communities, something along the lines of Craig's list. Music plays while people brows the local classifieds for their local community is the basic idea or set up I've been working on.
If she can make money here, realistically, how much on average ?
I'm basically trying to decide if it is worth continuing with the project I've been working on or if I should just recommend she come here. Right now she is basically a street musician. Homeless, staying at a friends temporarily but very absorbed in her music.
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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RE: Can a "starving artist" make a living?
Friday, March 23, 2012 at 12:46 PM
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Hi Tom, I keep meaning to get a reply out to you, but I just haven't had time to sit down and give you a proper reply.
First, let me say thank you for using the site, and I'm pleased to hear that you like it and see that something is happening here.
The short answer is that things haven't changed as much as we think they have in the last 10 years. If an band/artist wants to make a living doing their music, they have to do the same thing that has worked in the past - play gigs, most likely playing covers too, opening for larger acts, street promotion, selling dry goods and music at your shows, etc. While sites like CD baby and Tunecore have posted that they've paid out millions to artists, the reality is that most don't earn much at all. For some of those artists - placing a price on their music removed the opportunity for people to discover them.
After 10 years of running this site, I only know a few artists that went on to release albums on labels - and none of those cases accelerated their music careers, or allow them to fully live on their music. The artists who have been successful to any degree, are those who play live shows, build up their fan base offline as much as possible and building hype. With all this stated, I'm sure there are exceptions that are making it on some level.
In regards to this site and things 'working' - I've always been very open about the site and how it runs, and how we get by. Of the 10 years I've run this site, the costs to run it have only been covered by the revenue the site generates for about 1.5 years. There was a stretch years ago, and as of mid last year, all the traffic to the mobile version of our site has generated enough revenue to cover expenses, expand, and finally recoup what I've lost over the years. So the formula for 'making it' is that you have to be a bit crazy, very dedicated, nearly blind to the degree of challenges before you - and just going for it with the support of your family and friends. Now, before you think too much about what I just stated, one of the most important factors, is identifying your own faults and weaknesses, and locating others who have those skills and abilities, and taking on the challenges together. With ArtistServer and myself, I do know many of the faults and weaknesses, but unfortunately, I haven't overcome them nor found someone to meet those needs. With something like this site, it really needs a few people to push it to the full potential.
I wish I had a more positive reply for you. While I've shared my experience, I'm sure you can find a collection of artists and bands who have quite a different story. The good news, is that we are here, we do have a great collection of artists, and always appreciate when new artists and bands join the site and participate.
One of the biggest benefits of joining a site like ArtistServer, is that an artist can gain new fans and listeners by using our traffic and site visitors - introducing the artist to people they normally don't have access to. You can always build your own site - but how do you get visitors? We have an established base of traffic that is looking for music.
What you may want to do is think about this differently. You want to help an artist establish a revenue stream - that is the goal, and the means is via music... now you need hype, and customers. Instead of waiting for ppl to take notice, do something that is news worthy online, and use that as a means to propel the artist. For example... there are new Web start up sites/businesses launching every week. Maybe this artist picks a few of those that are getting in the news, and writes and records a song about them. Then posting it to a page with info on how to request a song for your start up. Do a few high profile ones for free to get things rolling. While writing songs about a Web business may not be what she wants to do... it could be enough to bring the right amount of attention to her to reach the real goals of establishing a successful music career. For example - http://www.jonathancoulton.com/ - the info page in particular: http://www.jonathancoulton.com/primer/info/ - he started a specific music project called thing a week which ended up bringing him loads of attention, and now he's huge and makes a living on his music. You can even hear him in the popular video game "Portal"
Things will be changing here at ArtistServer in the next year, which should in turn be very beneficial to the artists on the site. We get a fair amount of traffic w/ no promotion, and a site that was designed nearly 10yrs ago... we're a bit out of date looking these days. I'm currently working on a 100% redesign. Everything will be overhauled, making the site even easier to navigate and discover music. Although, even with the new design, it takes a lot of work for an artist to get noticed to the point that they are making money online with their music.
Best of luck to you and your friend, I hope to see you both here on ArtistServer.com
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Tom Booth
Joined: 03/17/12
Posts: 3
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RE: Can a "starving artist" make a living?
Monday, March 26, 2012 at 4:13 PM
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Hi, thanks for the reply,
What I'm looking at is I live in a rural area, not near any big cities. It kind of falls between the cracks as far as something like Craig's List, that serves mostly major cities is concerned, but there are numerous small towns and villages in between.
There are a couple of local "advertising rags" or papers here that don't have much in the way of news, just a lot of small classified ads. I figured up some time ago just what all those little ads actually add up to and it amounted to somewhere around $300+ / page / week or all added together for a paper with an average of about 15 pages about $200,000 / year so with two such papers covering this county, not including regular local newspaper classifieds which generally cost more...
The point being that there is hundreds of thousands of dollars being generated by small classified ads in this mostly rural back woods community each year, just little ads for yard sales, various services, help wanted, for rent, for sale, lost cats and the like and of course, unlike print where you are geographically limited by the distance you can drive a delivery truck, the internet is not geographically limited, nor do you have all the overhead involved in print publishing. So it seems like there may be some potential there.
Anyway, my friend has agreed to give it a try. I guess that means I have my work cut out for me. I'm a little reluctant, It seems like a major undertaking that would be hard to get out of once having gotten into it.
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